I caught one of those fuckers off the pier in Lahaina, Maui. I landed it and the thing just puffed up to a ball and looked weird. The locals were spooked.

Really, Dx, what did you do, just cut the line? You would not want to touch him so how are going to hold him to get the hook out of his mouth? Guess you could step on the dang thing. Did you throw him back and he swam off?

What gets me is I don't believe any self-respecting Japanese person is going to buy puffer fish meat from some supposedly trained Vietnamese fish worker guy. In Japan from reports I have seen it is quite an extensive training to handle puffer fish and you have to be a qualified sushi chef for a long time before they will even teach you.

Really Grumpy,
I hooked the fish and pulled it up on the pier and watched it puff up, some local Hawaiians walked over and said hey bra, you don't want that sucka.

So I tossed him back in. The fish was mostly white with some black spots.

The poison is in the internal organs. The meat is quite good but the danger is cleaning them incorrectly and nicking the wrong wobbly bit and releasing the poison which can then get on the meat.

You can handle the live fish safely, though.