Yellowtail Kingfish

Common Name: Yellowtail Kingfish
Scientific Name: Seriola lalandi
Maximum Size: 250cm
NSW Record: 43.00kg
Range: QLD, NSW, VIC, TAS, SA, WA.

The famous “Kingy”! A much sought after species, the fighting qualities and sheer size of large Yellowtail Kingfish make them a prized catch for just about any spearfisher. Found around headlands, islands and occasionally in estuaries, any spot holding large amounts of baitfish near deepwater is a likely spot to see a Yellowtail Kingfish.

This species has “counter-shaded” body, with a greenish-silver dorsal surface, a dark stripe along the lateral line from head to tail, and a white belly. The yellow coloured tail stands out quite strongly underwater, and a good indication of large size is a relatively small tail. This species is confused with the Amberjack (Seriola dumerili) and the Samson fish (Seriola hippos) which have a similar body shape, but lack the yellow tail and have a dark stripe running diagonally through the eye.

Male Kingfish mature at around one year of age and 47cm fork-length, whereas females take longer to reach breeding age at 4 years and 83cm fork-length. This species spawns in the spring-summer period, the young fish stay well offshore until 40-50cm in length. Maximum age for this species is over 20 years.

Kingfish are often targeted using flasher or burley to attract the fish towards the diver. The best approach to get into range seems to be to simply wait for the fish to approach whilst hanging in mid-water. A speared fish will often be surrounded by other Kingfish, so a quick dive on a fish another diver has speared will often result in another capture. The recreational catch for this species is estimated to be between 120 and 340 tonnes per year.

King Fish Cup

THE KINGFISH CUP – A yearlong competition split into three geographical zones along the coast where each quarter divers submit photos and a 200 word story of their capture to the USFA.  All entries will be posted online on our website and on the USFA Facebook Page.  Great quarterly prizes and bragging rights will be up for grabs.  There will be a Kingfish Cup shirt with iron on transfers available for divers to record their catches on their shirts as bragging rights.  This is mainly aimed at the younger demographic who frequent the social media and aims to create friendly competition and all round traffic to the website.

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The spin offs for this will be the exposure the website and Facebook sites gain and the follow on quality information and resources we can then offer from that same site.  It will also tie in with the sponsorship with the traffic justifying the support from suppliers for prizes.  Long term archives will be created full of photos and stories which will in themselves be a drawcard to the site as the entries grow.  This is just a brief overview, but we are not far off having everything in place for this program to go live!