Heaps of these hanging around PNG

[Bill_V]

Hi guys,

I am still at work on a rig off PNG and can't believe the amount of fish up here. Can you guys tell me what this critter is, There is hundred of them up here hanging around with massive jacks.

[dhess]

My guess would be small mouth nannygai.

[Bill_V]

I was thinking nanygai but I have never actually caught one before so wasn't sure. I just googled them and I can see some likeness now.

[aussie123]

Possibly Red Bass

[dhess]

Possibly Red Bass

Could be but I reckon red bass are a bit chunkier and don't have the face marking.

[tugger]

I can believe it I used to work on a large crude oil tanker and we had the run up to PNG to a single point mooring which we could hook up to and get our floating pipe to deliver the crude from. It had a under sea pipe which lay on a bed of rock and then was covered in rock which made for an ideal structure for all sorts of large fish.

This pipe line ran from the single point mooring to an unmanned rig which was a pumping station for us and every time we swung over this pipe we would catch big reef mangrove jacks from 6 to 8 kilo. Also the big black jewfish would be just to each side of the pipe the fishing was unreal and we would be able to bring them all home in our freezers onboard when we got back to brisbane.

The rigs I worked on in western australia had plenty of fish life to and the boys on the rig tenders I knew used to clean up on all sorts of qaulity fish

[aussie123]

Possibly Red Bass

Could be but I reckon red bass are a bit chunkier and don't have the face marking.

The reason I think it may be a Red Bass is they have a deep groove on their face between their eyes and nostrils.

Even though those pics are not the clearest,there does seem to be a groove in front of its eye.

[dhess]

Just did a bit of research. I reckon its almost definitely a large mouth nannygai. :blush:

Lets wait for Elops' final call.

[Bill_V]

Yeah, sorry about the quality of the pics, I am just grabbing screen grabs during dives, I have heaps of raw footage and a quick vid I have started to edit up. The internet out here is no great and has bandwidth issues so not easy to post up good quality pics or video. Heading home tomorrow so I will post up some video of massive jacks etc in the next week or so.

After checking large mouth nannies on google images I am thinking that dhess might be right but we will se what elops says haha

[fifis101]

Definitely a large mouth nannygai. Check out the link:

/>http://www.daff.qld.gov.au/28_9085.htm

The marking near its tail is the giveaway.

[Bill_V]

Thanks guys, yep after checking out fifis101's link I reckon that mystery is solved. There is some big ones getting around here and the swim right up to the ROV all the time, they hang around with the Jacks in tow, pretty cool to watch. I will get video posted when I get home so you can check it out.

Hey Tugger, were you on FPSO's mate? Not a bad gig that.

[tugger]

No I was on oil tankers running from brisbane then I got onto a couple of exploration rigs 1 was a drill ship the other a semi submersable drill rig then got onto a pipe layer

[Bill_V]

Hey tugger,

I am on a semi sub right now, I have worked on drill ships, boats and pipe lay barges as well. So you know what it is like out here. I have been ROVing for 11 years now, just got tomorrow's chopper cancelled......I bet you know what that feels like too then haha

[tugger]

Yep a couple of the jobs were in bass strait and the weather cancelled alot of the choppers down there but I didnt mind to much as I was still a single bloke back then and I had been going to sea for more than 10 years then and was used to it