I might do a "blind tasting test" when we eat them and see if anyone notices anything.....

Out our side though it is common to see kahawai like that in February. From April on though it is rare to see a milky one. I don't think I've ever seen a milky looking gurnard from off the coast but over summer in the harbour they are very common. Never in winter. Ten or more years ago I won the kahawai section of the CSFC One Base with a 3.1kg kahawai. It was around 73cm long and as skinny as. I used it for bait and the flesh was soft white and mushy. It was after that I started noticing the condition of fish and yepp the skinny ones always had white mushy flesh. We've had big kahawai workups in the Manukau lately. The fish are just smashing the whitebait and anchovies as the feed up to put on condition after spawning which I believe is in January and February out here

Trevally are one of my favourites to catch but have never seen one with milky flesh, yet they seem to be showing up out east.

I've always felt that it is a post spawning condition, but I believe gurnard spawn at least twice a year. I catch them in spring and again in winter full of roe. The winter fish in the harbour appear to recover way better than when they spawn in spring. The water temp in the harbour gets up to 27 degrees in the shallows on a hot day so I'm sure that is part of the equation.

IMO it's all to do with suitable conditions and food source available post spawning but then I'm not a rocket doctor . 

I'd like to hear Craig Worthington's thoughts on the subject.

Do you know when trevally spawn?  I got 4 trevally on 1 day in spring last year, 3 of which were thin and had white flesh.

Very few fish caught in the shallows - less than 10m depth are like this.

I remember having the odd white-fleshed snapper among our bin of fish from the post-Christmas Tamaki Strait flats fishery dating back to the early 2000s. I think they have a more of a pale golden appearance on the outside, rather than a vibrant reddish with blue dots, and skinnier.

My elderly dad's from the Depression and WWII era where you eat everything, so the soft whities were eaten. I have to say that pan fried, they don't taste odd - obviously the softness and colour doesn't bode well, but when I snuck some white pieces into our panko meal a couple of months ago (because 2-3 of my 5 fish turned out to be white on filleting, and I'd already offered our friends some fish and felt I couldn't give them the white fillets) my family didn't notice!!

What I haven't seen before this season, that I recall, was the number of fish in spring which had soft reddish/purplish almost circular patches on the outside of the skin - which I think I read was a bacterial issue NIWA had identified. I initially wondered if it was a sign of tussling with other fish during spawning, but that was a mistaken guess.

I'll check fish condition more closely but no obvoius difference in the way they fight when hooked

As for bruising, I often see a lot of snapper with bruising on the lower side around spawning season.  I saw a video with male fish "butting" the females in the stomach to force out the eggs.  Anyone else have any info about this?  The bruises are generally about 30 to 40mm round, and red in the middle.

Said the Comm guys have moved out of those areas.

Alan

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2023/03/increasing-number-of-snapper-caught-in-hauraki-gulf-suffering-from-starvation.html" rel="nofollow - https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2023/03/increasing-number-of-snapper-caught-in-hauraki-gulf-suffering-from-starvation.html

Legasea response

https://legasea.co.nz/2017/04/05/feasibility-of-reporting-recreational-catch/" rel="nofollow - https://legasea.co.nz/2017/04/05/feasibility-of-reporting-recreational-catch/

And yes you are correct.They do not speak for all. NO consultation but blindly go ahead as they think they are right and everyone else is wrong.

my brother who lives out on the Barrier has caught dozens of them....so does that mean its just a Gulf issue? Are they being caught down BOP way? I tend to agree with V8. There are billions of Kina infesting pretty much all rocky areas around inner gulf.... yet the fish are starving? Doesn't stack up

Warm water temperatures , Run-off, silt and fresh water will certainly affect the food chain.... Krill etc. 

I see mike Mora from 3 news is investigating it....Apparently he's keen fisho, So at least the whole phenomenon is being made public and awareness is being raised which is a good thing.

Very little workups of late in gulf now compared to years ago. Last year we had anchovies from about now on . But haven’t seen any yet. They (snapper) need feed to stay in good nick. Should ban netting pillies., although basically heard fished em out up here last year. My advice is don’t buy them. Also lack of decent kahawai round gulf at moment .. yet another bad sign. Some have said lack pillies is due to warmer water but doubt that… they would just be present further out if the case… which they are not.

I'll pay that, very good Martyn.  

No slushy, white flesh in sight. 

2 weeks ago, near Tiritiri Matangi, 5 keepers, only one with milky flesh.

So - assume that the poor condition syndrome, is possibly over??

To review - my experience, off WHangaparaoa - from early winter  July 2022 to Feb 2023; caught most with milky flesh. March, reducing number with milky flesh. April, none milky flesh. 

Now there has been a definite drop in temperature and presumably water, they are now feeding properly and not prowling the red light districts anymore.

Exactly my thoughts as well V8-Coupe. we have never had 3 years in a row of this easterly weather pattern. Water has been constantly very warm.  Back to normal westerly now for the next 7 years i hope

Good to see.

I wondered if silt on the bottom might be the cause of the markedly worse condition of snapper in the inner Hauraki Gulf.

But on reflection - a bloke said the snapper in Kaipara Harbour are not showing the same poor condition; and I think silt would be as bad or probably worse there, so I dont think thats thwe cause.

Still a problem up here, but somewhat patchy.

Inner Gulf.

