DELICIOUSLY INVASIVE Eps. 7 | Bull Frogs in California

welcome to Outdoor Chef life I'm taku and today we have an episode of deliciously invasive and we are targeting invasive bullfrogs all right guys we're out here with my good friend Dr Kevin Dr Kevin how's it been man it's been great good to see you again good to see you too man heck yeah yeah been a long time it has yeah time flies yep what are we doing all right we're headed out into these uh calm Waters here we're going to go look for invasive bullfrogs that's right deliciously invasive back at [Music] it what's the reason doing it at in the evening uh they're mostly going to be active at night so they're they're pretty much nocturnal okay and so yeah if we're out here at night and we've got lights then they're usually pretty active and they'll call to to us basically yeah this would be like end of the season you you say yeah starting to cool down so this is usually a summertime thing so this is like our our last harah what's our goal you just go down there yeah we're going to bushwack through the weeds here till we get to Open Water we'll head down and there's a couple patches down there that I scouted maybe 3 weeks ago where there was a whole lot of action you'll hear them they're just like it they sound kind of funny we're like who who like very vocal so when we hear them we can kind of sneak in there we'll light them up and uh if we can get in close then we're going to stab them with a a tool that's called a gig gig yep gig them gigging frogs trying not to get eaten ourselves I'm going hop in okay all right I'm going to blaze the path and you just follow me huh we'll try don't make tight turns heard a little oh that might have been a frog you saw that yeah I did just go straight into it right around there could be there still I saw that bright oh I think I still see a little Shimmer see H saw it like right here right yeah I don't see anything all right abort we saw um some some some shining something shining something shining back yeah got a shot at one but he was pretty small oh oh yeah but i' rather yeah so I'm I'm guessing they probably kind of cold yeah so not be Asal but just the fact that I already got a shot it's good yeah all right sounds good so the main thing like when you're when you're coming in if you see one just keep your Spotlight like straight on it so you don't lose the spot and you try not to move the weeds and definitely try not to get your hand in front of the light or your paddle like bumping think I see one straight back oh sh that was too slow I see it I see it I just missed one too justtin in right in there you see where my light is I dropped my flashlight but I got him I got him I got him I got him guys except I dropped my flashlight all right well I guess I got got one at least tell you I just missed one too these are American bullfrogs they're actually native to certain parts of the United States but they're invasive here in California and originally they were imported as a food source which is what we're going to Showcase today um and they seem to have escaped either from Farms or from farms in combination with some folks keeping them as pets and then letting them go and the problem with that is there's there's no Predators here that are really adapted to hunt these particular species and so what happens is their sheer size allows them to eat all kinds of local native species these are much much bigger than our native frogs so they target frogs like red-legged frogs yellow-legged frogs and these are now ferally threatened species got him there it is it's freaking sweet oh bang bang just right between eyes yeah just hook to cook gave us the P pouch PCH pouch being used for Bullfrogs come in the Frog pouch got one you see any over there no no yeah there was so there's two right here one I missed and you spotted that one and boom boom I saw that it might be maybe maybe a couple more here well guys we got our first bull frog not much in terms of you know them being vocal making frog noises um I guess it's just a little too cold little lay the season for that um but yeah we saw two right there that's pretty cool hopefully we can get a few more so we can have at least a meal um they they target native fish um they eat baby birds they eat all kinds of stuff so getting them out of the water is actually very good for the environment that's what this series is all about take taking care of the invasive species and making delicious food out of them it's pretty cool cleaning up the ecosystem at the same time you know it's a lot of fun out here it's really quiet Json saw a shooting star so that's pretty cool too yeah I see it we going to have to go in there quietly just go in there real slow just a little more they're stuck okay okay okay got him got him oh there's another one there okay okay it's a little guy stuck in all the weeds I got him there you go number two number two baby that's awesome dud yeah there's like a couple more when I stabed this guy couple of them jumped off jumped away there you go okay thank you buddy sweet number two secured oh sh I didn't record that one I guess I missed it missed the record button from that one but got number three I barely got this guy right on the chin right there barely had him I thought I missed him sweet well add him to the bag dude D nice one pretty sick awesome you're like a natural porn hillbilly I got what it takes okay slow slow oh shucks I messed up I missed it Shucks so along those lines um if you're going to go out for bullfrogs make sure you're 100% positive on your identification the last thing we want to be doing is targeting these native and federally threatened species we want to only hunt the invasive species they don't look really like the bullfrog um but you know if you're just kind of going out like oh frogs are invasive let me go for frogs you could confuse our native species with some of the smaller bullfrogs but the bullfrog's just absolutely so much bigger than the native species that's one way to tell them apart so I am by no means an expert on cleaning frogs or hunting frogs but what we did was we put a knife through the brain after smacking it in the head and I also sever the backbone that's the easiest way to kill these guys they're harder to kill than a monkey faed eel and that's saying something so I kind of give them the triple tap and that way they're not moving in the morning if you just put one through the brain or just hit them in the head they will absolutely be alive and you'll see that the nerves are still moving even when we take the legs off we're going to put these in salt water and you're going to see them kick like crazy M so we're going to go just above the pelvis right here we're just going to make a cut down and then I'm just going to give this a smack with a stick here to get through the backbone cut that and get rid of this part and this is this is what we're after after so you can make a little cut right here going between the dark and lighter skin here just to separate it out a little bit you want to do is just kind of get my fingers between the skin and the meat this is also much much easier when the frog is fresh