Werrong Beach is about 12 nautical miles south of Cronulla

It is one of our favourite spots for sport and reef fishing. Because of the distance from Sydney it is not heavily fished. We had a very nice day with mixed catch of snapper, tarwhine, leather jacket, pig fish, wrasses, trevally and pike. And also a squid and a barracouta.

Barracouta are an excellent sporting fish which will have a go at anything that sparkles and will jump clear of the water chasing lures. In our case he took a live yellowtail under a balloon.

It is related to the great mackerel family and its allies. This slim, needle-toothed fish is usually dark, steely-blue or green along the top of the back and bright, metallic silver on the flanks and belly. There is a distinct black patch near the leading edge of the long, relatively high first dorsal fin. The forked tail is dark, often black. Although often caught at lengths between 50 and 140 cm, barracouta are very lightly built.

As with Peter’s catch, a typical barracouta measures under a metre in length and weighs between 0.8 and 1.5 kg.