Parrotfish

 Picked up a nice bluebarred parrotfish off the rocks in the marina yesterday by chance and wondering if anybody has had luck actively targeting them at all?

A few months ago while walking the rocks I noticed a fair few blue shadows over the shallow reefs and up close to the rock walls in the corner of the channel.... I figured they were blue bone and had tried casting crabs and occy at them but wasn't drumming up any interest whatsoever. On another day, it was very glassy and upon a closer look I could see that they were actually parrotfish so quit trying to catch them as I thought they were vegetarian. 

When casting really lightly weighted prawns around some pillars and rock walls yesterday, I picked up a nice fish which was bloody good on the plate also! Prior to landing this fish I also had a really quick run and the leader clean cut, which after catching the parrotfish and looking at the mouth on the thing, suspect this could have been the culprit. 

My question is, has anybody had any success chasing parrotfish on a hook and line or just as an occasional bycatch? 


Posts: 936

Date Joined: 26/03/17

only one i have ever caught

Mon, 2023-02-13 08:53

only one i have ever caught was by spear in exmouth, and agree it tasted great.

never targetted them on line, but cant see why either a bread bomb, or even a fly may not work??

reckon they would go hard!

tcarroll's picture

Posts: 241

Date Joined: 17/12/13

Dirty Fighter

Mon, 2023-02-13 09:29

 Yep! This thing was a dirty fighter..... Luckily I could see where it had darted in to the rocks so managed to walk along and get it out from under the ledge and land it. Got bricked by 2 good fish prior that I didn't get eyes on but heaps of smaller bluebone around so suspect could have been some bigger models in amongst them. 

scotto's picture

Posts: 2469

Date Joined: 21/04/08

theyre awesome

Mon, 2023-02-13 12:27

Theyre awesome on  the tooth! I got some belters ff GArths rock (dodging the sharks) 20 years+ ago. they taste just like baldy I reckon. 

 

if i see a big one, I'll plug it no worries. I was happily surprised last weekend to see some healthy schools/specimens at Rotto whilst snorkelling.