Five threadfin in cast net

[dayoo]

My mate Frank and I caught 2 kilos of banana prawns and 5 small (25cm) threadfin not far from the gateway this morning. These threadfin looked very much like King Threadfin as they had 5 long filaments just in front of each pectoral fin. This time I took a photo of one.

[Scalem]

Hi Dayoo,

They are reasonably common catch while prawning, at least for me when I prawn around the mouth of the Logan river, so they must be widespread.

Scalem

[straddie]

Heya Dayoo

I have always called them for puttynose perch. If it is indeed a salmon then they have been in the bay and river for over 30 years that I know of. Do you have a better pic of it's head, I find the nose and small mouth give them away pretty quick as not being salmon.

[dayoo]

Putty nose pearch have 7 trailing filaments to each pectoral fin (page 556, Grants Guide to Fishes) The ones we've been netting only have 5 trailing filaments to each pectoral fin and this is what distinguishes King Threadfin from putty nose perch when small, according to Grant.

Is someone swimming around cutting two filaments off puttynose perch to confuse everyone?

Next time I will try to get a photo of the filaments. Only took the one shot as we were in a hurry to return the fish to the water alive.

[straddie]

I'll have to dig Grants guide out and take a peek, but as I said I have always known what you have in the picture there as a puttynose perch.

I could well have been wrong all this time and if ern grant says they are salmon then I will accept that is what they are. As I said the nose and particularly the mouth which looks and opens differently have always been what I used to distinguish between the two.

[Adamy]

If those "things" were 25cms long - then maybe they are threadfin?? We caught a big bunch in tinny creek last week and they were only like 10cms long or less - called them for puttynose perch - I dont know how long PNperch grow - but never seen a big one yet. I feel bad now if they are salmon cause we threw as many back as we could but some died in our haste to get back at the prawns. Next time I'll count pectorals.

Adam

[Blackened]

G'day
I used to catch them in many harbour years ago, and like adam... have been getting them down to about 50mm long in the cast net in tinny creek.

Dave

[BLOOEY]

hi,I used to catch them in numbers on bait in breakfast creek,up to about 20cm,thought they were putty nose perch also.

[swano]

got 2 of these near the hornibrook on friday while prawning around 30cm long and i,m pretty damn sure they were threadies
cheers swano

[dayoo]

Your fish is a King Threadfin. The one in my photo has now been identified as a striped threadfin which also has 5 trailing filaments to each pectoral fin.

Good to see that there is also small King Threadfin around Brisbane. Maybe there are some other good spots where larger threadies can be caught apart from the well known "secret spots".

[straddie]

Heya Swano

Yours is what I have always known as a salmon.

Grants has made things clear as mud for a positive ID. My version has salmon on different pages than Dayoo and the two bigger species are identified as Burnett Salmon (king, 5 filliments) and Colonial Salmon or Cooktown Salmon (blue, 3 or 4 filliments)

What grant refers to as puttynose perch (5 filliments) has distinctive horizontal stripes, which are not the same fish as I know as puttynose perch. So it looks like I am wrong one way or another but still don't believe the top pic is a young salmon but the bottom one is.

[sharkbaithoohaha]

Hey Dayoo I got one about 40cm on Wednesday night with Frank also,down near the gateway,whilst trying for some prawns.