Fish i.d needed (without photos)

[sbooker]

We fished the Barwon Banks yesterday and just before dark or floaters went off to what we expected to be snapper.

To our surprise we boated 5 hard fighting fish that we couldn't identify. To make things worse we didn't get a photo while they were still whole

I thought at first they we rosy jobfish as I have caught plenty of them before now but they were a little redder in colour and their features were a little more 'pointed'. Similar shape to a green jobbie.

I expect they are some sort of jobfish. They were about 3 feet long and probably 7 or 8 kilo. They were caught in only 40 metres of water.

Grant's guide to fishes was no help.

Simon

[DazSamFishing]

Simon...

Sounds like quite a large fish... 3 feet... My first thought was maybe a rusty jobfish which are a rarity but excellent for the table... But I am not too sure if they get that big...

If only you had a photo...

Daz

[DaveSue_Fishos_Two]

Simon, when you say you didn't get a photo "while they were still whole" does that mean you cut them up for bait or filleted them to eat? If that is what you did, I think you need to very careful taking fish which you can't ID. How do you know if there is bag limit, a size limit, or whether or not they are toxic??

Dave

[imnotoriginal]

A very good point Dave, something everyone should be careful of.
Joel

[SeaSaw]

Here is a pic of a Rusty Job Fish. Maybe one of these ?

[DazSamFishing]

I agree Dave and Joel...

I think everyone should release a fish they cannot identify...

However, do the rusty jobfish grow to 3 feet? that is quite a large rusty jobfish... I know the other members do grow to that size...

Daz

[JasonT]

Man this is crazy!
Can't fisheries confiscate cars, boats, gear etc if you take a no-take or undersize fish??
You mention it not being whole... If you're eating it then that's no different to walking into someone elses garage, picking up an unlabeled container and drinking from it! Same risk.......

Talk about living life on the edge!
Bigger B@lls than me! :-)

[sbooker]

I wasn't after a lesson in legalities you self righteous w*nkers. The fish was obviously some kind of jobfish.

There must be plenty out there with very small nuts - I'd hardly call keeping some jobfish 'living on the edge'.

Thanks Seasaw - yes these were the fish. BTW My brother corrected me and said they were actually 75cm long.

Cheers


Simon

[snapperm8]

[manchild]

Way to go simon ,just tell it like it is
good stuff
George

[madmix]

Hi Simon

At 75cm I would say a fair chance it is legal size,
as far as poisonous goes, how many of us take
a chance with ciquatera.

So eat and enjoy, or down to the butchers for
a juicy steak (hopefully mad cow free)

cheers Mick

[SeaSaw]

Good onya Simon. To often people are accused of taking unknown fish before all the facts are known.

Job fish are a classic example and the differences between most of them are small (i.e. rusty, rosy, ruby, flame, lavender, small toothed jobfishes). All these are look very similar and it can take identification by a book if you have never caught that one before. That said, it is obvious you have a job fish of some type, and I have no problem with taking it home to identify it properly as they ALL have a limit of 38cm and if you don't have more than 5 per person you can't be breaking a bag limit (most have a individual bag of 5, but rosy & lavender have a combined limit of 5).

The other thing people dont seem to realise is that if you take the time to learn all the fish on the restricted list (which isn't that hard to learn to identify them all) then anything else is unrestricted and you are within your rights to take it home and identify it as there is no size or bag limits that apply.

Cheers,

Mark

[Braddles]

Well done Simon...

Enjoy those fish.. and if they call catching Job Fish "living life on the edge" then I hope they never get to wrestle a big cobia or wahoo... that would be suicidal lol..


Top Effort mate,

Regards,

Brad.