Crevalle Jack - Relationship To Humans

Relationship To Humans

The crevalle jack is a highly important species to commercial fisheries throughout its range, with the greatest quantity of the species taken from the eastern Atlantic. In some fisheries, it is one of the most abundant species and therefore of great importance in these regions. In the Americas, the reported annual catch has ranged between 150 and 1300 tonnes since 1950, with catches since 2000 ranging between 190 and 380 tonnes. Most of the eastern Atlantic catch is from Florida, although Caribbean fisheries, such as Trinidad, take considerable quantities of the fish. The western Atlantic catch statistics do not differentiate longfin crevalle jack from crevalle jack, thus must be considered a composite dataset. This region only comprises catch data from Angola, Ghana, São Tome, and Principe. These catches are much larger than in the east, with hauls of between 1000 and 38 000 tonnes per year recorded since 1950, although catches since 2000 only range between 1900 and 10 200 tonnes. Crevalle jack is taken by a number of fishing methods, including haul seines, gill nets, purse seines, trawls, handlines and trolling lines. The abundance of the species in Trinidad leads to the fish being taken in several quite different types of fishery; demersal trawls, artisinal gill nets and even beach seines, which illustrates the species' importance. In Trinidad, recreational fishermen also may sell their catch, which adds to the overall quantity of fish sold. Crevalle jack is sold at market fresh, frozen, salted, and smoked, and as fishmeal and oil.

The crevalle jack is a popular and highly regarded gamefish throughout its range, with the recreational catch of the species often exceeding commercial catches. The only amateur catch data available are from the US, which has an annual catch of around 400 to 1000 tonnes per year. In Trinidad, the species is the basis for several fishing tournaments. Crevalle jack are targeted from boats, as well as from piers and rockwalls by land based anglers. Fishermen often target regions where depth suddenly changes, such as channels, holes, reefs or ledges, with strong currents and eddies favourable. The fish take both live and cut baits, as well as a variety of artificial lures; however, when the fish are in feeding mode, they rarely refuse anything they are offered. Popular baits include both live fish, such as mullet and menhaden, as well as dead or strip baits consisting of fish, squid or prawns. Crevalle jack readily accept any style of lure, including hard-bodied spoons, jigs, plugs and poppers, as well as flies and soft rubber lures. There is some evidence based on long term observations that the species favours yellow lures over all others. Tackle is often kept quite light, but heavy monofilament leaders are employed to prevent the fish's teeth from abrading the line. Crevalle jack are generally considered quite poor table fare, with selection of younger fish and bleeding upon capture giving the best results. The flesh is very red and dark due to the red muscle of the fish, which makes it somewhat coarse and poor tasting. When pulled from the water, this fish snorts in what many people describe as "a pig-like" fashion. The crevalle jack has been implicated in several cases of ciguatera poisoning, although appears less likely to be a carrier than the horse-eye jack.