Saltwater fish question

I watch quite a bit of fishing on youtube.
Seemingly everyone that I watch that fishes saltwater absolutely hates lady fish.
Just curious why?
I assume not good to eat and don't get big enough to fight good?

Not edible. They put up a great fight on light tackle; lots of jumps. After awhile, they become a nuisance though. Lots of guys use them for bait. Fresh cut bait, or whole for Tarpon.

When your target fish is not cooperating and lady fish are there they fun to catch, other that that they not worth catching

RUGER said:

I watch quite a bit of fishing on youtube.
Seemingly everyone that I watch that fishes saltwater absolutely hates lady fish.
Just curious why?
I assume not good to eat and don't get big enough to fight good?

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What channels do you watch? I watch bama beach bum and fishaholic and they both seem the same way. Maybe not as much hate, but don't enjoy catching them.

super sharp gill plates, will cut mono or flouro in a heartbeat. Sucks having to retie new lures on when the birds are diving.

that being said, if we are having a slow day, I'd rather catch them than nothing

clwg97 said:

What channels do you watch? I watch bama beach bum and fishaholic and they both seem the same way. Maybe not as much hate, but don't enjoy catching them.

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Fishaholic was the one I was referring to.

Ladyfish are trash fish unless you are after bait like batten-down said. They were my preferred tarpon bait after dark. Fished live along the shadow line of a bridge.

MAN, I miss those eats! When a full grown tarpon eats a 20" live ladyfish off the surface it sounds like somebody threw a cinder block off the top of the bridge.

I believe the main reason people dislike catching them is that they are notorious for taking a crap when you are unhooking them. They can really make a mess out of the boat in a hurry. I used to flip them right into the livewell and use a dehooker if I was keeping them or use the dehooker over the gunwale if I was letting them go.

One story..and I don't know if there is any truth to it at all… I knew a guy who commercial fished a lot and he would often catch thousands of pounds of ladyfish out of pine island sound. He claimed to have sold them to a distributor that sold them to McDonalds for their fish sandwiches.

megalomaniac said:

super sharp gill plates, will cut mono or flouro in a heartbeat. Sucks having to retie new lures on when the birds are diving.

that being said, if we are having a slow day, I'd rather catch them than nothing

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I've never known ladyfish to have sharp gill plates. You must have been getting cut off by Spanish mackerel. They are often schooled up in the same areas eating small baitfish.

lol, with a smoker or a pressure cooker, any fish is edible.

Other than live Grunts pinned to the bottom, live Ladyfish free lined around bridge pilings are extremely deadly on BIG SNUKE

Pilchard said:

Ladyfish are trash fish unless you are after bait like batten-down said. They were my preferred tarpon bait after dark. Fished live along the shadow line of a bridge.

MAN, I miss those eats! When a full grown tarpon eats a 20" live ladyfish off the surface it sounds like somebody threw a cinder block off the top of the bridge.

I believe the main reason people dislike catching them is that they are notorious for taking a crap when you are unhooking them. They can really make a mess out of the boat in a hurry. I used to flip them right into the livewell and use a dehooker if I was keeping them or use the dehooker over the gunwale if I was letting them go.

One story..and I don't know if there is any truth to it at all… I knew a guy who commercial fished a lot and he would often catch thousands of pounds of ladyfish out of pine island sound. He claimed to have sold them to a distributor that sold them to McDonalds for their fish sandwiches.

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I'll admit, watching these 30+lb Rockfish run to the surface and then crush a 16in Rainbow, or an 18+in Skipjack Herring, has help fill the Snook void for me. Almost

I remember going saltwater fishing in Florida with my uncle and one of his buddies (Rick) almost 20 yrs ago. I was in Rick's boat and we were fishing in a cove off the Marco River. This was my first time doing saltwater fishing.

I hooked a fish and started reeling in. It was a bit smaller than the crevalle jack I had hooked earlier that morning. It was shiny, too. It was a ladyfish. I reeled it in, happy as I could to to catch ANYTHING, as the fishing had sucked most of the day. I landed the fish in the boat and started removing the hook. Rick immediately and urgently told me to hold the fish over the side, out of the boat. I thought "okay, already, I'm holding it over the side of the boat". I commenced to removing the hook and threw the ladyfish back in the water.

I asked Rick: why was it so urgent to hold the fish over the side of the boat over the water?

His answer? Because lady fish will poop on you!

He never had to tell me to hold the fish outside the boat again!

Remember, the mind is a terrible thing too waste….

Beware! It's addicting!

Didn't know what a lady fish was till I looked it up; I was familiar with calling it a skipjack.

I was assisting my uncle one night netting pompano as our target fish. After fishing all night, we took a nap early morning in the surf with our net out and woke up with dolphin rounding skipjack up and loading our net.

This was probably a little over 40 years ago. We would normally throw the skipjack back but caught enough to make it worth throwing them in the baskets. We were getting about $4.75/lb for pompano and skipjack was $0.15/lb. I think the skipjack may have been used in cat food. Every once in while I'd throw one out to the dolphin that were waiting for their reward.

They puke in your boat, bleed like crazy and crap all over the place. They are pretty fun to fight though since they jump a lot. Just don't bring one on a boat.

I forgot to mention that I have also caught them off the pier then used them later for grouper and snapper bait.

LA man said:

When your target fish is not cooperating and lady fish are there they fun to catch, other that that they not worth catching

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Good redfish bait tho. I know guys that come to Gulf to catch lady's to take back to the Atlantic to sell fir bait.