Species Fishing Blog: long-spined bullhead

Showing posts with label long-spined bullhead. Show all posts

Saturday, 11 June 2011

Brighton Marina

This was the first trip to the Brighton Marina of the year. I hadn’t fished here since October last year when I caught mainly whiting. Now, about 8 months on, I’d be expecting to catch the summer species of Mackerel and Bream.

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

Longspined Bullhead - Taurulus bubalis

Sunday, 13 June 2010

Brighton Marina

I'm trying to blog all of my fishing trips from now on.

Got to the marina about 1pm, fished the East Arm bay 28. 2 Rods. Started with one baited with rag/squid cocktail and the other with feathers. Caught loads of mackerel and got tired of it, so decided to go for mini-species down the wall using very small hooks and rag. First foul hooked a Pouting or Poorcod, cant tell at that size. Then got a Ballan, then Bullhead, several shannys and a Corkwing. Decided to try baited size 6 Hokkais to get something different, but got more mackerel. Left at about 6pm. Nothing wanted my rag/squid at range all day.

Species count for the 2010 is now 25.
See them all here

My first mackerel for the year.

First Ballan Wrasse for 2010

First Corkwing Wrasse for 2010

First Shanny for 2010. (Black form)

Another Shanny (Standard form)

First Bullhead for the year.

Sunday, 22 February 2009

First British Fish

I was out rockpooling at the Brighton Marina looking at Blennies, Prawns, Anemones etc. On this occassion, I decided to bring my little 5 piece fishing rod and some fresh prawns for bait. Casted the bait out several times but not much happened. On one cast, I wound it in and there was a little tussle on the end. When I got it in I saw that it was a Bullhead. My first british fish [#54]. They kind of look like scorpionfish, but are not venomous at all. They flare out their horns when they are out of the water. Actually, I'm not even sure if I should count it, I don't think it was hooked. It was just holding onto the bait. I released it into a little rockpool where I took the photograph below.