Decided to keep and cook/eat an "inedible" catch. The results:

Well now Evan has me curious now about blue shark. That was the last thing I caught on my last tuna trip. Solid grab followed by disappointment, and loss of a carefully tied squid fly. Might be a tough sell to keep one on a tuna charter.
 
SilverFly said:
Well now Evan has me curious now about blue shark. That was the last thing I caught on my last tuna trip. Solid grab followed by disappointment, and loss of a carefully tied squid fly. Might be a tough sell to keep one on a tuna charter.
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If it's a slow day tell them you insist. The meat is very much worth the effort.

OR we just actually get you on my boat one of these years.
 
Also, kinda surprised you didn't try making shark fin soup. Can't be that bad if the entire ocean is being raped for it. Of course, obviously no real raping involved with a few, fully-utilized, sustainably harvested PNW blues. No shortage of them in our waters that I can see.
 
back in charter boat days, it was a rare trip when fishing rock cod if we didn't have at least one blue rolled up in a bunch of lines that we had to kill and unwind. Had a small group of local Portuguese farmers who routinely fished with me to stock their freezers and they always took home a killed blue, 'soak them in milk first' they said.
We rarely encountered Inshore blues much over 4' with an occasional 5'. When we ran offshore albacore trips 70 and 80 miles out, however, the blues were much bigger and would see beasts in the 10' range..whole different animal.
 
Evan B said:
Every time blue sharks come up, some old salt chimes in that they’re trash fish, the meat tastes like piss, etc. I’ve heard it my whole time on the water. Nobody who says it ever seems to have actually eaten one though, so I figured I’d run my own damn experiment.
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snuck in one last late season tuna run on a buddy’s boat, and while we were out there a little blue came up. Perfect chance to finally test this thing, so I kept him. Bled him right away, gutted him, got him on ice. If you’ve heard the urine thing, it’s not totally made up. Sharks carry urea in their tissue, and if you let one sit around warm, that can break down into ammonia and you’ll have a bad time. Take care of it fast and it’s a non-issue. Freshly filleted, the meat smelled like clean, quality fish. Nothing weird at all.
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Quick shoutout to my serrated electric fillet knife. Shark skin is no joke. It’s basically sandpaper wrapped around a fish and it’ll chew up a regular blade in a hurry. The electric took a moment to get that first incision, but after that was smooth sailing.

Once I had my fillet pieces I soaked them in whole milk for a couple hours. That’s supposed to knock down any ammonia funk. Honestly I’m not sure it needed it since it smelled great going in, but this was a test, so I did it anyway. Then I vac sealed most of it (bag got labeled “Baby Blue Shark doo doo dododoo” because of course it did - I hope the song gets stuck in your head now).
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I cooked a test piece this morning since my house cleaners were about to take over the kitchen during my usual lunch time. Simple pan fry in a little butter, umami salt, pepper. Good control/baseline test.
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It’s really f-ing good.

The texture is different from most fish. I’d heard it goes mushy and soft, and I can see that happening if you overcook it. Cooked right, it’s firm and rich. Flavor-wise I’d put it somewhere in a mix of halibut and sable. No fishy taste. It’s a great canvas for whatever you want to throw at it.

We’ll be keeping a couple from now on. Blues aren’t exactly hard to come by out there and this is about as low-hanging fruit as it gets. I don’t expect many of the old timers to change their tune, but if you’ve been releasing every blue because someone told you they’re inedible, try one. Take care of it on the boat and you’ll be surprised.
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When I was studying at So. Seattle College, chef school, the instructor brought in shark several times. We grilled it with swordfish for comparison once and I preferred the shark. Brush some thinned out teriyaki over it, then grill and finish with garlic compound butter. Damn.!
 
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