LOCATED in the Hunter region of NSW, Lake Macquarie is Australia’s largest coastal lake and provides some great sport fishing opportunities for the region’s anglers.
Over the years, Lake Macquarie has also earnt a reputation for producing some weird and wonderful fish species, including tropical sportfish such as giant herring and queenfish and the little known red bigeye as caught recently by Fisho’s Mark “Wilbur” Williams.
Wilbur, who lives close to Lake Macquarie and regularly fishes the vast waterway from his kayak recently had another weird fish encounter.
“I found this one floating on the surface while fishing in my Hobie in the lake,” he told Fisho this week.
“Interestingly, it was around the same location where I caught that red bigeye a few months back. Initially, I thought it was a diamond trevally, but after checking my copy of Marine Fishes of Tropical Australia and South-East Asia I’m now swayed towards it being a pennant fish.”
“I’m continually amazed by what Lake Macquarie produces!”
We checked in with Fisho’s resident fish guru Ben Diggles who also confirmed that the second ID was spot on.
“Yep, sub-adult pennantfish (Alectis ciliaris),” Diggles told us.
Thanks for sending in the photo Wilb, that’s a cool looking fish!
Anyone else see or catch a pennantfish in Lake Macquarie, or anywhere else for that matter? We’d love to hear from you.
