Bowfishing Tilapia + Easy Recipe (How To Catch, Clean & Cook)
- By: Luke Simonds
- on
Hey Salt Strong Nation, it’s Luke here…
And we’ve got a fun (and tasty) one for ya today.
Believe it or not, there’s an invasive species lurking in Florida lakes that most folks overlook—tilapia.
They may look harmless, but these things can wreak havoc on bass beds, push out native fish, and before you know it… they take over the whole lake.
So we did our part to clean ’em up, with a bow. 🎯
Right behind the Salt Strong Headquarters, we grabbed the Cajun Bowfishing setup, stalked some beds, and got to work. Turns out, these tilapia are bigger and faster than you’d expect.
And yes… they’re surprisingly good to eat (just don’t expect them to replace a grilled cobia anytime soon).
👉 Get the Dexter Outdoors 7″ SOFGRIP™ Fillet Knife here!
Here’s what this video covers:
✅ How to properly rig your bowfishing setup
✅ Step-by-step fillet tips to maximize meat (works great for sheepshead too!)
✅ A simple, foolproof grilled fish recipe anyone can do
My Take on Tilapia:
The grilled tilapia came out flaky and mild. It looked and felt like a high quality fish fillet as I was grilling it.
The initial taste was impressive as well. But, I unfortunately had a strong taste that was very unappealing. And it got strong enough to get to the point that I didn’t even finish the serving.
Note: The aftertaste issue could be caused by the fact that these particular talapia were living in a lake without much water flow.
Given the unfavorable aftertaste, I will not be cooking/eating any more talapia.
Feedback Request
How has your experience been with talapia? If good, where did you get it from? Drop it in the comments section below.
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STOP WASTING TIME ON THE WATER!
Do what the “SMART ANGLERS” are doing and join the Insider Club.
Here’s what you’ll receive today when you join:
- Weekly fishing reports and TRENDS revealing exactly where you should fish every trip
- Weekly “spot dissection” videos that walk you through all the best spots in your area
- Exclusive fishing tips from the PROS you can’t find anywhere else
- Everything you need to start catching fish more consistently (regardless if you fish out of a boat, kayak, or land).
When I was young in the 70s I used to bow fish for carp in the river flats I lived by in mich usually in the months of May through June when they would have there backs out of the water and the big females would be thrashing about trying to break there egg sacks to release there eggs but we never ate them usually only used them for fertilizer for my father’s garden but since then haven’t shot a bow since besides doing time doing that takes away my time fishing but have been thinking of buying a crossbow for bowfishing maybe someday thanks for the intel and all you do😉👍
Thanks for making time to post the nice comment Steven!
Thanks Luke. Great cleaning tutorial. I like the butter knife done test too. That’s a new one for me. Dirtiest Jobs show showed tilapia be raised in sewage plants so it scared me to buy them at the store!
We’re glad to see that you enjoyed this video!
Well don’t know about that but when I was in the navy no matter where I was stationed west or east coast on any naval ship i would always see the tilapia eating the treated cht otherwise known as sewage that would be discharged after treatment making it harmless to the environment it would come out the side of the ships from a discharge outlet and there would be litterally hundreds of them eating it I thought it was nasty to then was surprised to see after a few years people buying tilapia in supermarkets but then found out these particular tilapia were farm raised but you have to check because alot of it in supermarkets are imported from Asian countries like Vietnam and Malaysia as well as Thialand and the Phillipines and I know for b a fact that they use human waste for fertilizer so im sure probably to feed the fish to😮 anyways just saying did most of my time in the navy on the western coast so I know what these countries do because I have seen it with my own eyes like I said just saying
Will have to try your filet style next time I catch some sheep! Don’t know why skinning from the top rather than the tail never occurred to me
This cleaning style works especially great on sheepshead… you’ll feel the knife slide in behind the scales on the top making it much easier to get all of the top meat.
Luke I agree with you, no more Tilapia for me! There isn’t anything better for me than a thick sheepshead filet on the grill!
Yes, sheepshead is light years ahead of tilapia for putting on the grill.
I had tilapia I caught 2 years ago on the Chobe River in Botswana. Caught then on pieces of chicken with hippopotamus close by the boat. They were fixed native style and were very good.
Glad to see that you had a good experience with tilapia.
Always something fun about an experimental catch and cook video. Also really liked the detailed cleaning part. There’s always a couple of subtle tips in how someone else approaches the process.
I’m so glad to see that you enjoyed this video.
Well…I feel the same way about wild-caught Tilapia. One word …muddy.
The Tilapia you buy at Costco is frozen, clean tasting, single filets that are individually frozen and packaged in 6 to a pack.
Perfect for including in our fish chowder or added to gumbo. one of my favorites is to take a handful of pure white lump crab meat and lay a filet over it in a baking pan, season it with seafood magic and squeeze a lime over it with some melted butter, then broil it for about 10 minutes at 500 on a middle rack. YUM.
Of course, redfish, wahoo, or cobia would be better when I get some!
Thanks for sharing the good looking recipe.
We used to buy frozen tilapia in the grocery store and it was very good. However , last year, when we bought it and cooked it, it had a muddy taste so I assume that it was farm raised. Hence, we don’t buy tilapia anymore.
Sorry to see that you had some muddy tasting tilapia too.
Fish is brain food for your daughter through Mom! Awesome video! It’s one of my favorite fish to eat! Bought it at the fish market! LOL
Thanks for making time to post the nice comment Don
It’ll taste better if you cut that bloodline out of it
Thanks for sharing the tip.