Living on the edge with the Golden Trevally
Well I’ve been hard at work on my first ever eBook and it is beginning to take some shape and should be ready after our Fishing & Reef Tour Specialist’s trip to Weipa in mid June.
For those that haven’t noticed yet, I have included a link on the www.skippermeggs.com site to a You Tube video with some huge fish in it. You can take a look at;
http://skippermeggs.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=category§ionid=10&id=31&Itemid=34
This week though I’ll discuss another member of the Trevally family - the Golden Trevally or Gnathanodon Speciosus.
Unfortunately little is known on how the Golden Trevally’s life cycle begins but on the basis that most large members of the species are found around reef areas it is likely that this is where spawning takes place.
The other clue to the theory that the fish spawn on coral reefs is that the larval and juvenile stage of the Golden Trevally’s development is spent living on the edge amongst the tentacles of either a blue bottle or portuguese man-of-war. This would point to the fact that the Golden Trevally spawn offshore so that the currents and winds would send their larval stages to the same areas where the jellyfish are likely to be.
Right, so living in amongst the stingers doesn’t sound like much fun does it? Well in fact this is quite a good defence mechanism and it actually ensures that the juvenile fish survive their early life as predators steer clear of the impending danger of stinging tentacles.
The young Golden Trevally on the other hand marinates itself with a mixture of its own mucus and that of the jellyfish so that it becomes immune to any danger of being stung.
As if this gutsy start to life is not enough once they grow to about 50mm they leave the shelter of the stingers and take up residence alongside large sharks!
You’d think they had a death wish from an early age but swimming in the wake of sharks helps conserve their energy and they just love the scraps of food that the shark leaves behind when they feed.
Not only that, what silly predator would even bother to have a go at them and risk running into a shark for their trouble?
Fish up to 3kg take up residence in rivers and are often caught when casting for mangrove jack and barramundi.
They are a schooling fish and will migrate up and down the coast. They will also feed on the sandy bottoms in shallow water and can often be found “tailing” ie feeding off the bottom of the shallows with their tails sticking out of the water.
Like my mother, Golden Trevally don’t have any teeth and those soft mouths and Mick Jagger lips are good for sucking food off the muddy bottom of a river or sandy reaches of an ocean floor.
Larger more mature fish will almost always live on reef areas and can grow to a size of 1 metre in length and are said to weigh in up to 35kg although interestingly the Australian record is only 15kg.
Next week I will start to review the life cycle of some of the Northern Australian pelagics.
Until then,
Sea you later!
Skipper Meggs