Cocinero, Caranx vinctus

Cocinero, Caranx vinctus. Fish caught from coastal waters within Magdalena Bay, Baja California Sur, February 2018. Length: 30 cm (12 inches). Catch, photograph and identification courtesy of Brad Murakami, Surrey, British Columbia, Canada.

Cocinero, Caranx vinctus. Fish provided by the commercial fishermen of the greater Los Cabos area, Baja California Sur, July 2014. Length: 33 cm (13 inches).

Cocinero, Caranx vinctus. Fish caught from coastal waters off Mazatlán, Sinaloa, October 2014. Length: 33 cm (13 inches). Catch and photograph courtesy of George Brinkman, Guelph, Ontario, Canada.

The Cocinero, Caranx vinctus, is a member of the Jack or Carangidae Family, that is also known as the Striped Jack and in Mexico as cocinero. Globally, there are seventeen species in the genus Caranx, of which nine are found in Mexican waters, three in the Atlantic and five in the Pacific and one in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

The Cocinero has a “jack-like” moderately compressed slender rectangular body with similar upper and lower profiles that has a depth that is 31% to 35% of standard length. They are dusky blue dorsally and silvery with golden or greenish reflections on their sides. They have 8 or 9 incomplete bars on their sides and a distinctive black blotch on the edge of their gill cover. Their anal, caudal, and dorsal fins are yellow. Their anal fin has 2 spines followed by 1 spine and 18 to 21 rays and a long base with a long front lobe; the caudal fin has a slender base and is strongly forked; their first dorsal fin has 8 spines and a low front lobe; their second dorsal fin has 1 spine and 22 to 24 rays and a long base; and, their pectoral fins are longer than the head. They have 11 to 12 and 28 to 30 gill rakers and 46 to 53 strong scutes. Their body is covered with small scales. Their lateral line is pronounced with a short anterior arch.

The Cocinero is a common pelagic schooling species found in both coastal and oceanic waters over all types of terrain at depths up to 50 m (165 feet). They reach a maximum of 38 cm (15 inches) in length. The Cocinero is poorly studied with very limited information available about their lifestyle and behavioral patterns including specific details on age, growth, longevity, movement patterns, diet, habitat use, and reproduction.

The Cocinero is a resident of all Mexican waters of the Pacific Ocean with the exception that they are absent from the northern third of the Sea of Cortez.

The Cocinero can be confused with the Golden Trevally, Gnathanodon speciosus (yellow pelvic fins; bar through eyes), the Green Jack, Caranx caballus (darker; no bars; thinner body) and the Whitemouth Jack, Uraspis helvola (white inside mouth; 6 bars if present).

From a conservation perspective the Cocinero is currently considered to be of Least Concern with stable, widely distributed populations. They typically caught by commercial fishermen as a by-catch with gill nets in shallow waters adjacent to the beach and are considered an insignificant catch, small in stature and of limited interest to most.