Off Swansea, New Scourge Moves In!

[Marlin01]

Fished off Swansea today for 16 squire and 2 mowies. No jackets but absolutely plagued by barracutta (15.4 deg watertemp). Kept a couple to try and eat, fillets looked ok but impossible to skin. good numbers of squire but hard to get through 'cutta.

Cheers Marlin

[jordan.widz]

ahh. You ran into the cuta's too, their thick aye, right down to terrigal too.

[Day's Fishin]

Hi Marlin, be careful eating cutta they can contain poison and not advisable to eat. The water temp seems a little low for cutta, lets hope that this isn't a sign that we are going to be plagued with them this summer.

Regards Jeff

[wttmrwolf]

I caught a cutta in the hacking last week, didn't know that came into the Estuaries. Gave me a fright when I hauled the 1.5m toothy critter on board.

[kingpig]

Not sure barracutta are poisonous, barracudda are. These are not the same fish the last one is a tropical fish that sometimes has ciguatera.

Barracutta live in colder water and can be a real pain if in lager numbers like described here.

Cheers

Kingpig

[Day's Fishin]

Hi Kingpin, the spelling that Marlin had for it put me off. The right spelling is Barracouta and is a cold water fish and is edible however it quiet often is infested with cestode worms. I thought Marlin was referring to Barracuda and yes they are a warm water fish that can have substantial amounts of ciguatera and that is why I was surprised he caught some.

Regards Jeff