European Pilchard - Sardina pilchardus #128
As with most occasions, I started fished around peg 40 on the Eastern Arm of the Marina. The seas where pretty rough and there was quite a lot of weed about, but I decided to fish two rods on the bottom with rag. Nothing much was happening, so I decided to fish down the side and got my self a few little shannies.
Shanny - Lipophrys pholis
Looking around, a few of the nearby anglers started getting some mackerel on feathers, so I feathered up some of my rods and started some fluff chucking. On the first cast, I got myself a nice mackerel and got a few of them during the day. On one cast, I looked up right up near the surface, but it wasn’t kicking as much as a mackerel would and as I got it in, I had a little silver fish hanging off one of my feathers. I knew it was something in the herring family, i.e., a herring, sprat or pilchard but didn’t know couldn’t tell which. I was only able to identify it when I got home though examination of the photographs, and it was a Pilchard [#128]. You quite easily identify a pilchard because it is the only species in Britain that has radiating grooves on its gill plate. It is smooth in the sprat and herring.
Atlantic Mackerel - Scomber scombrus
European Pilchard - Sardina pilchardus
It got a little rough later one, so I fished in the one of first few pegs. I always seem to loses quite a bit of tackle here as there is a mussel bed about 20 metres out. This is actually a good spot for ballan wrasse and I managed to get a few of them out of the water. I also got a bullhead has well.
Ballan Wrasse - Labrus bergylta
Ballan Wrasse - Labrus bergylta
Ballan Wrasse - Labrus bergylta
Longspined Bullhead - Taurulus bubalis
Longspined Bullhead - Taurulus bubalis
