new south wales Striped catfish/eel catfish

[FandDduo]

So we were fishing at crescent head estuary and the saltwater tide was coming in/ almost completely salt water by now. We were fishing with fresh caught mullet and thought we caught a flat head, felt like lifting a dead weight, not a great deal of fight, and we ended catching a striped eel looking thing, so we googled the fishing charts and it wasn’t on anything until we googled the description and found out it was highly venomous and freshwater. Anyone heard of freshies in saltwater?

[ellicat]

Was it brown ? There are salt water eel tail catfish around a lot of estuaries, but usually not too big.

[FandDduo]

No it was black and white striped, it looks exactly like the striped catfish

I have a pic

[Drop Bear]

I have seen these but smaller versions. I have seen them in a ball that looked like a stingray in the shallows. Not a freshwater one though. 

[Drop Bear]

https://fishesofaustralia.net.au/home/species/2766

[Drop Bear]

[FandDduo]

Thanks for the info! Odd it took my mullet though

[Ed.]

I have only seen the ones in the pic above whilst snorkelling  in saltwater only, they travel in small groups where the front ones will start to feed on the bottom  and the rearward ones go over the top and then drop over,  then they start to feed and repeat, so they travel forward in a line but then the original frontline ones will  end up in the back and then swim  over the others and go forward to the front. Probably some sort of protective defence habit. Only seen them twice, once at Bongaree, Bribie Island  and the other at Amity Point, Nth. Straddie. No idea how big they get as both times the balls consisted of small sized ones in groups of 20-30, very hard to count accurately as they were always on the move.

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

Weird! I've always thought of those things as an 'exotic' fish.

Cheers Hamish

[Ed.]

I used to see them being sold in aquarium shops that sold  salt water aquariums in Victoria, so was pleasantly surprised when I spotted the ones at Bribie Island, it was just after I moved to Qld with the family.

[Drop Bear]

On 16/05/2021 at 7:29 PM, AUS-BNE-FISHO said:

Weird! I've always thought of those things as an 'exotic' fish.

Cheers Hamish

If you are keen to see them, travel up the western beach of Moreton at low tide and look for dark patches. Most will be stingrays, some will be turtles, occasional ones will be Dugong and sometimes you will see the balled up school of catfish. Don your snorkel and have a look at them.