Just watch out for the wormy ones....

Nice white clean lookin fillets once you cut the blood line out of them they can be cooked anyway you want. That slime sure makes them some nasty critters to handle though lol..... I hate when it gets all over the line and they wrap themselves up lol.

Rob

Yeah but nothing wraps your line up like an eel

I got to fry some of my gaftop up with my secret beer batter the other day. Pretty tasty. Now I just wonder why I threw so many of them back over the years. I won't be throwing them back any more. Every time we go to the coast, we always seem to catch them. I know now that they aren't "trash fish"

What I dont like is there all head not much meat. They are slimy.

We to have eaten them all our lives....but we only keep them if we really get into them as for i wont mess with just one or two of them becasue of the slime.

But some days that seems to be all that you can catch and yes they are good eating nothing but a saltwater cat.

An old timer was watching me fish one day when i caught a eel. I was gonna throw him back and he said dont do that!

Cut the tail off the eel like about 4" to 6" and then place your hook right throug the back bone (easier said than done) and you have a gaftop catching machine. I used the same piece of eel for about a year. Just kept taking the hook off of the leader placing in a ziplock and freezing it over and over again.

I caught some really large ones this way. If you open up the belly on a big one it is normally full of baby eel.

Do you like catfish? cuz thats what they are. I would prefer a nice redfish filet grilled on the halfshell with butter, but they work nicely for a fryin.

we had gotten into a mess of them, four of us on my boat and we all had hook-ups at the same time. it was really easy to fill up my 150 quart cooler in the matter of an hour or so. but man, they made a mess of everything. we filled about 20 quart bags with fillets. good thing we did, my ole lady is catholic and it is lent right now. we have enough to cook for her whole family every friday. we will definately be keeping them from now on if get into a mess of them again

never tried a gaftop (only because ive never caught one)but caught a really large hardhead once about 2 1/2 feet i guess and really thick n heavy. so i said what the hell lets give it a try. ive heard of people eating it. took it home, battered and fryed it up and it tasted like any other fryed fish really.
i wont bother with small ones but if i catch anouther biggun its coming home with me.

I like the way they fight when you hook them but they taste like sh!?

If you're in a boat, you might want to try using a burlap sack with strong line weaved in and out around the top and used as a drawstring. We use the Bull line/Jet line flat weaved stuff for a draw string.
Hang it over the side, net the G'tops, unhook and drop G,top in the bag. When running to trailer the boat or done for the day, throw the bag on another Burlap bag on the deck or in the ice chest on top of the other burlap sack and you should be fairly slime free in the boat. G'tops will survive a 10-15 minute run on the deck if you keep the bag wet.
At the cleaning table the fish will be fairly free of slime, rubs off on the sack. Clean fish and throw away the bag.
Car wash or pressure washer will clean off the slime on the net, or let it dry and then remove the dried slime. We use the black coated nets.
Make sure it's a big strong heavy burlap bag, usually $1 used at the feed stores around here.
Hope this helps. G'tops are blast to catch.

great idea about the burlap sacks. if i caught gaftops id keep a sack or two in the boat. are they more offshore type fish or what? i have a 17" jon boat so i dont venture out very far

gaftops are usually close to the shore from what i have experienced. we caught ours drifting about 20 yards off the bank at san luis pass, they seem to eat any kind of bait we threw to them. easy to catch

I've caught gafftops miles from land in Breton sound. They
seem to love soft plastics .
My cajun guide told me learned from an old-timer , " don't
be too quick to move if you are catching gafftops ,they like the
same conditions as trout "
Mo

Really jr? Are u positive it was a hardhead? Not that I've tasted one, but I've heard they taste awful!! 2 1/2 feet! Thats about the size of a good gaftop. Could it have been? Just wondering, since you did say you've never caught one..