THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

Not rod and line encounters unfortunately. I've only ever heard of one rod caught specimen up here,
which given the very rough or flat featureless nature of the ground, that isn't surprising. But, as I said
earlier, an odd one can turn up anywhere, which is what I've seen happen over the years when I've been
push netting shrimps for bait.
Generally, small palm of your hand sized fish at best, but obviously with a bigger parent stock
somewhere out there. And one day we 'kind of' found out where that somewhere was.
I was out aboard the Fleetwood trawler 'Biddy' collecting research specimens with Ben Bee who was
catching flounders for pot bait, which while they barely covered the cost of the diesel, meant he didn't
have to stay at home on his own.
Unfortunately, this particular day even that was hard going. So Ben decided to make a tow across from
Lune Buoy to the south end of Walney, which when he hauled, dropped almost twenty nice brill between
maybe five and ten pounds on the deck, plus a lone turbot. To say that he was gob smacked would be
no under-statement. The big unanswered question is, where on the transit line did those fish come from,
which when you tow for between three and four hours you can never truly know.
So rod and line brill fishing is the same as turbot fishing,
which while this is true, it can't be entirely true, as
having two almost identical species living identical
lifestyles at the same location is not allowed under the
rules of evolution. Either there will be some difference,
however small, or one will eventually out compete the
other and displace it.
Obviously then, as we still have both species, there must
be differences with some degree of overlap, which in
angling terms seems to be deep water offshore banks
with plenty of sandeels, and equally plenty of tide.
Away from the banks over more general ground,
identifying just exactly what the attracting features are
is another matter, because not that many brill are taken
from open ground these days, commercial netters
having presumably swept most of them up.
Phill Williams PB Brill, Jersey
One stand out fact and difference is that brill appear to
be more southerly and offshore in their distribution than
turbot. Equally, it could also have something to do with
substrate preference, with brill preferring finer
particulates such as sand or mud, as opposed to turbot
which are happier with coarse sand, shell grit, and even
gravel, with the presence of rich pickings out over some
banks sufficient to override any natural preferences.
On the other hand, it could just be that brill are nothing like as common as turbot, with all the
aforementioned other factors also having some measure of a role to play. Even rarer are brill from the
shore from where no one would should realistically think of targeting the species.
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