Crikey that is a big one - would have been a winner in the Grunter Hunter Comp in June for sure!

Stop putting up the Smudge porn Herby

There be some big boys out there alright, this is a hog I got here in Wellington last year, absolute beast!

I can't remember Smudge, but was certainly 55cm+ (I just measured that cutting board and it's 50cm) and around the 2.5kg range from memory, exceptionally deep fish.

2kg and 50cm+ fish are quite common off Wellington's South Coast from October through January, each session I'd expect at least 2 or 3 to be over 50cm. They fight amazingly well on light gear as you likely well know!

Gurnard is one of my top of the list fish meats.
Growing up gurnard that used to be the norm....which meant good sized fillets and bones.
Now even larger than legal size is a bit of a mission to fillet out boneless leaving a good amount of meat.

Hit the local markets.. bags of baby gurnard way below the rec legal size for $10.
 Picked up our 1st winter gurnard bottom end 2 weeks ago...27cm  felt disappointed and sorry for it and let it go.

Sad that nice pics like the above is exception rather than rule these days... miss my gurnard meat.