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[Nickaway]

Went down the beach yesterday. Water was better north end but only a bit sandy south. Bite was slow but I did land a Red and Craig a pup shark about 3ft. Driving was good and weed was light. Here are a couple of pictures the first one is the biggest Conch I have seen alive on PINS and the second is a guess where I am shot. Driving good. Regards Nickaway

[Seabass]

Cool!!!

I didn't know conchs could be found on PINS .... thought they were just a sub tropic deal ...like Florida and Mexico.

Question is .... did ya eat it? I guess you could of made a couple of conch fritters out of it..

Seabass

[RodBreaker]

around the 36?

[warren]

I think you are at the 33 mile marker.

[Sandflea]

i think he's in the twenty's.

[RodBreaker]

[Skipjack]

Hey Nick,

Any birds or anchovies?

[Nickaway]

We did not eat it. The tree in the picture is the give away as it has been there for a few months. As I was coming off the beach at the 3 I noticed some birds working hard about 1/2 mile off, big splashes under them which I assume where the Tarpon we have all been waiting for. Plenty of bait including Mullet, and it was heading south against the current, what does that tell ya? Regards Nickaway

[The Trash Heap]

Technically, it's a lightning whelk, AKA a left-handed whelk (Busycon perversum). They taste okay in a clam chowder recipe, but have to be run through two grades of a meat grinder's choppers to make the pieces small and tender enough to swallow. Expect as fritters they'd make fine hockey pucks.
_________________
"The Law locks up the thief or felon
Who steals the goose from off the Common.
The greater thief the Law lets loose
Who steals the Common from the goose."

Hence, the Tragedy of the Commons.

[Nickaway]

I did eat one once in Portugal, found it on the Atlantic beach I was living on. Tasted very similar to the shoe that I ate the following week. Regards Nickaway

[Seabass]

Rodbreaker.....thanks for the reminder on the LAW. You'd figure that I would have known that.....oh well.

I watch alot of food shows on TV, and have seen many seafood joints in Florida that serve conch fritters. They looked mighty tasty.. I bet they taste like fried ocean (hard to describe, but I imagine they are salty, shrimp/crabby, light but flavorfull...if your palate is acclimated). I give pompano the same kind of flavor. Good stuff.

Speaking of sand critters.....I harvested a bunch of coquinas last year on advice from either Johnny or Charlie that they were edible. I got home and googled for a recipe, finally coming up with one that described a kind of soup. Spent a good deal of time picking out the miniscule bivalve pieces and started a good broth with them. At the end of the recipe, I found that the taste was great and full of seafood flavor, but there was sand in every bite. Kinda like dining at the beach . Anybody have a good recipe for coquinas ???

Seabass

[RodBreaker]

[Seabass]

Not that I know of.....I will now be inscribing my Texas driver's license number on all of my sandwiches, just in case one of them gets recovered

Seabass

[The Trash Heap]

Seabass, any sort of clam chowder recipe will do, but as you've found, the trick is in cleaning the coquinas.

Next time you collect them, dig them at least a couple of hours before you get to the kitchen. Put as many as you like to mess with in the bottom of a small ice chest, stacking them no more than a couple of inches deep, then covering them with fresh, clear water from the surf. These guys have very small guts and are very active generally, so if not disturbed for a while they will work the sand out of their systems.

Start with two medium sauce pans, preferably at least one of them with double handles. Dump 3 or 4 cups of coquinas into the double-handled one, cover them with an inch of water, and bring to a vigorous boil. After a while, you'll see loose clam meats floating to the surface of the water. Stir the clams to encourage more loosening. Here's the big secret: stir 'em hardest just before you pick up the sauce pan and pour the water and the floating meats into the second pan. If you do it right, the shells and any remaining sand stay in the first pan while the meats and much of the water winds up in the second pan. Wait a few seconds while the meats settle to the bottom of the second pan, then slowly decant the water back into the first pan, where you repeat the stirring and pouring until it seems you've got most of the meats. You can process a lot of coquinas once you get the knack of pouring out fast, then pouring back slow. You dump the meats collected in the second pan into a third container between boiling and stirring, and use them fresh or freeze them.

If you keep using the same water over and over, it'll make the stongest clam juice you ever tasted, and you may find some use for that. If not, you can change the water occasionally.

Coquina chowder cures the sniffles caught during a cold day on the beach better than any chicken soup.
_________________
"The Law locks up the thief or felon
Who steals the goose from off the Common.
The greater thief the Law lets loose
Who steals the Common from the goose."

Hence, the Tragedy of the Commons.

[Seabass]

Sounds fantastic, Johnny! Thanks a bunch for the recipe. Purging them doesn't sound too difficult. I think I could even do it on the beach. Will post up a report of how it turns out (next time I harvest them) .

Seabass