I caught a little one yesterday jigging, and i kept it, it only weighs 3lbs maybe. but are they alright to eat. or should just save for halibut season. Ben

Octopus is good to eat. The most important thing to do is tenderize the heck out of it. Either put the thing in a burlap bag and beat the heck out of it with a meat tenderizer, or grind it up with a meat grinder. Also I heard you can brine it to soften the meat up. If you don't tenderize the creature, you will end up having Crab-like gum. In the future, you might consider letting the octopus go, I have seen some giant octopi and they are quite a sight.

[ 12-27-2001: Message edited by: KORE ]

No offense ROCKFISH, but I've never understood that "must kill" attitude displayed by so many "sportsmen" out there. Why didn't you just let it go? Granted, if it was dead when you hauled it up, then this all a moot point. Nothing you can do about that.

I had a lady from AK send me a photo of her holding up a dead female wolf eel she had caught and killed this summer. She emailed me asking if I knew what this fish was and if it was good to eat, or if it should be turned in to crab bait.

I just about died at her stupidity, and no-so-kindly let her know via email.

Here's an idea for the masses - just let it go if you are not going to directly use it, or had any intentions of directly using or targeting it.

It's like those morons who killed off a large portion of the Elliot Bay 6-gill sharks a couple years back. Gee, we only see half the numbers of sharks in Elliot Bay as we used to. Huh.

Parker

[ 12-27-2001: Message edited by: parker ]

Don't think I have a must kill attitude. I let go almost everything I was just curious about it and from what I know of that there is no shortage on octopus around here. squid is good so I thought a baby octopus would be worth a sample of. Ben

Personally I like octipus but that might be the Japanese coming out :p MMMMMM good stuff


Tight lines

Kevin

SRBC

I can relate to both sides of this arguement.

When I was a kid, my grandparents lived on the south sound and I LOVED visiting them because I could go clamming, crabbing, and fishing just down the street. Everytime I would come back with something unusual I would find (moon snail, 'eel', squid, geoducks(sp?)etc) and my grandpa would know a way to cook it up so that it tasted great! I learned to love seafood and saltwater fishing this way.
I guess my thinking is that the damage by bottom trawlers, over harvesting (targeted or not), and pollution has so much more impact on these animals than the occasional - "hmmm, this may be good eating". And it's the guys that are out on the water regularly that don't respect it that need to be careful. How many of us have ever sliced up a dog fish we caught while mooching? Some day, we may be wishing we could "at least catch a dogfish!".
So what's my point? (I'm confusing myself more as I go
We should be worried less about a few curious people who want to try something new, and more worried about the fishman who target these species as food every day, or other commercial/environmental (etc) impacts that have wiped out the animal life in the sound...
I guess I am agreeing with both sides: the octopus - try it, you may like it. But next time, it would probably be best all around to just let the thing go...
(I think it's time to go home, I'm not sure I made an ounce of sense...)

-Chad

Back In 1989 I was at the ferry terminal in downtown Seattle, waiting for a boat to send me off on a trip to PA, Lake Crescent, and a few other fishing spots. It was going to be another hour or so before the ferry docked, so I grabbed my fishin' rod and headed over to where some folks were fishing.

I tied on a buzzbomb and caught a rockfish, then another, and then something that felt like dragging in an inverted umbrella. When I got it to the surface the other guys got very animated. It was a mature octopus, about 3 feet across. I let it go because I had no way to store it for 4 days. Not to mention that I had no way to retrieve it from the water, from 10 feet below where I stood.

My suggestion to you is to look up some recipes by going to ask.com and typing in "recipes for octopus". I found at least 10 just doing this.

I'm takin my 28ft sled out to do a little octapus catchin and killin this weekend!!!MAYBE DO SOME BRODIES AROUND A FEW DRIFT BOATS..

[ 12-29-2001: Message edited by: Timber Man ]