Gaff Top Apocalypse

[Sightwindow]

Originally Posted by MathGeek

There is a small market, but prices are usually too low to justify the effort and expense of transporting them from the boat to the buyers.

The guys who run trot lines for black drum catch a lot of them. Black drum has a stable market (mostly as imitation crab) that is strong enough to cover the transportation costs of a highly perishable product.

I'm not sure how much restaurant catfish might be gafftops, but the supply of gafftops seems to outstrip the demand.

I would theorize farm-raised catfish dominates the market. And I think if you put freshwater cat flesh against a sailcat flesh, I'd be able to pick it. But that doesn't mean it's bad. And the sail cat's average size would seem to make it viable.

A significant hinderance would be the large amount of red meat (I call it the bloodline) on the skin side, which is much more than drum or sheepshead and bad for its aesthetics. The time lost in processing that out of the filet is probably a factor.

Black drum is almost the default fine dining white flesh fish selection in New Orleans. Maybe it's different elsewhere.