Anyone catch croakers in Northern Cal?

Anyone with experience?

Anyone with experience?

Have caught croakers in the monterey bay. Use to keep them for my father inlaw for soup until someone posted they are not recommended to eat. High leves of some chemical . Maybe someone can elaborate ?

Anyone with experience?

Have caught croakers in the monterey bay. Use to keep them for my father inlaw for soup until someone posted they are not recommended to eat. High leves of some chemical . Maybe someone can elaborate ?

I asked thinking I might have seen a sign somewhere not recommending ingestion... I think the croakers in East coast, not the spotted ones are great eaters. Please elaborate anyone.

My father inlaw thought they were great until he started glowing.

I caught one once...it was in the belly of a forty pound wsb.....hehe

I caught one once...it was in the belly of a forty pound wsb.....hehe

Thats funny you say that. I have caught seabass where i found large numbers of croakers. Croakers look like small seabass. Are they related ?

They are actually pretty tasty. They were thick last year around HMB. Ate a lot till I got tired of them. So far I am not glowing. I thought I read or heard from someone that the ones in so. Cal were the ones that were bad? Who knows

They are actually pretty tasty. They were thick last year around HMB. Ate a lot till I got tired of them. So far I am not glowing. I thought I read or heard from someone that the ones in so. Cal were the ones that were bad? Who knows

First sign you ate a bad one your testicles turn blue and fall off !    

I got one by accident in Santa Cruz... I released it but they do exist out there!

WSB are in the croaker fam. Santa Cruz is where I always catch them, and with some size to them most of the time. Squid on the bottom, wont be long. ....

White croaker AKA king fish can be found at around 30-40 fow in my experience. Drift squid for a while and when you get the constant tap-tap-tap you are in a mess of them. You can spam the school for hours. Capitola just south of Spong-bob I caught maybe 20 in one drift.

White croakers (aka kingfish, aka sewer trout) are thick in some places around SC/Capitola. Out in front of the SC beach boardwalk is one such place. IMHO, the best thing about them is that lingcod seem to like them...

According to the lit, white croaker are recorded as far north as British Columbia but are rare north of California.  Personally, I've only caught them in San Francisco Bay and never saw or heard of one in Humboldt Bay (which I fished for many years).

As for the toxicity: as with most fish, the toxicity fluctuates depending on where you catch them.  White croaker are bottom feeders, preferring worms and other little bottom-crawlers that have a habit of accumulating toxic materials like mercury.  If you catch them in the open ocean, then they're probably fine to eat.  But I'd hesitate to eat one from a bay, near sewer outfalls (which they like to hang around), or near any industrial areas.  Eating a few here and there from a polluted area probably won't hurt ya...but once short-term memory loss resulting from mercury poisoning becomes a regular thing, you should probably lay off the croaker  .

...but once short-term memory loss resulting from mercury poisoning becomes a regular thing, you should probably lay off the croaker  .

Yes, and I'd add that once short-term memory loss resulting from mercury poisoning becomes a regular thing, you should probably lay off the croaker.

And one more thing... once short-term memory loss resulting from mercury poisoning becomes a regular thing, you should probably lay off the croaker.

...but once short-term memory loss resulting from mercury poisoning becomes a regular thing, you should probably lay off the croaker  .

Yes, and I'd add that once short-term memory loss resulting from mercury poisoning becomes a regular thing, you should probably lay off the croaker.

And one more thing... once short-term memory loss resulting from mercury poisoning becomes a regular thing, you should probably lay off the croaker.

Lmao. Good one.