Sam was delighted to hear of the recapture, here are his thoughts all the way from Hawaii.

That’s a good recapture to show that Mooloolaba is an important ground for the juvenile blacks when they are not moving south. It’s a funny question why some fish don’t move south, but others do.

What we see is that strong years in the northern and southeast Queensland don’t always result in strong currents further south and it could be due to a couple of reasons. The EAC first appears between Cape Bowling Green and Marion Reef where It is stronger and extends further south (southern NSW coast) in March than in September.

So if some of these little guys stay nearshore they could miss the run with a strong EAC and as temperature is the main driver of movement with warm water sticking around well into the start of winter like this year, it provides sufficient conditions to keep the fish local.