Eating coarse fish?

[Houseplant]

A contentious subject and no, I'm not in favour given the culture of coarse fishing in the UK and human population density. However, I recently discovered there are minimum sizes and bag limits defined in national legislation and local byelaws for taking fish. Obviously, where fishing rights are administered by a club or private ownership, this doesn't apply, but outside of that, pretty much everything is on the menu!

https://www.gov.uk/freshwater-rod-fishing-rules/fish-size-and-catch-limits

 

[old'un]

Have not eaten any for a long time but I have tried most fresh water fish in the UK and abroad, my two favourites were Perch and Grayling.

First tried Perch in Switzerland where they have inland trawler fishing for fresh water fish.

[oldypigeonpopper]

Hello, here in UK we have water companies dumping sewage out flow into rivers and sea by the 1000s of litres , another on Christmas day from the Witney sewage station into the Windrush  and few miles up stream of the Thames, this stretch of the Windrush river is dead, 20 years ago it was teeming with wildlife , I caught a 4 LLB wild brown trout, I would not eat any fish from the Thames, 

[Walker570]

When I was a young lad, I'm talking 70years ago, I was ordered to save any Perch over a pound for my grandfather and also any pike but preferably Jacks.  I would put them in a bucket and transport them back to the farm and he would put them in the large galavanised drinking trough used by the cows he said to remove the earthy taste.

I ate my share back then and a fillet of perch properly prepared takes some beating. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ditchman]

Perch are excellent....gutted scraped ..slitted and covered with butter and grilled..........a real treat.....they do need to be over a lb tho'..........i rekon they are better than trout..

[old'un]

14 minutes ago, Walker570 said:

When I was a young lad, I'm talking 70years ago, I was ordered to save any Perch over a pound for my grandfather and also any pike but preferably Jacks.  I would put them in a bucket and transport them back to the farm and he would put them in the large galavanised drinking trough used by the cows he said to remove the earthy taste.

I ate my share back then and a fillet of perch properly prepared takes some beating. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yep, when I was in Switzerland I had some perch served with boiled potatoes and French beans, asked the chef how he cooked it, pan fried with a little butter, pinch of salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice to finish, as you say properly prepared and cooked Perch takes some beating.

Grayling is also very nice and surprisingly the flesh is very white and clean tasting, must be something to-do with the water they live in.

[billytheghillie]

57 minutes ago, old'un said:

Yep, when I was in Switzerland I had some perch served with boiled potatoes and French beans, asked the chef how he cooked it, pan fried with a little butter, pinch of salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice to finish, as you say properly prepared and cooked Perch takes some beating.

Grayling is also very nice and surprisingly the flesh is very white and clean tasting, must be something to-do with the water they live in.

Grayling are very fussy fish, they will not thrive in any polluted water courses, the water needs to be near 100% clean. Up here on the Tweed and the Teviot the grayling get to good sizes, 3lb+ is not uncommon. They are a good indication that your river is in a good healthy state.

[Dougy]

With the decline in course fish in most of our rivers now i dont think any should be taken, i fished the Dove and bagged silly amounts of Barbel and chub but nowadays you would be lucky to catch 2 or 3. 

The increase in eastern Europeans taking home what they catch has not helped, add to that the increase in the amount of Cormorants and poor river management. 

[Houseplant]

51 minutes ago, Dougy said:

With the decline in course fish in most of our rivers now i dont think any should be taken, i fished the Dove and bagged silly amounts of Barbel and chub but nowadays you would be lucky to catch 2 or 3. 

The increase in eastern Europeans taking home what they catch has not helped, add to that the increase in the amount of Cormorants and poor river management. 

Yes, a sad state of affairs which is why I was surprised to read that it is perfectly legal to take coarse fish outside of club or privately owned waters. Eastern Europeans get a lot of flack, but they are not doing anything wrong, at least in terms of legislation. 

As for table fare, I've eaten carp and pike. Taste very much depends on the environment in which they were caught. I don't think any freshwater fish compares to saltwater species. In fact, after a decade of eating fine saltwater fish, I really struggle with trout now. 

[Yellow Bear]

49 minutes ago, Houseplant said:

Yes, a sad state of affairs which is why I was surprised to read that it is perfectly legal to take coarse fish outside of club or privately owned waters. Eastern Europeans get a lot of flack, but they are not doing anything wrong, at least in terms of legislation. 

