This weekend the family had a gathering at my childhood summer cottage on Mobjack Bay in Mathews County, Virginia, which is now owned and has been lovingly restored by my sister and her husband. Typically the cottage is closed for the season this time of year, but it was a special occasion and the weather was gorgeous, so we all met down there for boating, fishing and feasting.
The tide was out during most of the afternoon, and considering how shallow and treacherous most of Mobjack can be during low tide, we fished from the pier. We had lots of action, but ALL of it from puffer fish! We must have reeled in 25 of them over the course of an hour or two, sometimes two on one rig. All were promptly released back into the water, and considering that fact, maybe we were catching the same puffers over and over, but you could easily see them in the water from the pier, and there were many, many of them in the vicinity.
This is the
Sphoeroides maculatus, or the Northern puffer, and is common to the Chesapeake Bay. Most of the specimens we caught were about 8-10" and for the most part they did not puff up, which made me feel better! I am torn in situations like this, since I truly do enjoy fishing, and eating fish, for that matter, but puffers are near and dear to my heart and I hated for them to be stressed in this way! However, try as we might to catch other species that we typically catch off this pier, nothing was biting but the puffers. The kids put several in a bucket to observe them more closely for a few minutes, and they are indeed fascinating to watch.
Since I already keep a brackish puffer at home, I was very interested in the possibility of keeping several of these in a tank at home, though I'd have to devote a very large tank to them, like my 150-gal. If I did decide to create a setup for them, I'd want to get them as babies and raise them in the tank, rather than try to transport these adults into captivity. However, since I'm sure they spawn in much deeper water, the chances of me finding juveniles is very slim, so I'll just have to enjoy them from the pier.
Incidentally, these puffers were a popular food source from the Chesapeake until about 40 years ago, when their popularity faded, though locally you'll see them offered as "sugar toads." Their meat is apparently very sweet and delicious, and they allegedly do not contain any toxic organs like some marine species, so you don't have to worry about this when preparing them. I've never eaten them, but my mother recalls doing so, and they used to be a popular fish to serve children, who might not enjoy fish otherwise. She said they were easy to clean, because they are simply skinned and the strip of tender meat is removed from each side of the spine.
We certainly caught enough of them to have made a meal for our entire crowd, but they all went back into the water, to puff another day......
