Mystery Fish - Halibut Point

[PhlieRod]

Caught this off Halibut Point. Anybody know what it is?

I'm not very familiar with the species around here other than Stripers and Blues.

[JohnR]

looks like a perch but a little off

...and at halibut point?

[islander]

That's a choggie, or cunner

[BobG]

Yup,

That there's a choggie! The canal is full of them. Old time lobstermen used to set out "choggie traps" to catch them for lobster bait.
Also, i'd hate to tell you how many big bass I've opened up over the years that have had choggies in their tummies.;)

[Bob Parsons]

That's the biggest one I ever seen. They are edible.

[Quicksilver]

Yipes! A choggie that big! Gotta be the world record!

[BOBUP]

Somehow that doesn't look like a cunner as I remember them (last one I looked at up close was in the early 1940's.) The vertical stripes/bars dont seem familiar. As I remember it, they had a wicked overbite - somewhat like a girl I used to date.

[PhlieRod]

Also, I should have mentioned, this fish had a few very sharp, pointed teeth - almost like a walleye. The picture does not show that very well.

Do we still think it is a cunner?

[ruge13]

Yep... saw one caught this winter that was easily twice that size....hit a diamond jig. They are a good eating fish..

[Onshore]

Here's a pix of the NJ state record cunner which weighed 1 lb/14 oz.

Fishes of the Gulf of Maine" describes the Cunner or Chogset exactly as you have and notes they have been caught weighing up to 1.5 kg. They are a member of the Tautog family IGFA lists the all-tackle world record at .99kg for a fish taken at 2 Lights State Park in Maine in July 1999.

A kilogram is equal to 2.2046 lbs.. so the IGFA record weighed 2.182 lbs.

[PhlieRod]

Mystery solved. Thanks everyone!