Fish Identification Photos: Cocinero Jack, Caranx vinctus: The Cocinero Jack has an enlongated, ovate body with similar upper and lower profiles. It is dusky blue above and silvery-gold below.

The Cocinero Jack has eight or nine distinguishing dark, incomplete, vertical bars on the sides (as pictured below). There is also a distinctive black blotch on the edge of the gill cover. It has yellow anal, caudal, and dorsal fins.

The Cocinero Jack is most likely confused with the Green Jack, Carangoides caballus (darker and without bars), and the Whitemouth Jack, Uraspis helvola (white inside mouth with six bars if present).

The Cocinero Jack is a pelagic fish species. In Mexican waters, it is found in the first 150 feet of the water column all along the Pacific side of Baja California, in the lower two-thirds of the Sea of Cortez, and along the coast of the Mexican mainland south to Guatemala. It reaches a length of 15 inches. Due to its rarity it is deemed to be of limited value.

The Cocinero Jack is a member of the Carangidae or Jack Family known in Mexico as jureles and pámpanos.

Cocinero Jack, Caranx vinctus: Donated to Mexfish.com by the commercial panguero Mexican fishermen of Todos Santos, Baja California Sur, Mexico, July 2007. Size 13 inches. Description and photo courtes of John Snow.