caught this one we got last night so it's going to be a little bit harder but you're basically just using your hands to separate between the skin and the meat taking off the pants to the Joint here where the foot is and then you're just going to pop right between the The Joint here to sever that out we'll give this a solid rinse but that right there is nice white clean frog meat yeah it looks like uh I don't know chicken legs chicken wings kind of yeah yeah so let's put some salt and some water in here all right and then we're going to rinse it off and this is an important Point frogs as well as turtles if you're going for invasive turtle species um they carry uh salmon illa on their skin so you want to make sure when you clean them off that you get them into salt water of course the salt water causes all kinds of reactions with the muscle and so it causes it to kick like crazy which is a little weird there we go there is like a sign about eating the fish and only having a small out because of mercury is that the same thing for the frogs Yeah so they are pretty high trophic feeders um they won't live as long as certain species but definitely like with any species especially in slow moving Waters you want to be sure that you're not eating too much so if your diet is consisting of a lot of seafood for instance you know there are definitely species that we avoid and for a reason my brother's a Fisheries biologist and so we've been talking about doing a a video specifically on that just why it is that we have certain things in the waterways out here and which species are best to avoid and which ones are best to eat on a regular basis but from what I know from talking with people who have studied these they don't tend to be too high in in uh toxins compared to other things but they are eating all kinds of stuff so mhm fresh salt on top of it oh look at that who okay we moved over to the river we're ready to cook got my stuff all set up perfectly today I want to make some Thai style fried frog legs right should be very delicious and I've had frog legs one time and it was in a Tha restaurant so that's why I'm making it that way first we're going to start out with a little marinade for these frog legs got a some garlic okay I'm going to take half of this for the marinade half of it for the sauce cut them in individual legs frog legs as you can see chicken wings dip the garlic in there spoonful of Honey little bit of salt and a bit of soy sauce and I forgot to bring the uh fish sauce I was going to do fish sauce but no fish sauce I guess it's all right right here I have a little bit of potato starch add that in there and I forgot my hexclad walk when I have the regular pan that'll do I love the hexclad walk oil I have a little bit more potato starch right here we're going to take one of these legs going to dump it in that potato starch just going get nice and crispy these are pretty big legs it's like a drumstick size you did good man we'll do a double double fry I don't think it's done yet looks good yeah so this texture feels exactly like chicken when I'm when when it's Ross like that we'll see how it the texture changes um after it's cooked and we eat it smells good smells like KFC up in here all right I'm going to do a double Fry on these guys so I'm going to toss them back in oh jez CH out all right I have some Sage here I was going to use Thai Basil but I couldn't find it so I think the sage is going to be really good actually TOS it in there it's going to add a lot of fragrance yeah smells so good already smells really good now let's make the sauce just touch oil there some peppers jalapeno and some Fresno peppers and garlic in here here give it a little seasoning salt and pepper I'm going to go in with a little bit of butter little bit of potato starch just to thicken it little soy sauce lime juice add a little water the hexclad pans you can use metal on them there you go nice and Saucy I have my frog legs I keep wanting to say chicken sauce all over them and I'll just give them a TOS kind of smells like sweet and sour chicken there we go and the fried Sage leaves just top it with that a little bit of crushed nuts okay there we have it some deliciously invasive bullfrogs all right now let's see how frog tastes he aw right on man beautiful thank you thank you for cooking man of course my pleasure and for being a good Hunter provided man that was fun I have what it takes to be a hillbilly all right cheers guys let tast them this frog tastes less like fish more like chicken you think so yeah subtle the the flavor of the Frog you know kind of more like a fish texture but I agree more like a chicken flavor it's like a very dense fish texture yeah so it's in between a chicken and a fish still I think yeah mhm take a little chili crisp all right nice and Lemony nice crisp crispy garlicky yeah potato starch is a great idea man I started playing with other starches recently mhm is a lot more than corn starch you can do any kind of starch really to make something crispy and each one has a little slightly different crunchiness yeah this one is a bit more flaky a potato starch yeah yeah that's nice man is nice and of course we're going to try some with our kelp chili crisp if you haven't tried kelp chili crisp yet it's available in every World Market in the US now thanks to you guys it's also available now on Amazon as well as through the website through Barnacle foods website as well so no excuses not to try it now unless you're in other countries I can test it is delicious look at this there we go yeah unfortunately it's not available overseas internationally yet but man frog is really good yeah it's it's funny cuz it lives in such a kind of like slow moving water environment it doesn't seem particularly clean but it's such a clean good eating meat you know yeah and I love the texture of the meat MH the cross of chicken and fish truly deliciously invasive mhm there you go truly deliciously invasive you got it thanks for watching if you guys want me to continue on with this deliciously invasive series let me know in the comments thank you so much Dr Kev catch and cook California he's doing a lot of cool things uh he's doing a lot of uh guiding let him know I had the unique honor of taking these folks out for their very first successful mushroom hunt and taking taku out on his very first West Coast spear fishing he got his first fish with a spear with me his first scallops with me and so that led to this passion of taking people out and teaching them so now now that's what I do I've got a guide service and my own YouTube channel catch and cook California you can hit me up at catch and cook california.com or catch the letter in cook CA gmail.com and I'll take you out and teach you some Outdoor Adventures and casually has a PHD too so one of the smartest guys I know you won't regret it hit him up thanks for watching guys we'll see you on the next one peace

Channel: Outdoor Chef Life

Views: 148,081

Keywords: invasive species, bull frogs, catch and cook, catch clean cook, catch n cook, frog leg recipe

Id: BqOcZbLpPfs

Length: 21min 42sec (1302 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 08 2023