I speared my first fish at Clifton Springs today. I was in the water for about 4-5 hours.

I'm fairly confident that it's a butterfish. It has a small dimple on it's "snout" (above it's mouth) and yellow eyes.

More to the point, I think it's a "Dusky Morwong".

What do you guys reckon? I don't want to be one of those people who post fish they haven't identified, so I'd like to be sure that this is what I think it is.

I dispatched it as soon as I could with my knife.
I didn't remove the spear until I swam back to shore. I should have, but I didn't. The body got torn up quite a bit on one side from the spear. My mono got a bit tangled too, so next time I'll take a catch bag and then slot my spear back in.

Apparently a lot of people don't like the taste of Dusky Morwongs - but since this is my first fish, I'm quite pleased, and it was the best goddamn fish in the world thank you please!

We baked it with lemon slices and other herbs.
The fish itself tasted plain and maybe uninteresting, but good eating. I'll post tomorrow if it turns out to be poisonous (or I guess I won't).

Quite excited. What a day! Best dive so far.

I don't want to digress from the thread, BUT...
Out of interest, this morning I made a DIY float using:

Inner tube - guys at the local tyre shop gave me one for free.
Cheap kids Fishing rod - $25. Sawed off the reel. Temporarily rope-tied and cable-tied around tyre, sturdy but will modify it later.
Diver flag - $25 from Geelong Dive Shop. Hole at bottom of flag to slip tip of fishing rod through. Punched holes in the flag with a paper hole puncher, then cable tied to the loopy-thingies of the rod.
Anchored it with float rope to a 5kg dumbell.

The pole can be shifted vertically to sit upright when in water. Highly visible.

Worked like a charm!
Had 5 jetskiiers who behaved and stayed well clear.


Definitely going to tweak this. I'm thinking weighing the float to be heavier, body board for a resting platform for person/gun, rope to hang onto, something to put keys in, maybe neon cathode rays and 7.1 surround sound (fish love death metal).

Great effort. You are correct. The fish is a juvenile dusky Morwong and is also known as butterfish. As they get older they seem to lose the spots on the tail.

In the future you'll start targeting his/hers relatives - Magpie perch, Red Morwong, Banded Morwong, Blue Morwong, Queen Snapper and Jackass. Which are all obtainable in Vic and are far better eating.

Great work with the float. Make sure you can attach your catch bag to your float. Dont have the bag attached to your waist with fish in it. You will be harassed by rays and seven gills or something bigger that might think your part of the food chain. Catch bag can also be used to hold items like Abalone knife, bottle of water, etc

There is also a good vid on the site which goes for bout 10mins that shows you common fish you will encounter. Good if you are still learning your fish species. There is also a good list of fish and they're eating qualities put together by the likes of Rhino, Brett and others. I highly recommend going through these.

Hope to see more reports and now you definitely know gun shoots straight.

Good shooting

Geoff

_________________
Watch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnsjOA1G3wE&sns=em

Oh and more importantly I forgot besides knowing the species you are targeting know the min size if any and the daily possesion limit eg Morwong (all species combined) 23cm and 5 per person per day.

Fish seem to look a lot bigger under the water

Geoff

_________________
Watch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnsjOA1G3wE&sns=em

Good work with the Morwong Julia, may have tasted a bit better than the Wrasse my wife speared.
I think we will be heading back to St. Leonards or somewhere on the Bellarine tomorrow morning.

Geoff, is the video or fish lists easy to find, i will have a look when i get home tonight.

Michael.

congrats on your first fish Julia. Hope its the first feed of many that comes from you hunting in PPB!



You may be setting the bar a bit high there Gropes! Sure Magies are easily found and nice eating, but red mowies, blue mowies and queen snapper? How many of them have you shot in Victoria?

_________________
bluedevilspear@hotmail.com

I strongly advise against this! A SFD member once did just that and had a long wait for a second set to be brought from home.

True that Blacky!!! That was the most boring part of 3-4hrs of my life!!! Get a lock box that attaches to your car!

Thanks Bluegroper, you'll love what I did to the float today. I modified it... The innertube now has a jigsaw-foam platform secured on top of it:
http://thumbs2.ebaystatic.com/m/m5Dk2ZA ... cQ/140.jpg

This foam can be lifted to reveal a Foldable bucket inside the inner tube. This bucket can be filled with ocean water and used to store fish in. The foam more-or-less seals the top of the bucket.

The flag is now sturdier and can be pushed into one of the holes of the foam. It is also therefore removable.

I'd post a photo, but I deflated the inner tube to store it.

All I'm missing is a way to secure my gun on top of the float.

I don't think I'll be counterweighting it, seems to do the job so far.

Watto, how'd you manage to lose your keys?

And I thought Tomic was into himself!

Yeah Octo your right my apologies ladyjiles. My aim was not to try to set the bar high. But offer a comparison of species that are closely related to a dusky morwong that you could "potentially"spear down the track........ and were better eating.

As for how many queen snapper ive shot. Zero. Ive always admitted to being a newbie. But most of the time when i make remarks bout people posts i try my best to make my comments positive especially if they look like there trying to help someone.

Geoff

_________________
Watch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnsjOA1G3wE&sns=em

No drama mate. Don't really care if you are a newbie or not - I was just uncomfortable with info being posted thats not right. Myself, I've never seen or shot red morwong/blue morwong in Victoria and I've only seen a small jackass morwong in PPB once, I have never shot one anywhere.

Julia most people in Vic start their spearing in PPB. Plenty of great eating species to target like flathead, six-spine LJ's, flounder, squid etc.

Now can we please get back onto how Watto lost his car keys off his float and how some farking hardcore bloke with a criminal history was able to break into his car for him using a shaft with single point and flopper??!!

_________________
bluedevilspear@hotmail.com

Hey Remickz,

The video is in fish identification? Its called "Video of a few of vics most commonfish"

Geoff

_________________
Watch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnsjOA1G3wE&sns=em

Haha Puss, great stuff!!! Had keys in a dry capsule which was attached to my catch bag, catch bag attached to float via shark clips. I didn't ensure the shark clips were closed properly and catch bag de-attached from float and drifted away...there out there somewhere!!!
Which resulted in myself and Puss prying the door open using Torelli kill knives and Puss dropping the shaft in and hooking the door latch...had to remove fuses and unconnect the wires going to the horn and alarm to stop the racket! Costed me a dinner date with the ex misses!!!