Grab your light tackle, bait your hooks and enjoy some fun, family-friendly fishing for these tasty Outer Banks favorites!

Wind, wind and more wind, that is what we have had here lately. We did get a couple of nice days to get out there and enjoy the beach. This week we are going to talk about blowtoads as there have been a few being caught. I know, you are sitting there thinking they are annoying and you don't want to catch them. They can be a lot of fun for kids and they are great eating.

Blowtoads are pretty simple to gear up for and it is a blast to reel in a bunch of them. They are usually around one pound or less so you just need a lightweight rod and reel, a simple two drop high low monofilament rig with two to four ounces of weight depending on the water conditions. For bait, you can go with fresh shrimp or if you want to go with artificial bait, Fishbite Bloodworms work great. Blowtoads have small soft mouths but they use their teeth to crush crustaceans so a long shank hook works well with a small piece of bait on each hook. Using long shank hooks, increases your chance of reeling in the fish without it cutting your line.

If you can catch a cooler full, you will have a tasty dinner on your hands. Speaking of hands, their skin is rough so you should consider wearing gloves when cleaning them. To clean blowtoads, you cut a vertical line right behind the head, break the fish in half and then pull the skin off to reveal two pieces of yummy goodness. There are other ways to clean them so find a couple of videos on YouTube and choose your favorite method.

To cook them, we like to dip the meat in egg, then flour, then in the egg again and finally, roll it around in a mixture of panko breadcrumbs, salt and pepper. Then pan fry the fish in a frying pan with 1/8” of vegetable oil, flipping once and removing when it is a nice golden brown on each side.

Here is a picture of our Frank and Fran’s team member Emily Ryals with her blowtoad catch as well as some ideas of products to use when targeting blowtoads.