Fort Ross Cabbie (Pic)

Here's a shot of Bob's cabbie from Saturday. It was released.

If you look real close you can see the New Sea Angler just to the right of the fish. For those that think party boats have little impact on near shore fisheries - on this particular day they removed at least 80 lings and 300+ rockfish from the Fort Ross area.

80 lings and 300+ rockfish from the Fort Ross area.

Yikes!

Glad it costed them $1000 in gas to get out there and back.  

That's a nice fish.  

Is he putting his thumb in its mouth?  Cabbies have pretty big and sharp teeth.

that cab would have made the the first "heaviest" on the $60.00 pot.  

I know....Bob and I were just talking about that.  

Oh well, there'll be many more!   And we'll both be joining the pot soon.

I always lip cabbies and have never had a problem. I imagine if you got your finger too far down its throat and it got you with its "grinder", that would suck.

Anyone have any cab cleaning tips, I always seem to butcher them.

smart money is on a cabby to win the misc rockfish division.  

Cab cleaning:  I have found that the area just behind the head is very bony and tough as it tapers quickly from fat head to filet area--more so the bigger the fish.  Sharpen your knife and be ready to cut right through the gristly feeling bones there.  That keeps the fat part of the cab filet intact.  They're actually really nice to filet after that initial cutting through the heavy rib and spine bones.  I am tripping on it because I am so often a few beers into a good buzz when I clean fish, but I am almost positive that cabs lack that lower rib-bone portion that half-wraps the belly, so it's two parallel cuts to get rid of the bones out of the filet.  Cabs are special--I've always loved them.

Cabbies are wierd that way, no ribs, but they have a very long line of lateral line bones.  Greenlings have the worst of both worlds, I'll only keep one if it's a monster.  Cabbie are the best tasting of the bunch, because they live on abalone.  Too bad we can only keep one now.  

On all my fish I cut at an angle from behind the gills to the back of the skullplate.  That gets me an extra couple inches of meat.

Thanks guys I will give that a try next time.