"Snake Mackerel" anyone?

SilverFly

SilverFly

Legend
Sharing this in case anyone is like me and loves learning about new species. Especially if it has fly fishing potential.

Anyway, I was watching a YT on gear fishing for giant chinook in Chile, when they took a day off from salmon to fish a large estuary for what they call "Sierra" in Chile. This fish looked familiar from other faraway fishing vids and turns out it's the same fish South Africans call "Snoek", and other names in Australia and New Zealand. Particularly in NZ it appears to be a target species on the fly. Officially it is a mackerel, belonging to the "snake mackerel" family (who knew?)

Apologies for the YT screenshot, but there's the vid info if anyone wants to watch these young dudes catch a bunch of huge chinook on flasher gear. What a cool looking fish.

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en.wikipedia.org

Thyrsites lepidopodea - Wikipedia

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This was a new one to me. Saw a video recently of a guy filleting one. Supposedly a great eating fish.
Great Northern Tilefish
SF

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Nick Clayton said:
Speaking of species that are new to me, I came across this the other day. What a cool fish!

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Can't tell what the skinny ribbon-like ones are, but they almost look like oarfish.

The ones at the bottom appear to be a type of pomfret. Much bigger than the ones we occasionally encounter on the albacore grounds. Wish they were more common because they're freaking delicious.
 
Stonedfish said:
This was a new one to me. Saw a video recently of a guy filleting one. Supposedly a great eating fish.
Great Northern Tilefish
SF

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Another cool fish. A bit out of fly range being a very deep water fish, but fascinating what can be caught deep dropping.

Some interesting deep drop vids for tilefish, swordfish, and various grouper on the Key West Waterman channel:

 
Nick Clayton said:
Not sure if my FB link worked correctly so here's some screenshots

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Caught these Pacific Pomfret on a jig several years ago. Much smaller than those slabs, but a cool surprise nonetheless. If you feel light pecks on a jig, just let it hang and work it up/down real slow. One of the best eating fish I've ever tasted.

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