THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

GILTHEAD BREAM Sparus aurata
Bucket List status – result outside of home waters
Having a blunt steeply rising facial
profile is a distinct characteristic of the
gilthead, which is both a euryhaline
species tolerant of fluctuating salinity
levels, providing these are not extreme
or sudden, and a protandrous
hermaphrodite, which means it starts
life with both sets of sex organs
eventually maturing as a male, some of
which switch over to being females as
required.
What they most definitely cannot
tolerate are sudden dips in water
temperature which will push them out deep to more stable conditions, a point worth bearing in mind
perhaps early season.
Positive identification is made easy by a highly conspicuous golden curved bar bordered by darker
markings across the forehead. There is also a dark patch at the base of the pectoral fin, plus a second at
the beginning of the lateral line running onto the gill cover, the edge of which can be scarlet.
General colouration is otherwise metallic grey above becoming silvery below, then white. A beautiful
powerful looking fish, which by any definition it most certainly is.
Despite an extremely limited home waters potential geographically speaking, gilthead have a very real
and at times obsessive following along the south coast of England, and increasingly also over in Ireland,
particularly amongst shore anglers.
Some are caught from boats, especially small boats working the same areas that the shore lads fish. But
we are predominately talking shore fishing here, which for a powerful migrant from afar makes quite a
refreshing change.
Said to be an extremely rare inshore vagrant north of the Bay of Biscay, and even within the confines
of the bay itself, this is now a species that is increasingly turning that supposed wisdom on its head by
becoming something of a regular star attraction in some areas.
The Salcombe Estuary in particular, though other adjacent West Country estuaries and harbours both
north and south of Lands End, some Channel Island harbours such as St. Sampson on Guernsey, and
similar areas around the south and west of the Irish Republic are also getting in on the act, which
between them throw up a number of themed clues.
Coastal shallows in the extreme south west, preferably with some freshwater influence or a harbour are
favoured, with a first appearance in the spring followed by a disappearance either offshore or by
dropping back to the south towards the end of the summer would on paper at least appear to sum things
up.
But as ever when collating scientific data, there are always those un-explained troublesome outliers.
Blips on an otherwise perfect distribution map, which in the case of the gilthead are the semi-puzzling
Welsh record from Llandwyn Beach on Anglesey, and the inexplicably puzzling Scottish record from
Dunnet Head, which is about as far north as it's possible to go on the British mainland.
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