Tope Pup?

Hi
Fished Talacre today and got what i thought was a Smoothhound however after posting elsewhere been told its a Tope Pup. Caught on Mackerel strip and about 60 cms long. Fairly quiet day had a couple of Weavers, and a couple of dabs. No one else fishing.

Thanks for posting, nice catch
Do you recall if it had obvious " shark" teeth? Tope do, Smooth Hound don't have obvious triangle teeth, more of a crushing pad for crab etc

Yes ive been asked this but because it was hooked cleanly in the side of the mouth i never looked into the mouth when i unhooked it. The person who has identified it says the rear dorsal fin is small as per tope and the fact it took mackeral would be very unusual for a smoothie.

Nice catch,it's nice to know they are feeding at the start of the estuary.
It means they are finding other fish to eat.
Apart from the flatties there are Salmon runs,sea trout,silver eels and lampray in the Dee.
Last year a Dolphin made it up the Dee to Chester.

Thanks for posting. Good chance it was a tope pup. I have seen several reports of them from there recently.

A brief history of human occupation of New Zealand.

The Maori people of NZ have no written history, but legend puts their arrival here about 1000 AD however there have not been any sites carbon dating before 1300 AD. Their legends say that there were people here already known as Moriori, these were fairly quickly banished to the Chatham Islands 700km East of central NZ. As both tribes had similar hunter gatherer lifestyles based mainly around the coast, the fact that no evidence of house or midden sites have been found predating 1300 AD could put Maori arrival later than they say.
It is thought that the Maori originated from Southern Taiwan, island hopping through the Pacific over time, and voyaged to NZ from Raratonga in ocean going double hulled canoes with a single square woven sail. They had no metal, so everything except anchor stones was vegetable or animal based.
It is thought that this was a deliberate voyage of 7 boats that settled in different parts of NZ, whether all at the same time is not known though it is known as a fleet by Maori. It is possible that NZ was found by either accident or design earlier, as the Island peoples were phenomenal navigators using the stars, wave patterns and shapes, birds, flotsam and clouds. Their "sextants" were frames of twigs tied with natural fiber.
Land clearing soon started, both by design and accident with fire for hunting and "farming" The European arrival in the early 1800s hastened the land clearance which changed the northern rivers from clean tidal water to mud except for a brief high tide of cleaner water.
I tried fishing a high tide spot 3km upriver from the Kaipara harbour years ago, and caught a number of Tope pups on fish bait about the size of this one. I have fished many times in the upper harbour but never caught any that size, only 18 inch ones and adults in the summer that presumably come to pup in the warm water.
It would seem that the baby ones start life in rivers and estuaries.

Well done on the tope nice picture thanks for sharing