Good Catch! Biggest Black Musselcracker Caught

Pietermaritzburg fishing enthusiast, Devan Naicker, has been making the news with his latest catch, a 47kg black musselcracker.

The huge black musselcracker caught by a Pietermaritzburg fisherman, Devan Naicker, has made the news! In an exclusive interview with East Coast Radio Naicker says he caught the fish from a boat that had launched at Durban harbour. He wasn’t sure of the co-ordinates, but it was somewhere off Durban shores.

Fishy Facts

This popular angling fish is endemic to the area between southern Mozambique and Cape Agulhas. This is according to Dr Bruce Mann of the South African Association for Marine Biological Research.

He confirms some EduOceans “Fun Fishy Facts” on the Fishing DBN Facebook page. These are that the black musselcracker – also known as poenskop, biskop or black steenbras – is one of the most iconic bottom fish species.

Fish tagging

Fish tagging has shown that black musselcracker are very resident as juveniles. On reaching maturity (at around 60 cm and an age of about 10 years), adult musselcracker move onto deeper reefs. There is a tendency for them to move northwards up the coast to spawn.

As their name indicates, black musselcracker feed largely on shellfish. They are able to crush the shells of their prey with their powerful jaws and strong, rounded teeth. They have an interesting reproductive biology and change sex from female to male (protogynous hermaphrodites), with all fish bigger than 95 cm being males.

Report Tagged Fish. Value of No-Take Areas Proven

Slow growing linefish

Black musselcracker is a slow growing line fish species that can live about 45 years! Life history characteristics such as slow growth, late maturity, high residency and sex change make this species very vulnerable to over-fishing. Although no formal stock assessment has been done, scientists estimate that the black musselcracker stock has been fished to less than 20% of their unfished state.

As a consequence, there is a strict bag limit of 1 per person per day and a minimum size limit of 50 cm total length. Work in South Africa’s Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) such as Tsitsikamma and Pondoland has shown that black musselcracker respond well to protection and increase in number and size over time.