THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

GUINEAN AMBERJACK Seriola carpenteri
Bucket List status – no result yet
Not a fish I am familiar with, though judging by the fact that it has both a boat and a shore record
inclusion from The Lizard in Cornwall and Herm in the Channel Islands respectively, perhaps it is a
species which both myself and other sea anglers ought to be familiarizing ourselves with.
A warm water species more normally found from Angola north to the Bay of Biscay where it feeds in
coastal waters on squids and small fish. But as with a growing number of previously unseen species
around the British Isles, one that is probably going to be encountered with increasing regularity as sea
temperatures continue to climb.
Unfortunately, as with the greater amberjack and almaco jack with which I am familiar, again it's small
specimens only at the moment, though still well capable of being a bit of a handful, as are all members
of the jacks family carangidae.
Potentially, a bit of a handful to identify too, being very similar to both the greater amberjack and the
almaco jack about which I have already said that if it is important to know the exact name of the fish
you've caught, it might be better to hang on to it because of the destructive gill raker count required to
separate the three species, and even that unfortunately isn't conclusive as there are slight overlaps.
On a more positive note, and again as previously mentioned, fishery scientists should be only too happy
to see such a rare fish from home waters, and will therefore probably be equally happy to help.
Superficially, a powerful looking fish without lateral line scutes, the back and upper flanks of which
are a coppery bronze becoming silvery white below, with a diffuse straight amber stripe mid flank
passing 'through' the eye to the tail, plus a darker strip, again passing 'through' the eye, from the mouth
to the base of the first dorsal fin, and again in the juvenile fish there can be five darker vertical bars.
The gill raker count should be between 19 and 23.
ALMACO JACK Seriola rivioliana
Bucket List status – result outside of home waters
208
Almaco jacks, greater amberjacks, and
guinean amberjacks all look pretty
much identical and share very similar
life styles. Certainly when they are
juveniles. Only when the AJ's really
start piling on the pounds taking them
way bigger than the potential maximum
for the other two does picking that
particular species out become less of a
problem. It's in the lower cross-over
weight category that accurate
identification can be a nightmare.
All three are a coppery to olive brown
Greame Pullen, Almaco Jack, Ascension
on the back and upper flanks becoming
off-white to silvery below, with a dark
bar running up from the mouth
'through' the eye towards the base of the first dorsal fin, plus a diffuse amber stripe starting in front of
the eye and running 'through' it along the flank to the tail.