In perhaps yet more evidence of a warming ocean and changing ocean currents two baby dogtooth tuna were captured off Narooma on the weekend.
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Narooma charter skipper and commercial fisherman Matt Betts got the two juvenile dogtooth tuna at Montague Island while trolling deep divers targeting bonito.
No-one has really heard of the more tropical dogtooth tuna species on the Far South Coast before and it should be logged to the Red Map database, which collects strange marine sightings. Click here for Red Map
“I got them trolling for bonito on deep divers,” Matt said. “Funny thing is, I think there may have been a small school of the doggies as I had two troll lines out and what looked like a small school of bonnies but it may have been the doggies as they both hooked up together with a little doggie on each line. Go figure!”
Meanwhile staff at Bermagui Bait & Tackle late last week reported another strange capture in the shape of what is suspected to be finny scad.
“Each year we see something unusual,” the tackleshop posted on its Facebook page. “Finny Scad are often used as baits for black marlin on the Barrier Reef. This was caught off Bermagui headland today by a local angler.”
Local spearfishing and fishing identity Georgia Poyner regularly conducts tropical fish surveys for the University of Technology Sydney and also Red Map.
She said she had never heard of dogtooth tuna this far south but there have apparently been doggies speared up at Jervis Bay.
In her most recent tropical fish survey, she was surprised to spot and catalogue a tropical coral beauty.
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