Rocky Barra Bounty - Fish ID

[Red_Nut]

Morning Team,
on the weekend whilst fishing in the Barra Bounty I boated this fish (pics attached). To me it looks like a Jew, but I have never seen one this dark before. The darker coloured banks also confounded the event organisers, with their best guess being a Black Jew but they seemed to not be 100% sure either.

Has anyone seen a black jew with this banded colouring before? It also had yellow spots under its bottom jaw and on the front pectoral fins.

Cheers.

Ed.

[Red_Nut]

And another.

[iank]

Looks like a black jew except for the colouring, could be a member of the croaker family, maybe even a new species ;) Tagged a pile of fish that I thought were black jew while in Darwin only to find out later that they were a previously unrecordered species of croaker.
Cheers Ian

[Matthias]

Looks like a big croaker jew to me. Never seen one with black bands though. :-/

pete.

[Graham_N_Roberts]

Might be a response to that Fitzroy water. Not the cleanest river around. :-[

[Kendall249]

In my opinion its (Nibea soldado) silver jew (not as in mulloway), grows to approxmately to 750mm and inhabits well into brackish water (not unlike that of the upper reaches of the fitzroy). While it well and truely look likes the specie mentioned above, the colouring is still unusual.

Can't dismiss what cq freshie said, as the fitzroy is dirty to say the least.

[Graham_N_Roberts]

:D Too right Kendall .... I know what flows into the old girl ... Dee, Dawson, Mc Kenzie, Commet, Nagoa .... all dirty in their own right, with heavy metals, agi chemicals, insecticides ... crikey now I feel sick. :-[ :-[

[Kendall249]

Hey cq freshie, I used to work at lakes creek meatworks just recently moved back here to townsville. Lakes creek is over 100 yrs old and I've heard some absolute horror stories, not to mention those rusting old ships in the town reaches (might of been moved), along with those factors you mentioned. No wonder alot of the people are worried about eating what comes out of the river.

Kendall

[Graham_N_Roberts]

Yeah, the good folk at Yeppoon have convinced the powers that be to pipe the water to the Cap coast.

I'll admit that I'm on the Dee, right at the top end .. clean, clear water ... before the big stuff gets into it.

When I was a youngster, the Dawson used to be clean, light black tea colour ... now, mud. It's so thick, there are bubbles in it like a milkshake, as she flows over the weirs.

Townsville .... much cleaner. We've been up there 4 times in the last 2 years, and the Ross is a picture.