Welcome to the July edition of Flycast.

The “know your fish” this month is the Estuary Cod (Epinephelus coioides) as suggested by Julian who caught three different fish that may or may not be different species during his recent trip to the Hinchinbrook Passage. It can be confusing enough when we fishermen use the same name for different species or different names for the same species, it is even more confusing when scientists, in this case ichthyologists, do the same.

According to the Queensland Government website there are 45 species of cod and groper (or grouper) listed as occurring in Queensland and many of them share the same common name(s), look similar and have overlapping distributions.

In the case of Julian’s catch the fish were identified as Estuary Cod, Black spot cod (Epinephelus malabaricus) Yellow Spotted Cod (Epinephalus areolatus) all of which are frequently misidentified as each other. Estuary cod also have a lengthy list of common names that they share with other members of its sub-family. For the sake of simplicity, the article deals with Estuary Cod but apart from minor differences in physical descriptions, applies to most members of the sub-family Epinephelinae. Confused? Welcome to the club.

The social aspect of our Club is one of its great strengths and the Club is proud to have one of our Junior Members representing NSW in the under 16’s women’s cricket academy team for the Mid North Coast. Read about Murphy’s achievement in this issue.

Our fly guru has given us his variant of Poppin’ Flats Shrimp by Jeremy Cameron. Paul’s video is very professionally presented and is not only instructive but also has an inspiring sound track. I can’t wait for the next one.

May your wader never leak and you always have a tight line.

Iain

View/Download July 2022 edition