Interesting about the taste, these fish are sold by the tons worldwide, from where I am they are shipped whole, frozen or live, and fileted.
I don't know if this will help, but during the hot season my surface water temperature was 97 during the day, the bottom, at 8', was 88.1. At twilight the surface would drop to around 90. This was at the end of what would be my summer following 3 months of high 90s every day.
