Fishing Victoria Forum

repspec wrote:there was a thing in the fisheries guide a few years ago. It mentioned that any flatty caught in the waters East of the gippsland lakes was considered to be a dusky to try stop confusion.
Majority of the fish in WP and PPB will be Sand, blue spot or tigers(but they are easy to tell the difference)

OK, so sand and blue spot are pretty hard to tell the difference? Seems like it. Probably not a big deal as they have identical bag and min size limits. Would still like to know to satisfy my curiosity. If it makes any difference it was just a sandy bottom where we got them and not on a reef or any other structured bottom.

Waverley73 wrote:

repspec wrote:there was a thing in the fisheries guide a few years ago. It mentioned that any flatty caught in the waters East of the gippsland lakes was considered to be a dusky to try stop confusion.
Majority of the fish in WP and PPB will be Sand, blue spot or tigers(but they are easy to tell the difference)

OK, so sand and blue spot are pretty hard to tell the difference? Seems like it. Probably not a big deal as they have identical bag and min size limits. Would still like to know to satisfy my curiosity. If it makes any difference it was just a sandy bottom where we got them and not on a reef or any other structured bottom.

Tigers are normally only caught offshore in deeper water.

Sand and Dusky as well as Sand and Blue spot are easy to tell the difference.
Blue spot and dusky are very similar. Easiest way to tell which is which is the tail.

Rock flathead were the ones i was thinking about...not tigers...my mistake

:cheers:

Waverley73 wrote:

repspec wrote:there was a thing in the fisheries guide a few years ago. It mentioned that any flatty caught in the waters East of the gippsland lakes was considered to be a dusky to try stop confusion.
Majority of the fish in WP and PPB will be Sand, blue spot or tigers(but they are easy to tell the difference)

OK, so sand and blue spot are pretty hard to tell the difference? Seems like it. Probably not a big deal as they have identical bag and min size limits. Would still like to know to satisfy my curiosity. If it makes any difference it was just a sandy bottom where we got them and not on a reef or any other structured bottom.

Sand flathead although vary are generally that goldy/light brown-ish colour, and have darker brown dots all over them.

Tiger flathead are orange to almost red-ish and generally have narrower heads than most other species, certainly the sand flatheads which is what makes them obvious to tell the difference.

Most of the blue spots I've caught have been a grayish brown and have very distinguished light blue spots on them (I'd call them white spots tbh)

While the duskys are always a very dark green colour bordering on almost black and they have the distinct single black splodge on the top of the tail fin.

However everything I just posted about the colouration heavily depends on the water it lives in for the majority of its life. E.g a dusky flathead in the higher reaches of the Tambo or Lake Tyers will likely be a lot darker in colour than one that's managed to find it's way into one of the bays like Port Albert. There's also a bunch of other types of flatties but these are the most common in Vic to my knowledge.

At least your catching something lol