Expressway: 'Trash fish' or treasure?

One angler's "trash fish" could be another's meal.

Trash fish are called that because they are the less desirable sea robins, skates and dogfish that wind up on the hooks of people fishing out in the Atlantic, in our bays or off our beaches. Like me, anglers usually toss them back, but now I'm wondering if I should keep them.

Saturday, April 1, is the opening of the two-month winter flounder season. When I cast a line at some South Shore canals or at Captree State Park, my chances of catching a winter flounder are slim because of its dwindling population. Summer flounder season opens May 1 and I surfcast at Jones Beach. I often catch summer flounder, but usually have to throw them back because they're too small to meet state rules for keepers. So I head home with an empty cooler.

Although I've spent a lifetime throwing back trash fish, I also have eaten them. Once when I visited France, my aunt there served chilled fillet dogfish with a nice vinaigrette. Another time she served steamed skate wings. Both were tasty. I've also bought sea robin in a French outdoor market. I liked it, too.

Sea robins swim with large pectoral fins that flare like a bird's wings. When pulled from the water, they make a hideous croaking sound like a frog. They're tender and firm when cooked.

The trouble is that on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, it would be an embarrassment to keep a sea robin and some other trash fish, although I catch plenty. Anglers on boats and in the surf are always looking right and left to see what the next guy is catching. To keep a trash fish would lead others to think I was really down and out. In decades of fishing, and I'm 52, I can recall seeing people keep a sea robin only twice. Sometimes I chop up a sea robin to use as bait, but I have never dropped one in my cooler; the stigma is too great.

There are others I toss back -- northern stargazers, bergalls and sundials. Some even call big bluefish trash fish. An angler once told me he always throws back bluefish heavier than five pounds because they taste too fishy. But I keep bluefish, known for being packed with healthy omega-3. I like their taste, especially those under three pounds known as "cocktail bluefish." Yet I've also eaten 12-pound bluefish, which tend to be oilier.

Things, however, could change. In these days of dwindling populations and with size limits on highly desirable fish like flounder, striped bass, weakfish and sea bass, I wonder why I just don't go ahead and take the bold step of dropping a sea robin in my cooler.

I'm not the type to break social mores in fishing circles. I do like everyone else does. If I saw someone keep a trash fish, who knows, I might follow suit. I've heard that a couple of today's highly desirable catches, such as blackfish and blowfish, were considered trash fish decades ago.

It might be time to put a sea robin, skate or dogfish in my cooler and then on my dinner table.

Reader Frank Schiff lives in Wantagh.