Something I’ll try next weekend which was told to me via a local on FB on Whangarei is leave the fillets overnight in glad wrap and the fillets come right and lose their Milkieness the next day so I’m keen to try this. I can identify milkies easier now as sunken behind head and thin etc. they are stressed for sure. Sur-raised the fisheries haven’t got to the bottom of it yet and gov shared the info. Fisheries management are a mystery to me 

Interesting - let us know how that goes and what it tastes like (the neighbour's cats loved the one I had).

Here we go, a bit of a novel:

 My point is that in all that time with a conservative estimate of 1000 kahawai from two land based locations over winter, I don't think I ever caught a skinny or milky fleshed kahawai. I would only keep no more than maybe 10% of those I caught but they were all fat little (mostly 1.5 to 3kg) chubby fullas.

On the boat however I would catch them all year round, sometimes in huge numbers. Over summer through to late autumn skinny kahawai were not really uncommon, especially from the harbour but the longest kahawai I ever caught was 72cm long and it weighed 3.1kg. It was in 8m off of Hamilton's Gap on the west coast and it made a baracoutta look muscle bound. I weighed it for a comp and won that category but it was only good for gurnard bait. To be fair it put up a good tussle considering its poor condition. To put that in perspective my heaviest kahawai was landbased in winter and weighed 3.6kg. It was around 63cm from memory. Having said that we got a very skinny kahawai out of the harbour two weeks ago.

Don't get me started on gurnard. OK I'll tell you anyway. The longest gurnard I've caught was 52cm long. It was from the Manukau harbour in February and weighed something like 1.1kg. That fish would go 1.6kg plus depending on condition. That like many others caught over summer in the harbour was skinny and inedible. These days I don't keep any skinny fish of any species, even for bait.

So west coast snapper Smudge? Ohhh yeah: Over spring and summer we get lots of snapper. None have looked skinny from off the coast but about 10% of those fish will have whiter looking flesh than the others which have that lovely translucent 'colour'. The whitish ones aren't bad enough to be mushy and they taste fine.

We iki all our fish, we take two 90 litre bins, one full of ice and the other for the fish. The ice goes in the fish bin straight away.

What all that means I have no idea! 

Never encountered it before (but haven't been out much recently) so only discovered on the filleting bench.  

I've never found a cabbage in the gut of a porae or mullet

Dagwood good question I wonder this too. Are they just dumped? Prob do as Comms just do the easiest not what’s best for the fisheries. Wonder if they care enough to look into checking condition before keeping. We will never know without cameras 

well I hear the cops test the sewage for P so maybe the fish dont get a choice , I mean every time it rains , somewhere gets "overloaded " and spews untreated sewage into the ocean .

They tried but couldn’t get a lighter to fire up under water….

PS  Neighbours cats love the scraps, milky flesh or not

 

I also wonder is it something like a fish virus and -asses in a couple of weeks? Or kills the fish ?

Also I’m told and yet to test that if u -it in fridge for 24 hours the fillets come right? Sounds weird but I never rule anything out till I try it so will do if a milky gets past my vetting process boat side 

Wife and myself won't be trying it again. 

I very much doubt this yak about starvation but apart from this being the wettest year I can remember I have no clue to the reason so many are turning up. 

Last, yesterday, 4 keepers 32-35, 1 milky discarded - 3 ok kept although still slightly milky.

So - perhaps getting better? but doubtful as far too  small a number to be statistically significant.

A bloke thought could be a lot more snapper, with insufficient food. I dont think so.

I suspect most likely due to climate change, sea here warming up, affecting some things adversely - possibly the snapper directly, but more likely some other things that snapper rely on for food? 

Thanks for the suggestion.  pretty good.  Bit fishy maybe

After spreading with cure and a day in the fridge the "milky-ish" one was less milky, seemed clear in places?  Smoked all 6.  The "milky-ish" one was less firm flesh but didnt taste different to the rest.

Don't think I would eat if really milky-looking, but maybe there are degrees of milkiness?  Really dont know why, given how important the snapper fishery is to NZ, the reasons for this are not well understood.  Never happened before?

https://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/132841793/terrible-bluff-oyster-season-blamed-on-lack-of-feed-in-ocean" rel="nofollow - https://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/132841793/terrible-bluff-oyster-season-blamed-on-lack-of-feed-in-ocean

Another theory, that is all good by me. The questions I have is why is it so prevalent now? Especially in the Hauraki Gulf? People have been winching snapper from the depths for many years. These days at least those of us that fish light gear give snapper a better chance of survival. It takes me 2 or 3 times as long to raise a fish from 60m out west than it takes those using TLD15's with 15kg mono.

We see the odd fish with less than translucent flesh on this side than what Auckland's east coast sees.

On the Manukau it is very common to get milky flesh gurnard and kahawai mid summer onward in the harbour. It is reasonably common to get kahawai like that over the coast. I don't recall EVER catching a gurnard from the Tasman sea in poor condition at any time of the year apart from the odd pimply one. The coastal areas are less affected than a shallow harbour on very hot days.

That leads me to believe it is temperature related. Then again, we get very few poor condition snapper in the Manukau harbour. In the height of summer we see water temps of 27 degrees and most of our fishing is in that high temp shallow water.

So what does all that mean? 

I have no idea!

- Terrible Bluff Oyster season blamed on lack of plankton

- Penguins starving at Oamaru

- Fiordland corals bleaching with high water temperatures

- Milky white snapper apparently starving

- Kingfish being caught out of Bluff

- Record sea temperatures with Fiordland recording Northland temps.

My bear bug is with all these so called scientists in the "Best managed fishery in the world” hahahaha the paid for scientists for hire can’t find what the issue is. Embarrassing