Garfish Photos Information | Catching & Fishing for Garfish | Cooking Garfish

Garfish (Hemiramphidae) Photographs and Information

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Scientific Name	Hemiramphidae Family
Location	VIC, TAS, SA, WA, NT, QLD, NSW
Season	All year round
Size	To 51 cm
Australian Species Code	37 234001
Taste, Texture	Sweet to mild taste, fine to medium texture.

Information about Garfish (Hemiramphidae):

Garfish live in coastal waters, in sheltered bays and are occasionally found in estuaries.

Their diet consists of seagrasses and algae as well as small crustaceans. Found in saltwater but they sometimes venture into brackish and freshwater.

Garfish flesh is fine grained and white and soft texture, with a delicate taste when cooked, but it is also suitable for sashimi. They have many fine bones, that can be eaten. Garfish have a low to medium fat content and flavour is sweet to mild. They are usually sold whole or as fillets with skin on. When sold whole it is important to remove the gut as tainting from seagrass can occur.

Garfish are a popular target for recreational anglers. Garfish also make good bait, especially for Jewfish (Mulloway) when used live. They are often attracted to a light when fishing for them at night. They are generally surface feeders, swimming in schools and can be caught with a floating bait.

Garfish are an important commercial fishery for South Australia, Victoria and, to a lesser degree, Tasmania. The are fished using haul nets, ring nets, dab nets and small mesh purse seines.

Colour of raw fillet:	Translucent with silver stripe, off white.
Texture:	Fine to medium texture, soft.
Fat Content:	Low to medium.
Flavour:	Sweet to mild.

Cooking Garfish:

Garfish are small and rather tasty. They can be filleted to produce attractive boned-out, butterfly fillets, which are exceptional for delicate dishes.

For best effect, cook garfish whole and deep fried. Larger species can be filleted, coated in batter and fried or grilled on a very hot plate, with the skin on and lightly dusted with seasoned flour.

Poaching or steaming garfish fillets in a court bouillon will cause the fillets to curl up into half moon shapes which can be attractively served with a salad of buttered sage, snow pea runners and lemon butter.

Recovery Rate for Fillets: 47% from whole garfish (gut in)

**Garfish (Hemiramphidae) Photographs and Information**

Information about Garfish (Hemiramphidae):