Summer 15 -- enter the el niño

[crabmeat thompson]

i can confirm fruit flies too and little black sugar ants.

harvested about 30 habaneros y'day too. after the mushroom attack, everything is back on track.

[steve shearer]

Exit the El Nino

It's been gone for about 6 weeks now in my eyes.

I think the first real sign of significant pattern change was the rain/surf events of August. That pre-loaded the atmosphere with evaporative moisture content that just wasn't there last summer.

Anyhow, still in neutral phase. One monsoon event does not make an el nina.

[steve shearer]

Starting to have trouble keeping expectations in check...

Tonk's you realise this was all as real as Father Christmas drinking the Asahi left out for him, right?

It's all gone mate.

[--++sunstroke++--]

So, should be expect more swell / surf than in El Nino, or less?

[marauding mullet]

blue water is in here but no pelagics yet.

Out 21 Kms from Coffs the current is raging down hill, fish and hot water won't be far away. That thing is anchored to the bottom btw.
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10 ... =2&theater

[steve shearer]

Current has been raging downhill here for a few weeks on and off.

no pelagics yet, thought they are getting blacks and mahi-mahi on the 32.

[crabmeat thompson]

mahi mahi ... the best fish in the ocean?

discuss

[steve shearer]

I won't dispute that.

Caught a bull mahi-mahi over a hundred pounds about forty nautical miles south of Honolulu sailing for the Marshalls in twenty foot open ocean swells on a gaff-rigged schooner.

Thing was a majestic beast.

[Wubic Pig]

Had some done in a tandoori oven but not with the tandoori spices in south India. One of my favourites. Whiting and JD equal first. Flathead close second. Mate is trying to tell me they mate for life and I shouldn't eat them???

[marauding mullet]

Mate is trying to tell me they mate for life and I shouldn't eat them???

It's true, they pair up for life, and it's a brief life too, maybe 2 or 3 years. Fascinating creature, fastest growing fish in the sea, from 0 to 40 plus Kgs.
I used to catch lots off the FADS at Port Stephens, Newcastle and Swansea, and off the anchor chains of the coal ships waiting to come into Newcastle.
They hang around any floating object, pallets, driftwood, palm fronds. If you get one from a floating object, you always know it's husband or wife is there too so keep trying. Green ones are female, blue ones male.
They'll be showing up in NSW about now.

[steve shearer]

they've been on the FAD here since November.

[bomboraa]

Mahi Mahi (by the way as far as I know is pronounced my my) mating for life seems to be a bit of a romantic myth, Like to see some peer reviewed papers on this. I can't find any. Don't know any pelagics which mate for life. They are all sluts. The biggest bulls usually loners.
Warm blue water off Sydney at the mo, lots of marlin (There's vid or pic going round of a small black marlin swimming past a rock wall deep inside Botany Bay!), and plenty mahi mahi on the trap buoys and fads. Most of the dollies are rats but some bigger if livies or big skirted lures used.
One of the reasons WW11 US air force and navy survival kits included lead headed hair tailed jigs was to catch mahi mahi attracted to floating life rafts.

[crabmeat thompson]

all this mahi mahi love warms my heart.

my only real memory of my grandfather was when I was about 9 or 10 and he took me out way to sea from bribie island telling me we were going to catch the greatest fish in the ocean.

we had about 4 or 5 hook ups lost one at the gaff at the boat and the weather from the south was coming in at us. He didn't like the look of it, so we started coming back to shore on a slow troll and he hooked up one that was as big as me from the waist down. He fought it for what seemed like forever ( i hadn't caught much more than a bream, flat head or shovel nose at that point in my life) but in reality it was probably on 10-12 minutes.

Still watching my grandfather bring it in ... the struggle was real.

we ate it that night with fresh salad, and the eating really completed what that fish is all about. still never eaten a fish like it.

[bomboraa]

Magic eating fresh, but get mushy if frozen. By the by sorry Menton but colour's also nothing to do with gender. Seen gold, green and blue in both. There are two species of Mahi Mahi, and they are the only members of their scientific family. Fish bore, I know.

[marauding mullet]

At the end of the day Bommy it matters not to me, as long as I'm having fun.
I've had my kids out catching these fish, and I hope they have the same fond memories as you Braithy.

[bomboraa]

Nice fish! Bet catching him was fun, as ya say that's all that matters, bet the kids love em too.

[steve shearer]

At the end of the day Bommy it matters not to me, as long as I'm having fun.
I've had my kids out catching these fish, and I hope they have the same fond memories as you Braithy.

Why the frown mate?

Nice dolly.

[alakaboo]

The dolphin fish was named by Carl von linne (Linnaeus) the Swedish naturalist who invented binomial nomenclature, the naming protocol for all living things, and is considered by many to be the Shakespeare of the sciences.
As far as I know he never left Europe and can't possibly have seen a live specimen. One was probably collected for him by his protege Daniel Solander who travelled widely with Cook and was the first university educated man to set foot on Australian soil

Despite not having seen one in all its glory he still gave it a name derived from the Greek word for apex, so impressed was he by the fish's colouration and noble bearing