List from legislation  

Catch limits

There’s a daily limit on the number of fish you can take.

Coarse (freshwater) fish

Each day you can only take from rivers:

• 1 pike (up to 65cm)
• 2 grayling (30cm to 38cm)
• 15 small fish (up to 20cm) including barbel, chub, common bream, common carp, crucian carp, dace, perch, rudd, silver bream, roach, smelt and tench

Any eels you catch (except conger eels) must be released alive.

You can also take:

• minor or ‘tiddler’ species, such as gudgeon
• non-native species
• ornamental varieties of native species like ghost or koi carp

I suspect most of those taking are breaking these rules

[ditchman]

6 minutes ago, Yellow Bear said:

List from legislation  

Catch limits

There’s a daily limit on the number of fish you can take.

Coarse (freshwater) fish

Each day you can only take from rivers:

• 1 pike (up to 65cm)
• 2 grayling (30cm to 38cm)
• 15 small fish (up to 20cm) including barbel, chub, common bream, common carp, crucian carp, dace, perch, rudd, silver bream, roach, smelt and tench

Any eels you catch (except conger eels) must be released alive.

You can also take:

• minor or ‘tiddler’ species, such as gudgeon
• non-native species
• ornamental varieties of native species like ghost or koi carp

I suspect most of those taking are breaking these rules

gone are the days when we went home with a bucket of elvers...for the frying pan..

[Dougy]

52 minutes ago, ditchman said:

gone are the days when we went home with a bucket of elvers...for the frying pan..

I was fishing the Allen down from Marford mill in Rosset (WAGBI/BASC HQ) years ago and caught loads of elvers the odd brownie and what i called flatties. I put the elvers and trout in my fishing bag planning on taking them back to the farm for eating, i was probably around 10 then. 

Walking across the fields there was a herd of young bullocks that had recently been out of the shed, all frisky and mega inquisitive and as far as i believed at the time just loved those little eels and trout in my bag. I bricked it and ran for my life across this field chased by about 50 or 60 bullocks. 

I obviously survived the ordeal and got a talking to by Trevor the farms wagon driver and herdsman about safety around young cattle, and the eels well not my cup of tea eating wise. 

[Duckandswing]

I’m not a lover of eating fish - I do remember my dad catching a zander once and we had that pan fried. It was pretty darn good. Bloody ugly mind.

[henry d]

Yeah, grayling and perch, very nice to eat. Nice to see a minimum/maximum limit. 

[ditchman]

5 hours ago, henry d said:

Yeah, grayling and perch, very nice to eat. Nice to see a minimum/maximum limit. 

never eaten grayling...

[henry d]

33 minutes ago, ditchman said:

never eaten grayling...

Nice delicate flavour, not unlike wild brown trout.

[Yellow Bear]

2 hours ago, henry d said:

Nice delicate flavour, not unlike wild brown trout.

^^^^ This but maybee a little weaker.

[gmm243]

I catch quite a lot of trout every year and keep a good few of them for rhe table. A lot of folk locally don't agree with this believing all trout should be returned alive.

The two biggest issues we have are the huge increase in cormorants and herons which seem to be on every water you visit. We also have a large population of Eastern Europeans who seem intent on removing all fish from any water in which ever means they can employ. I know of one great lough for tench which I doubt has a tench left in it now. Lots of pike waters have lost all their big fish and don't have fish over 2lb in them suggesting they have been netted. I have seen men with plastic bags filled with 6" roach & perch which they are bringing back to eat. When I was young you could have gone to any peg locally and caught lots of bream,roach,perch and eels. Nowadays you would struggle to get good bream or roach, perch seem to be stable although smaller in size but eels are on a downward spiral although this is not happening only here.One of my earliest memories was jigging small fluorescent feathers (like small mackerel feathers) off piers in the local lough and catching small perch 2 & 3 at a time.

Very little in the line of fisheries protection here too,plus they work office hours Monday- Fri.

 

[Dougy]

On 29/12/2022 at 18:54, gmm243 said:

I catch quite a lot of trout every year and keep a good few of them for rhe table. A lot of folk locally don't agree with this believing all trout should be returned alive.

