you think. 

would love to see them down this way in good numbers. certainly not what you would expect to see down here. 

was it released or kept, any idea

 someone will get another day and get a great feed. good on him on releasing when not sure, bet he would kick hiself later tho

 We caught and released a little Rankin a couple of years ago when fishing for pinkies between the islands, was a bit smaller than that one wonder if it's grown a little 

 Using Kalbarri as an example, Rankins were not a common catch inshore or near offshore. I remember catching one in the 80's, deckie, who had done a lot of fishing, had never seen one before.  Small ones started showing up more frequently in the early noughties, and just got bigger. Quite a common catch around town now; the only barrier to getting big ones is that, once people know how well they eat, nothing gets returned.

iI was the same with redthroat--always common offshore, you just would only rarely see them inside about 24 fathoms. After the big flood of warm water late 90's, where we had a run of 28 deg temps well north of town in autumn, suddenly we were up to our **rse in tiny little redthroats anywhere from the beach out.  They stayed and grew, quite quickly, to where they were a takeable size within 3 or 4 years. And are still there, seem to have established themselves.

You will always get lost wanderers of any species turning up well outside of their normal range, but this has been a definite shift, althogh the average water temps don't seem to have shifted overall. Certainly more red emperor in the middle offshore grounds, and pink snapper numbers are well down last few years. Although this is quite possibly down to the ongoing massacre of breeding aggregations out off Carnarvon--yes, I know, it's been going on forever, and now they finally seem to be accepting that it is not sustainable, due to the Carnarvon catch dropping right away over recent years, not making quota. Those fish migrated from mid-west waters to spawn up there, we all knew it, Fisheries wouldn't accept that. So we may be heading to a stock collapse.

Contrast that to the state of the Perth metro fishery, where protection of the spawning masses within Cockburn sound likely is the reason that fishery is now so healthy.

 Even when Fisheries-tagged snapper, tagged at Koks island, were recaptured west of Kalbarri, they wouldn't listen. When I was crayfishing, you'd see them move through 15-20 mile west-nor/west  of the river in late March early April. You'd see them on the sounder, catch them in pots, plenty on the line if you wanted to drop over. Wetliners agree with this, and also that by the  end of April, they were gone from there. Always some resident fish, but the big numbers were gone.  Moved further up. 

Local wetliners here , even those with  Shark Bay quota, have been agitating over this for years, saw the writing on the wall. And it sounds like the chooks have come home to roost. Like you said, things are likely happening soon. 

 Should be a target agenda for fisheires to protect these breeding agregations. With current technology, VMS and through catch data of comercial fishers it should be easier these days for identification of fishers targeting aggregations. 

I knew one comercial fisher who bragged about the aggregations he found of Rankin Cod out of Karratha, they fished them till they produced no more. I cant rember the figure he used but something like 300t in one year alone.

My cousins are comercial cray fishers had some discussions about the very same in regards to the lobsters marching north to big bank. They took some time to convince the fisheries of a pending iminent crash in loster stocks. Largey they atribute the closure of big bank as well as the new quota system to the current boom in lobster numbers.

I would suggest there is probably also a simular thing with the bigger Tailor. Back when the snapper trap fishery was opperating out of canavon on those agregations. Big catches of massive Tailor were also caught in the traps, these were used as bait for the snapper. There has been somewhat of a recovery in Tailor over the past few decades?

We are only going to see more and more of these tropical species in our bags in the future. Good to see you put it to redmap  

 what is this redmap thats mentioned

Is an app that you enter unusual catches into. This is my third entry but only one is my own catch.
I caught a Blue Spot Emporer behind Garden Island.
My mate caught this one in this post and another guy caught a coral crab near Applecross.
Apparently the Coral crab is only the second sighting south of Sharks Bay

 It is more than just an app, it is a study to gain data in relation to climate change and range extension southwards of tropical species. This is the website for it. www.redmap.org.au/

 i would like to see these ones migrate down here in big numbers but i dont think it will happen in my lifetime

 Definitely more northern species around lately then when I started diving again 20 odd years ago  have seen juvenile rankin at dongra as well as a increase in trevs goldspots  thicklip  even half a dozen gts around 12 /15 kg swimming with a good size tiger at leander few years back jobbies red bass at the abrols don't remember seeing that back when but never seen a big cod or grouper at rotto but they say they were common in the day who knows how long a natural cycle takes just make the most of it i think