Catch and Cook The World's Worst Venomous Fish

I'm here at one of my favorite places in the entire world, the Green Turtle Club in the Abacos, and today we're heading out to spear one of the most invasive species of fish in the entire world, the lionfish. We're going to head out, shoot as many as we can, and come back to make a delicious invasive lionfish ceviche. Let's go! So what's crazy is if you look, the island, Green Turtle Club, is literally right there, and you don't have to go far, and it just showcases what a problem these pesky lionfish are. They've spread out throughout the Caribbean, initially brought into South Florida for the pet trade. These things are an absolute menace. They got released into the waterways, and because they have no natural predators here due to their highly venomous spines, they've just taken over. So literally any patch of structure, even right out in front of the hotel, is going to have them on it. So now we're just scouting around, looking for that structure to hop in, dive, and whack them. All right, so we've just rocked up to a spot now that kind of sadly is an old junkyard, but it's a junkyard for metallic things that kind of forms an artificial reef. But now we're going to hop in and look for trash fish in a trash pile, because as silly as it sounds, even these junk piles can make pretty phenomenal artificial reefs, and you'll see the amount of life down here when we hop in. So we're all set now. Let's get going. There are a lot of lionfish here. There's six under me right now. And just like that, we have our first lionfish. They're a beautiful species, but boy, these spines right here, if you take a hand to one, you are in an excruciating amount of pain. It's such a pity because it really is a strikingly beautiful fish. We're going to throw this guy in the cooler, go back and look for his buddies, and get as many as we can. Just did one dive there, and in the old cap of an outboard engine, there were three lionfish. So on one dive, I went one, two, three, and shish kebab them all. So there we go, three more in the bag. No big ones, but we're doing the job. So this is a fish you really want to wear gloves because they have these terrible venomous spines, and if you take one into the hand, it's said to be one of the most painful things that you can encounter. And I can tell you from firsthand experience, from the very first one I ever shot and then grabbed, it absolutely sucks. So not looking to do that again today. So as silly as the cutoff tank with the gloves look, I'm rocking a Michael Jackson today. All right, so we've done two dives so far, the first in the junkyard area and the second on this little sort of coral balmy where we got three of these nice guys. And now we're heading out to the reef. So our third and final destination for the day, but just look at how incredibly beautiful these fish are with these big radiant fins, crazy banding color. I mean, they are so stunning. And what's crazy is when you do see them in the Indo-Pacific, it is such a rare treat to see such a beautiful fish where they're supposed to be. But here, they stand out like a sore thumb and as beautiful as they are, they just don't belong. So we're going to take this guy here, pull him off our spear, try not to get stabbed and stick him into the cooler here with our others. And that is a kind of pitiful, but beautiful cooler of fish for later. To the reef. So we got one dive left and I need to crush the procrastination because it's cold, a little energy and focus. And so I'm going to have a little magic mind snorkel shot. JQ, will you help me out here? Line's up. I'm not spitting it out, it's a bad snorkel. Did we get anything in there? All right, I'll just drink the rest. I got a little bit. See, this is why we need magic mind because it's not going well without it. Let's go. All right, so just got back to the boat and here is our total catch. We got about a dozen lionfish, everything from pretty good size ones like this to tiny little babies that I can barely pick up because they're so spiky. And the reason they're such a problem, I realized I didn't talk about too much, is this right here. See this big bucket of a mouth? So these guys will gobble up literally anything that they can fit in that mouth. And the problem is where they live in the Indo-Pacific, they have predators that have co-evolved with them that can eat this whole fish that are used to these gnarly venomous spines. But here in the Caribbean, the fish have never seen them before, so nothing can eat them. So even these tiny little guys right here are not getting eaten by a bigger fish because of all of these venomous spines here, and they don't know how to deal with them. But they are getting eaten by us and they're going to be delicious. So we're going to head back. We're going to cut up these amazing lionfish that shouldn't be here. We're going to cook them in some citrus and make some ceviche. So I'm back at Green Turtle with our mighty, mighty catch of some of the biggest fish that you have ever seen. But we have our lionfish here. So before we get started on our ceviche, let me run you through the raw ingredients. Obviously, we have our lionfish. We have our coconut bowls we just cut fresh with delicious coconut water in it. Absolutely delicious. And then we have a tomato, an onion, a pepper, and a couple spices, and of course, a fresh rum punch because it wouldn't be the Bahamas if you weren't drinking a tipsy turtle at the turtle. So let's get going here. A very specialty tool that I use anytime I'm dealing with lionfish are these very neat fold-out Leatherman scissors. They're incredibly sharp. And the reason being, if you take one of these spines to the hand, you are wrecked. And I mean, it's bad. It really, really sucks. So just trim all those spines off like that. And there you go. Just like that. Our very dangerous fish is a very delicious morsel, minus that one. I missed one. And once that's gone, we're good to go. So we can start cutting them up. So what's interesting is these fish are from the Indo-Pacific. And when they first popped up here in the Caribbean, absolutely nothing knew how to eat them. Because if they tried to eat them, they got a venomous spine in the mouth, which would be incredibly painful and hurt them. But I'll tell you this, not only have I heard rumors that animals are eating them out in the wild now, these nurse sharks down here and these noisy ass eagles are certainly enjoying their scraps, because look at them go. I mean, it's pretty cool to see. All right, so we've got most of our fish in the bowl now, and we're just adding a bunch of lime juice. And what that'll do is the citric acid from the limes will cook the fish so that we don't have to use heat or fire. All right, so as you can see, our fish has turned this nice white color now, which means the citrus has done its job. So what we can do is actually drain some of that lime juice off, add in our veggies like that. Got some onion, green pepper, tomato. Mix that all together. Oh man, that looks good. And take a look there. Good, nice, clean mixing spoon, as in my filthy hands that have been fishing and cutting fish all day. Now, this is the kicker. A lot of people don't do this. Fresh orange, half an orange, not a whole orange. Get a little bit of sweet in there, okay? Then some chili flakes like this, and some sweet chili paste. Okay, just a little bit like that. Oh baby, here we go. Tell me that isn't just beautiful. So nobody's looking. Perfect. It literally couldn't be better. I hope you don't mind my very clean cooking utensils. We're plating it right here. I'm Jay. Jay Forrest, how are you? Nice to meet you. Come enjoy some fresh lionfish ceviche with us. Put it in the coconut bowl. All right, Jay, here you go. There you go. Here we go. Cheers, guys. All right, there's no utensils. It's finger food only here, guys. See what you think. Have you had lionfish before? Oh yeah. That's awesome. That's good, right? That's good, right? For a non-Bahamian guy, it's pretty good, right? All right, well, cheers, guys. Cheers again to new friends, to killing lionfish, the Green Turtle Club, huh? All right. Yeah, cheers, guys. Guys, if you've enjoyed this culinary adventure, come with me on one this summer. We'll be going to central Illinois to bowfish for invasive carp. All expenses paid with me hanging out. We're even going to try to eat those suckers. All you have to do is like, comment, and subscribe to the channel, and I'll see one of you lucky winners there.