How far north do snapper live?

[disorderly]

Just looking through a book and it showed,according to their distribution map, that snapper lived right around the entire aussie coastline.
I have never heard of them being caught this far north(130kms south of cairns).
Do they or dont they live up this way?

cheers Scott

[Grand_Marlin]

I am no expert Scott, but it seems to be that they disappear where the Barrier reef starts around Bundaberg etc.

To me, I think it may be a water temperature issue, but maybe more to do with the bottom structure.

Snapper seem to like deeper rocky reefs, rather than the Coral atols.

Cheers

Pete

[peterbo3]

Webby & I were fishing just out of Mackay harbour & one of us hooked a good squire. Would have been around September.

[dfox]

Im a little knowledgeable on this one. Although more commonly caught more in the south of the state there is a reasonable run of snapper taken in the Mackay region every year and to extent a bit further north. Snapper do inhabit water depths far greater then many realise and although i personally cant conferm it, i have spoken to a reliable source that have landed a few in extremely deep water off the cairns coastline. Although rare this maybe due to cold southerly water well out from the shelf having worked well north.
Catching one off lucinda in water depths less then 150 meters would be a rare catch and something i doubt you will ever see... foxy

[marty+jojo]

I have a mate that lives in Yeppoon and he gets some absolute crackers up there around 8-10kg. They are not around for very long but.
Marty.

[disorderly]

thankyou guys,
I thought that the book might have been exaggerating a bit.Looks like their limit is around Mackay or slightly north.
Yeah foxy,i am afraid I wont be catching any as I dont fish out off the shelf.

cheers Scott

[For Steve]

The furthest north I've caught a squire is in Keppel Bay in around 15m of water in December. He must have been lost!

[Owen]

I've caught one squire in about 10-15 metres here off Gladstone.
Never heard of any others around here, but I don't doubt they show up even if infrequently.
It's probably due to the fact that the deep water is so far off the coast once you hit the GBR :huh2:

[BobbyJ123]

Caught a couple off Taffy Island, Armstrong Beach, Sept 1988. Have read an article that states there are 2 snapper species, the normal coastal one and a deep water variety that only comes to shallow water in the latter part of winter, around Mackay. Those that do come to the Mackay area are usually in the 3-6 kg bracket.