schnell76
New member
Thought I would post this on the local club forum to see if someone could ID it. I was fishing over the weekend in the back waters of Spruce Creek in Port Orange on a residential dock and caught something very odd. It was about 10" long and had skin/scales that looked like a flounders coloration. Spots of different colors, all brown though. It resembled a catfish somewhat, but had large spiny side fins (about the size of a softball) that were all webbed together. It also had short (maybe 1/2") spines along its body with an almost exoskeleton for its head (head was very solid feeling). Rest of the body was fleshy though. It croaked when I removed the hook. Caught it on a shrimp in about 3'-4' of water near oyster beds and a dock. The really wierd part is it had 4 (I think) shrimp like legs on its underside on each side (8 total) of it that it used to "walk." From searching via google and FWC it seems to resemble a smooth scorpionfish in this link http://www.deepseaimages.com/dsilibrary/showphoto.php?photo=6600 Only differences were the legs and the side fins were much larger. I took a couple pictures with my camera phone, but they all came out kind of dark. The fish looked like it was stressed as well, so that would explain the darkness to him, since he had more coloration like in the link when I first pulled him up. A neighbor that has lived on Spruce Creek for about 10 years has never seen one out of these waters and thought it resembled an invasive species, but was not 100% sure of that.
So, any ID help would be appreciated. I can email a photo off my phone, but don't know how to post it once I have it off my phone so if someone could help I would appreciate it.
So, any ID help would be appreciated. I can email a photo off my phone, but don't know how to post it once I have it off my phone so if someone could help I would appreciate it.
The kids think they're aliens from the ocean abyss - so you're not alone. 
