jpfishingnz wrote: We've asked around about this and published a 'news' piece a few weeks ago: |
I noticed it first in late autumn this year while running charters. On some days around the workups in 40-50m, as many as one or two fish from the seven-per-person bag limit appeared to be in poor condition.
While not immediately noticeable upon perusing live specimens, after filleting the difference is immediately apparent when compared to normal snapper fillets. The fillets taken from these skinny fish are milky in colour, very thin and have a soft texture. These snapper also prove rather difficult to fillet because of the size and texture of their flesh.
Once cooked, it is actually hard to tell the difference in terms of flavour – but they sure don’t look as appetising as your normal firm, translucent fresh snapper!
We’ve been hearing of similar experiences around the traps and a few theories have been postulated, so I called up NIWA to investigate. They were aware of the issue but couldn’t comment; instead, I was pointed in the direction of MPI. Marty Bowers from MPI helpfully gave me an update on the sampling being conducted and the preliminary results.
The difference in normal (left) and ‘skinny’ (right) snapper fillets is immediately obvious – note that all these fish were ikied and iced immediately. Photo: Aaron Styles.
Thankfully, it appears these skinny snapper are not being affected by some nasty disease or parasite, but instead the issue seems to lie in unusual seasonal environmental conditions.
Biosecurity New Zealand has prepared the following points for public release:
“Biosecurity New Zealand has been investigating widespread reports of snapper exhibiting soft, mushy, and white flesh, from the east coast of the Northland and Auckland regions.
“To date, diagnostic analysis of samples at the Animal Health Laboratory (AHL) has not indicated any disease or parasitic infection as the cause behind the issue.
“Further sampling and testing is being completed to ensure accuracy of these results.
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