After watching Graeme Sinclair & crew on Saturday night cleaning up on big snapper in the BOI with Bucko I thought the spawning run had finally arrived, so headed out for an afternoon fish on Monday with high hopes.

The algal bloom on the northern side of the Bay was gone, & in the same area in about 45m found some big bait schools, with a few gannets half-heartedly working them, but only managed a few pannies and a frostfish on softbaits.

I've always had trouble getting my head around the similarity in appearance between frostfish & 'couta, but this time I decided I would take a deep breath & try cooking up the frostfish to see if it really was as good as I have heard.

Wow - is it what. Didn't try anything fancy - just cut it into slabs, washed off the slightly slimy skin, floured it, and fried it skin on as you would a flounder, and it was superb. The cooked skin peeled off easily (I'm not that brave), the texture and flavour was similar to flounder, and the bones were where you would expect them to be.

Hapuka baits be damned - these are great eating fish !    

Frost fish? Do you mean Gemfish? Cause Frost fish look nothing like couta.

PeterWalker wrote: Frost fish? Do you mean Gemfish? Cause Frost fish look nothing like couta.

Catchelot wrote: PeterWalker wrote: Frost fish? Do you mean Gemfish? Cause Frost fish look nothing like couta. No Pete Gemfish or Southern Kingfish are not Frostfish.

No I realise that, just don't think frost fish look particularly like couta.

managed 3 the other day my mate grabbed them and said they are excellent eating,
i wasn't so keen and took snapper fillets instead,
yeah the bay seams to have a few swimming around at the moment...