The two biggest issues we have are the huge increase in cormorants and herons which seem to be on every water you visit. We also have a large population of Eastern Europeans who seem intent on removing all fish from any water in which ever means they can employ. I know of one great lough for tench which I doubt has a tench left in it now. Lots of pike waters have lost all their big fish and don't have fish over 2lb in them suggesting they have been netted. I have seen men with plastic bags filled with 6" roach & perch which they are bringing back to eat. When I was young you could have gone to any peg locally and caught lots of bream,roach,perch and eels. Nowadays you would struggle to get good bream or roach, perch seem to be stable although smaller in size but eels are on a downward spiral although this is not happening only here.One of my earliest memories was jigging small fluorescent feathers (like small mackerel feathers) off piers in the local lough and catching small perch 2 & 3 at a time.

Very little in the line of fisheries protection here too,plus they work office hours Monday- Fri.

 

I fished Ireland in the 80s-90s for Bream and Pike and remember seeing refrigerated vans used by German visitors fishing for Pike, we were told that they would get the money back it cost to get over there and pay for lodgings. 

We noticed the bags dropped dramatically from when we 1st started going over. We fished Scur, Garadice, Allen, Arrow, Gowna and many stretches of the Shannon. Loved the place and the Guiness,went in Gertys Canal Stop in Keshkerigan with £5 came out hours later after a gallon of Guiness and still had about £2.50 in my pocket, the lads in there would let me buy a pint. 

[morgan]

Used to quite often eat jack pike years ago, though care needs to be taken deboning it. Lots of mashed potato and parsley sauce to hide any bones you missed.  A friend smoked some grayling a few years back - that was very good.

Edited December 30, 2022 by morgan

[gmm243]

14 hours ago, Dougy said:

I fished Ireland in the 80s-90s for Bream and Pike and remember seeing refrigerated vans used by German visitors fishing for Pike, we were told that they would get the money back it cost to get over there and pay for lodgings. 

We noticed the bags dropped dramatically from when we 1st started going over. We fished Scur, Garadice, Allen, Arrow, Gowna and many stretches of the Shannon. Loved the place and the Guiness,went in Gertys Canal Stop in Keshkerigan with £5 came out hours later after a gallon of Guiness and still had about £2.50 in my pocket, the lads in there would let me buy a pint. 

You are perfectly correct.

When I was younger there were s lot of Swiss and German tourists that would rent a cruiser for a week or two and pay for their holiday by bringing back frozen pike. They used to come with a refrigerated trailer and realistically had a free holiday.

You would often see them coming up the lough with the heads of the pike they had caught all tied to the hand rails of the cruiser. All the fillets were frozen in the boat.

It was Swiss anglers who showed us to catch the perch by jigging under the jetties and again they were filleting them to eat some then and take the rest home.

[Dougy]

1 hour ago, gmm243 said:

You are perfectly correct.

When I was younger there were s lot of Swiss and German tourists that would rent a cruiser for a week or two and pay for their holiday by bringing back frozen pike. They used to come with a refrigerated trailer and realistically had a free holiday.

You would often see them coming up the lough with the heads of the pike they had caught all tied to the hand rails of the cruiser. All the fillets were frozen in the boat.

It was Swiss anglers who showed us to catch the perch by jigging under the jetties and again they were filleting them to eat some then and take the rest home.

The fishing tourism was ruined due to all that lot going on yet the Irish touring board did B all about (that we knew of) it even after umpteen reports and rock solid evidence. We noticed the drop in pike number and sizes late eighties, so much that we stopped fishing for them.   

I lost a giant of a pike fishing on Allen North end near Killgarriff must have been in the 30's, was gutted. 

[barbel]

In the 60 s eels where a easy catch in the severn, jack pike, large roach, and twaite, (shad family) i think, my dad would cook them, remember coming along the severn bank at Tewkesbury at night, and people would have lights shining on the waters edge catching elvers with nets, memories. 

[Blackpowder]

An abundance of sea and freshwater game fish means I have never  eaten anything other.   Someone correct me but are our bass not a perch species.   Of course a better table fish than bass would be hard to find.

Blackpowder

 

[Houseplant]

Fish taxonomy is a bit of a hobby for me! Bass are not a perch species, or even in the same family, but they are in the same order (Perciformes) which means they share some physical characteristics, along with many other species.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 1, 2023 by Houseplant