I wonder how many people be attracted to buy a locally caught whole fish, called “weakfish”. I purchased it this morning as I did it several times in the past at Blue Moon. I liked the flavor of the fish. The fishmonger actually called it “ocean trout”, but the real name is unattractive weakfish.
I have been always so grateful to be able to consume locally caught fish. So, I decided to know more about this fish by on-line search. The result was a sad one. Like many other species in the ocean the number of weakfish depleted and was all time low by 2007. The depletion was caused not just by over fishing by commercial fishermen and anglers. Predators such as striped bass and dogfish, feed competition with Atlantic Crocker and environmental stress reduced the number of weakfish dramatically. Increasing water temperature also hurting this specie. Weak fish has prolific spawning potential. But pushing the number of fish back to original high seems to be difficult. It is hard for us to control natural mortality causes. Only the solution is to impose moratorium first to anglers – catch and release. Buying and enjoying fish at table has really become difficult today. Anyway I will enjoy the fish from head to the tail.