THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

Where it differs from the rocklings
is in having no barbels or 'beards'
on the upper lip. Just a single short
chin barbel common to many
members of the cod family.
Colouration is a dirty blackish
brown to reddish brown on the back
and flanks, becoming lighter
ventrally.
A small fish, said to be solitary but
widespread, a description to some
extent borne out by the statistics.
Rod and line catches range from the
Clyde sea lochs to Northern
Ireland, and from south west Wales
over to Tyne and Wear, none of
which surprises me, as there is a lot of moderately deep lying rough ground in all those areas which
wider catch records seem to suggest is favoured. Certainly around Tyne and Wear, where reports are
not that infrequent.
Not a big fish, with specimens usually hovering just either side of the pound mark, but one with both a
mouth and an appetite big enough to regularly put both fish and worm baits in the frame, the limiting
factor here being locating them, which for a solitary animal is never going to be easy.
The North Sea is probably where the smart money should go. The suspicion is that they live in and
around the foundations there, taking pretty much any hook bait that comes along, and in the company
of fish like yarrell's blenny and viviparous blenny, always on LRF gear with a 6 pounds lbs flurocarbon
trace and hooks in the size 12 to 18 range, despite the tadpole fishes cavernous mouth.
THREE BEARDED ROCKLING Gaidropsarus vulgaris
Bucket List status – result
Andy Copeland, Three Bearded Rockling
130
Rich pink to brick red base
colouration patterned with a good
scattering of large and small brown
spots make the three bearded
rockling a particularly eye catching
and strikingly obvious fish. That
alone should make identification a
formality.
Having two barbels or 'beards' on
top of the snout, plus a chin barbel,
will add further weight to pinning
the right name to it. Only the shore
rockling has the same arrangement
of barbels, but lacks the red
colouration and markings.