BigBendFishing.Net

So my brother speared a fish out around the bird racks in front of Big Grassy Island off the Taylor County Coast. He shot it thinking it was a large blackfish, but when he got it up into the boat, he realized it was not. He didn't take any pictures, but he said the scales were too small to have been a blackfish. It was solid black and had a mouth similar to a blackfish or a grouper. When he filleted it, the skin was too thin to remove with a fillet knife, so he just scaled it and called it good. Wasn't a sheepshead or a black drum or any type of grouper that I know of. He also said that after he scaled it, he could see that it had a lateral line like a mackeral. We've both been fishing these waters all our lives, and although I didn't see the fish myself, I don't think it sounds like any species I have seen before. Anybody got any ideas as to what it could have been? Hopefully he hasn't broken any laws.........

HEVE YA EVEER SEEN A SNOOK, THEY HAVE A LATERAL LINE DOWN BOTH SIDES, THIS IS THE ONLY THING A SNOOK HAS TO MATCH WHAT YOU DESCRIBED.
PA THE OLD MAN

I assume you meant he thought it was a tripletail, which is also called a blackfish. Sounds to me like a common Rock Bass(Black Sea Bass) I have seen faint stripes form down the length on some of them.....

Rock Bass


Oh, and the rock bass skin is super thin, I filet them with an electric knife.

How big was the fish? Anything over 12 or 14 inches would rule out a Rock Bass.

Dubble

Yeah, what I call a Blackfish is actually a Black Sea Bass or Black Rock Bass. I'm very familiar with them, and according to my brother, that's not what it was. They have hard scales, this fish supposedly did not. From what he described it was in the 14 to 16 inch range. I'm also pretty sure it couldn't have been a tripletail. Couldn't have been a snook, not far enough south for that, also, it looked nothing like a snook. Thanks for the effort. He said it looked exactly like a large mouth bass, only solid black and nowhere near freshwater.

http://indian-river.fl.us/fishing/fish/snookfat.html
Could have been this uncommon species of Snook according to the scales and size description and the resemblance to a bass.

Sure sounds like a Triple Tail to me. I seem to remember reading in the description this fish was all black. I have seen lots of Snook and never a one was black, even way up the Caloosahatchee in the feeder creeks. Here are some pics of Triple Tail for your brother to compare to http://www.picsearch.com/search.cgi?q=t ... k%3D&navpr
FF