Queenfish
name: Queenfish
other names: Queenie. Leatherskin
Queenfish are excellent sport fish, dazzling anglers with their speed, acrobatics, powerful agility and voracious appetites.
Queenfish have on their upper body blue-green colour, lower body is silver with golden tints with a shiny silver belly.
Large dark spots along body and a forked tail.They have compressed bodies with a jutting lower jaw, large mouth and eyes. Skin is rough to touch.
Queenfish are a coastal species that can be found in offshore reefs, estuary systems, inshore reefs, bomboras, rocky headlands, islands and bays. They are best caught at first and last light on rising tides in and around estuary mouths, as well as at tide changes and new moons around islands and bomboras. They prefer warm to hot green or slightly discolored waters with plenty of tidal movement. They are predominantly a summer fish.
They prefer small fish such as mullet, garfish, herring, anchovy, mudskipper's, whiting, prawns, squid. They normally hunt the mid-water to the surface for food. When you can find a shoal of Queenfish feeding you will see them ball up the prey before.
Most Queenfish that are caught in the 1.0-7.0 kilos range, but they can grow up to 15.0 kilos. Queenfish feed on small, free swimming crustaceans, small crabs, and fishes. Adult queenfish spawn in the summer. The eggs are free floating. Tiny young queenfish, less than 1 inch long, appear in late summer and fall; first at depths of 20 to 30 feet, gradually moving shoreward until they enter the surf zone when 1 to 3 inches long.
For bait fishing use almost any fish strip baits or squid. Queenfish love lures and will take minnows, poppers, jigs, spoons and trolling heads. For rod and reels trolling near rocky headlands is a good way to trap Queenie's.
Line should be 20kg mono leader and a floating rig. Large and sturdy hooks are necessary for these strong fish.
