Tarakihi
Fish · Last reviewed 2026-08-25
One of the commonest fish in the New Zealand recreational catch — a silver, black-collared bottom fish that lives fifty years and had no record here.
Safety: fish welfare — can cause injury needing treatment.
Catching Tarakihi
Everything here on fishing for it. Each entry opens the page behind it.
- Ground
If a New Zealand angler describes a day's bottom fishing, tarakihi is in it. It is among the most frequently caught species in the country's recreational sea fishery and it is on every fish counter, and outside New Zealand and southern Australia almost nobody has heard of it.
It is easy to recognise and hard to mistake: a deep, compressed, silvery fish with a dusky back, a small mouth with thick lips, and a broad black band across the nape immediately behind the head, running down to the base of the pectoral fin. Older Australian usage calls it jackass morwong; New Zealand uses the Māori name.
The number that changes how it should be thought about is its age. FishBase records a maximum of fifty years, on a fish reaching 70 cm and 2.9 kg, with low resilience. A fifty-year-old fish that weighs under three kilos is growing very slowly indeed, and a population of them does not replace heavy fishing quickly. That is not a reason not to fish for it; it is a reason to know it.
It lives demersally from 22 to 450 m and usually between 100 and 250 m over reef, foul and the broken ground beside it, so the everyday fishery is a boat fishery on ledgered baits — squid, pilchard, shellfish and crab — fished on the bottom with small hooks, because the mouth is small and the bites are delicate. It is taken from very deep shore marks in places, and mostly it is not.
Its range is a curious one: southern Australia including Tasmania, New Zealand, the St Paul and Amsterdam islands in the southern Indian Ocean, and southern South America.
Identification
No photograph of Tarakihi has passed identity review yet, so none is shown. FishingHQ publishes a species photograph only once somebody has confirmed the animal in it against the species record’s own diagnostic features.
- Scientific name
- Nemadactylus macropterus
- Family
- Latridae
- Water
- Saltwater
- Conservation status
- Not assessed
- Regions
- New Zealand, Australia, Central & South America, Indo-Pacific
- A broad black band across the nape just behind the head, running down to the pectoral base. Nothing else on the same ground carries it.
- Deep, laterally compressed, silvery body with a dusky bluish-grey back.
- A small mouth with noticeably thick, fleshy lips — a picker's mouth, which decides the hook size.
- An elongated ray in the lower pectoral fin, which is the family character shared with the trumpeters.
- FishBase records a maximum of 70 cm and 2.9 kg, and an age of 50 years.
Size
- Typical
- 400 g–1 kg (14 oz–2.2 lb)
- Large
- 1.5–2 kg (3.3–4.4 lb)
Exceptional: FishBase records a maximum of 70 cm, 2.9 kg and an age of 50 years
Lifecycle and reproduction
Demersal over a depth range of 22 to 450 m and usually 100 to 250 m, on and beside reef and foul ground. FishBase records a maximum age of 50 years and gives it LOW resilience — an extremely slow-growing fish, which is the single most important thing about it for anybody thinking about how much to take.
Not detailed on the FishBase record beyond the age and growth data. What the age data itself establishes is the reproductive arithmetic that matters: a fish taking many years to reach a modest size contributes to its population over a long period and is replaced slowly, so local depletion is easier to cause and slower to recover from than the fish's abundance suggests.
Feeding and senses
Takes small crustaceans, worms, shellfish and other benthic invertebrates picked off and out of the bottom with a small thick-lipped mouth. It is a delicate feeder, so it mouths a bait rather than seizing it and small hooks with small baits catch it where a snapper rig does not.
Bottom-oriented feeding by sight and touch in moderate depth, where light is limited. Scent does much of the work of attraction and the take is felt as a series of small taps rather than a pull, which is why anglers fishing for snapper on the same ground frequently miss them entirely.
Through the year
Available year-round over the same ground rather than running seasonally, with the shallower captures more common in the cooler months. Depth rather than calendar governs where the fish are.
Distribution
Indo-Pacific: St. Paul and Amsterdam islands in the Indian Ocean, southern Australia, including Tasmania, and New Zealand. Southwest Atlantic: southern South America
This is a biological range — where the species occurs, not a prediction that you will catch one. To browse the fishing geography FishingHQ holds, start at fishing places.
Why anglers care
Among the most frequently caught species in the New Zealand recreational sea fishery and a mainstay of Australian bottom fishing over the same latitudes. Taken on ledgered baits — squid, pilchard, shellfish and crab — on small hooks fished hard on the bottom over reef and foul, almost always from a boat. It is excellent eating, which is most of why it is fished for, and it is very slow-growing, which is why the bag matters.
Handling and returning
Sharp dorsal spines and a stiff gill cover on a fish that is usually brought up from a hundred metres or more. The real issue is barotrauma rather than injury: a tarakihi from that depth will not swim back down. Decide what is being kept before fishing rather than catching and releasing on ground where release does not work.
Safety
Fish welfare — Can cause injury needing treatment
Fish brought up from 100 to 250 m suffer barotrauma: the swim bladder expands, the eyes bulge, and the fish floats. A tarakihi returned in that state does not descend and does not survive, whatever it looks like as it swims off.
What reduces it: Decide in advance what is being kept, and move on or stop when that is reached rather than continuing to catch and release. Where fish must be returned, a descending device is the only method with real evidence behind it.
Where to go next
Similar and related fish
Where it lives
More fish
Not related to this page — just the rest of the section. There is little else joined to this subject yet, and a short page should still lead somewhere.
Sources and evidence
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Family, maximum size, depth range, environment, distribution and the IUCN assessment for Nemadactylus macropterus. FishBase records no IUCN assessment for this species, which is why the record says not assessed rather than estimating one.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- FAO Species Identification Guides for Fishery Purposes and the FAO Species Catalogues — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Identification, distribution, habitat and fishery description from the FAO species identification guides for fishery purposes.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- General angling website restatements of established technique — Various (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: The widely restated practitioner account of how this species is fished — tackle, method and the ground it is taken over.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Why the 3 connections on this page are here, and the sources
Similar and related fish
Backed by research — 1 connection
Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
Striped trumpeter
Nemadactylus macropterus carries one black band across the nape and reaches 70 cm, 2.9 kg and 50 years; Latris lineata carries three or four bold stripes running the length of the body and reaches 120 cm, 25 kg and 43 years. Both are slow-growing latrids on the same southern reef.
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: The morphology, size, depth range and distribution that separate these two species from one another.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How it is caught
What experienced anglers do — 1 connection
Widely and independently recommended by experienced anglers and specialist sources. This is real angling knowledge, not proof: controlled evidence for it is limited, and FishingHQ records it as convention rather than as a demonstrated effect.
Ledgering
A delicate small-mouthed bottom feeder taken on ledgered squid, pilchard, shellfish and crab over reef and foul from a boat. Anglers fishing snapper rigs on the same ground miss them, which is a consequence of the mouth rather than a matter of preference.
- FAO Species Identification Guides for Fishery Purposes and the FAO Species Catalogues — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Identification, distribution, habitat and fishery description from the FAO species identification guides for fishery purposes.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- General angling website restatements of established technique — Various (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: The widely restated practitioner account of how this species is fished.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Where it lives
Backed by research — 1 connection
Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
Inshore ground
Recorded as demersal over a depth range of 22 to 450 m and usually 100 to 250 m across southern Australia, New Zealand and the southern Indian and Atlantic oceans.
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Environment, depth range, habitat association and distribution for Nemadactylus macropterus.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy.