Reply With Quotebanshee they havnt arrived here yet at least not where i fish, last yr they got here around september, sent by the devil for sure
At present these fish are in plague proportions from Lennox to Evans Head that I am aware off,they are occupying every piece of reef from 32 fathoms out to 60 fathoms.How far up or down the coast does this situation exist?do they move up and down the coast or do they come in from the deep,have they been in your area lately?.Some commercial fisherman are weighing in 900 kilos of these fish at a time,the same thing happened this time last year,I hope it dosen't become an annual event.
banshee they havnt arrived here yet at least not where i fish, last yr they got here around september, sent by the devil for sure
are they ok eating? i never eaten one but i thought people eat them a bit, arnt they real simple to fillet or somehting like that..
G'day Rob,if they are headed your way then your in for a treat,they are twice as thick as last year down here.
G'day ishing,I think it's a matter of taste,I personaly don't like the flavour but my inlaws love them,the co-op is selling them at the moment for 5$ a kilo.The worst thing about them is the amount of gear that you go through when they are about,on sunday I lost about twelve pounds of lead,about forty hooks,half a roll of wire and the bit that realy hurt was the bastards were biting my braid off.
They are in plague proportions off the Gold Coast about a month ago. And like the others, lost a sh*t load of tackle. Thank goodness the bastards have left the region. We got over 40 of them in a sitting, skinned them and filleted them and they were beautiful. Hope this is any help...
"Reef Hustler" - Seafarer Victory 6.0m & 225hp Honda
I grew up eating leather jackets and they are a damn fine eating fish in my books. I know they are a popular fish species among sydney siders.I Hope all those fish being taken by the commercial fisho's dont go to waste. Would be a real shame to see another species being caught and wasted. All fish have their place in ther sea, the food-chain and the marine eco-system.
Dominic. PM me next time u find a patch of these crittersWould love to get into a few of them.
gday fellas
well about a month ago they were in my area...minie waters wooli yamba area i dont know about now but there was a hell of a lot around. biggest catch wat 80 fish, most around 2kg headed and gutted!!!! up to 5 and 6 kg cleaned for the biggest ones.
cheers
phil
Old leatherjacket is one fish i wont toss back, bloody good eating, especially the 6 spine leather jackets.. which are common on the sunshine coast reefs.. around the 2-3kg mark.. dark poo brown with blue markings around the eyes.. easy to skin, just rip the head off, pulling the gut contents out with it, then peal the skin off like an orange!
Tim
When I fished down at South West Rocks the skippa used wire from coathangers on his paternoster rigs to catch 'em, and they would still both through that as well. Got teeth like wild pigs. Good eating though, cut their head off, and ripped of the whole skin off in less than 10 secs from time of capture. I'm surprised it wasn't still kicking when it landed in the esky. The easiest fish to clean for sure! Just watch out for those teeth.
Hutcho
These are Chinaman leather Jackets and they run a poor second to what is normaly on offer around here.
I was talking to a game fisher a while ago he was saying he caught a BIG cobia with a 2kg leatherjacket still alive in the gut.[smiley=stunned.gif] So they are part of the food chain underwater as well as above.
They call them the meateaters fish. Flavour is a bit bland for mine - but great if you like to cook with spices - so I enjoyed mine on sunday night Banshee.
The best way to deal with them is to knick them behind the head with a knife and tear their heads off as you catch them - this pulls their entire gut out in one movement. as others have said you can then rip their jackets off from the neck down in two easy pulls. They say that leaving the gut in after they die gives them a not too good taste.
Blue Rogue - One thing that redeems these fish is that you really don't have to fillet them - so with the head rip and two skin peeling motions (takes aout 10 seconds) they are ready for cooking . Their bone structure is really weird, but there are no loose bones in them to stick in your gizzard. They give them to geriatric people and kids in hospitals for that reason.
FWIW
Tony
Whack one on the line live for a cobia?I almost made a crack about the geriartic people eating them, but I won't.
Has been lousy with them at Jervis Bay. Biting off gear from down the bottom in 140 feet to just near the boat. (Bit hard to have 150 feet of wire trace!).
Blowed if I know how they can see the braid up the top well enough to bite it off.
Recent paper report said there had been a huge die off of them for miles up and down the south coast, but I don't think it got rid of all of them.
Cheeky bu**er - I knew there was something familiar about the way you have signed your name.Originally Posted by Leo_N.
Whack one on the line live for a cobia? #
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