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Haddock and other rarities


henry d
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When I was younger, 1980's, fishing in and around the NE coast of England pouting were never heard about, now they are fairly common place. I had never caught a haddock nor heard of one being caught inshore, however last weekend I was surprised to land one (apologies for the rubbish photo, trying to get a quick one) among codling, pouting and whiting.

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Just curious but what is common place in your area that may not be elsewhere, doggies are making their way up the east coast of Scotland, but still fairly rare...

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I'm still yet to catch a pouting on the South Wales coast/ Bristol channel (probably says more about me as an angler than the distribution of the fish) but when I used to visit family in Kent you couldn't move for the things. I have one childhood memory of using an old crab line and some stinky mackerel we fished out of a bin on Deal pier and catching over 100 small pouting in a few hours. 

In the Bristol channel at least it seems that the schoolie bass has become the new dogfish. I took a trip out on Aberavon back last winter and couldn't keep a line in the water for more than a few minutes with out picking up a double head of tiny bass. It was a relief to finally land a dogfish.

Black bream are now also fairly common here when they didn't used to be along with trigger fish. 

I haven't landed a soiled nappy or a wedge of used toilet paper in quite a while thankfully.

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25 minutes ago, ditchman said:

lucky boy...........i would do 1st deg murder for a fresh caught haddock.........

They are tasty fish and a fish and chip shop regular, I forgot to mention that it was caught in about 40-50ft water and about 1 1/4mile offshore, so not where you would expect to catch a haddie.

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52 minutes ago, ditchman said:

lucky boy...........i would do 1st deg murder for a fresh caught haddock.........

Eat little else fish wise.

Many moons since I went sea fishing and that was mainly down the south west coast, Weymouth, Poole and Falmouth where pouting where a pain in the neck.  Never caught a haddock or cod/codling but a pal caught a real nice cod off Weymouth.  Mainly our catches where bream (red and black), conger, pollack and if lucky one or two gurnard.... now they are good eating.

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17 hours ago, Blackpowder said:

Henry I am sure  I have seen posts of rod caught haddock from around the Moray Firth area, they are a scarce item here where once the main commercial catch.

 

Blackpowder

 

Not seen that, however a friend assures me that they get occasional ones off Portpatrick, I can't remember seeing either haddock, pout or whiting off Arbroath and Fife.

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The theory is global warming is affecting the fishing off the Norfolk coast.  We used to have really good cod fishing but it's very poor these days, hoards and hoards of whiting instead. Catches of coalfish, pollack and wrasse increasing. We are even getting the odd blonde ray and thornback ray catches have increased dramatically over recent years. Sole fishing can be very good if you fish the right places, they are very localised.

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7 hours ago, ditchman said:

never eaten Turbot...what are they like ?....how do you cook them

Never eaten one, I believe that they should be cooked on the bone.

I think I hooked (what was believed to be) a flipping monstrous one while fishing a wreck off the Eddystone. We drifted it several times with cod, Pollock and coalfish into the mid teens using large delta eels, about the size of the big launce on a long flying collar rig, and I hooked something that just hung in the tide and used it's weight against me and we drifted well off the wreck by the time I had it almost to the boat when the line went slack and I reeled in my gear. The rubber eel was well up the trace and the skipper, Ray Parsons, said in his West country accent; "Probberly a big 'ole turbot, don't worry it will just go back down!"

7 hours ago, Whitebridges said:

The theory is global warming is affecting the fishing off the Norfolk coast.

I don't doubt it, doggies being caught off Fife and Angus, bass moving further north...

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Turbot are fantastic eating but where I fish it is very rare to get one worth keeping. We did get three fairly decent fish one afternoon in a real storm, I have always found them taking better when the boat is drifting fast.We pick up a lot more thornbacks now than we used to but in the same area I can't remember when we last caught a dogfish.We do get lots of dabs and small gurnard over the sand where used to get the doggies but their stocks seem to have remained the same.

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6 hours ago, ditchman said:

arnt those Brill ???.....had another gander...sorry you are right

No need to apologise ditchy , everso easy to get the ID wrong . Brill are almost unheard of in Norfolk. 

 

4 hours ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

Hello, use to like a bit of beach fishing for flatties 

Can be a lot of fun. Another species that isn't as prevalent as it used to be is the flounder. They don't eat that well but a 2lber puts up a decent scrap on light tackle.

3 hours ago, henry d said:

Nice to see the turbos, and a watch lead!

We used to wait for neap tides and fish watch leads over a sandy bottom. We fished for school bass to 3lb and the best bait was under belly of fresh mackerel , occasionally we would get a turbot or two. Sometime none but when we caught one there was usually another few in the same session.   

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2 hours ago, Whitebridges said:

We used to wait for neap tides

Interesting, I would have expected springs or other decent flow!

 

2 hours ago, Whitebridges said:

...flounder. They don't eat that well...

I used to love them, I cringe at the size of them on fishing forums and Facebook now...

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