Fishing confusion: Sorting out the difference between a kob and a salmon
Unbelievably, in other parts of the world, even without the Dutch and the English, there are still another whole bunch of names for the very same fish, including teraglin, weakfish, mulloway, Jewfish and Simonfish.
Eternal conflict between the Dutch and the English throughout the last few centuries left us many things.
Even here in Port Shepstone we have the age-old mostly friendly rivalry between Sheppie High and Suidies.
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And… salmon and kob! The English version – salmon – is completely wrong.
But when those guys in their red coats got here, that was the closest thing to our silver and copper shoaling fish.
When the Dutch got here, in khakis, they thought the fish looked like their kabeljou and so they called the same fish kob. Also completely wrong.
Where the word daga came from is anyone’s guess. You could maybe blame the Dutch for that, too!
The end result is that we have fish that goes by two names, with a few variations thrown in.
Dusky kob is another favourite, but it doesn’t end here, for there are four different species of kob, or salmon.
From here we will have to delve into Latin to get by.
Our main suspect is the big guy and he gets huge, up to 80kg, with even reported to be in the 100kg region.
Slow-growing, at 80kg, that is a 30-year-old fish.
With his sheer bulk and power, this guy dominates the inshore shallow water ambush hunters.
His name is, in Latin – Argyrosomus japonicus.
The silver kob is next, looking exactly like the dusky (or daga), but with a sharper dorsal, and not getting so big.
He lives for about 15 years to get to his maximum size of about 15kg.
He has a round tail and a yellow mouth and is not to be confused with completely different but same looking geelbek salmon. You don’t get a geelbek kob for some reason, but if you did, it would be the silver kob.
He goes by the name of Argyrosomus inodorus.The next suspect on the list is the square-tailed kob, a smaller, and even more rare fish.
Vulnerable and endangered, he has a kind of square tail and only gets to about 12kg. He is also found in Madagascar and Mozambique.His name is Argyromus thorpei.
There is a fourth suspect too, but he’s gets tiny.
We call him the snapper salmon. Or snapper kob, if you are Dutch.
These guys really look like a little kabeljou from Europe. He only gets a half a metre or so, has three distinct front teeth, two up and one down, to give them the cool name of a snapper fish.
Incorrectly, for he is definitely not a snapper. His name is Otholithes Ruber.
Unbelievably, in other parts of the world, even without the Dutch and the English, there are still another whole bunch of names for the very same fish, including teraglin, weakfish, mulloway, Jewfish and Simonfish (guess where that is from).
But it’s croaker and drum that are recognised as the correct name for the Sciaenidae group of fish that these various kob all belonging to.
There are even more species, some even being endemic to Madagascar and getting even bigger than our kob do.
They are called meagres there, with the southern meagre, or Argyrosomus Hololepidotus, getting to over 100kg.
And he looks exactly like a kob.
ON A SIDE NOTE …How to catch and release the kind way
Guest at the Umzimkulu Marina, Dallas de Wet, made the most of another beautiful South Coast winter morning recently.
He caught and released two handsome little koblets down at the Mzimkhulu river mouth area. They are most likely the main species of kob as discussed above and will grow to 80kg if left alone.
Note how gently and considerately Dallas is holding his little koblet in the accompanying photograph.. No fingers or hands near the gills or eyes, supported just long enough for a photo and back into the water, where the koblet can go back and tell his mates to watch out for Dallas on the beach! (Report by Sean Lange of The Sardine News)
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