THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

Peeler crab in particular is a highly rated bait when the main crab moults are under-way, switching to
lugworm as the summer progresses, then back to crab later in the season, though shellfish still in their
shells are a favourite elsewhere in Europe, along with smashed up shellfish catapulted in to a swim as
ground bait. With that in mind, shellfish farms might also hold some attraction.
Invariably, any fish caught tend to be relatively isolated catches or from small groups moving up and
down the estuary with the tide. In so far as they coincide with previously established feeding times
within a tide, early morning and late evening sessions are preferred, along with a willingness to move,
which means travelling light, on the one hand if nothing seems to be happening, and on the other after
a fish has been caught, trying to second guess where they might move to next in order to be there when
they arrive.
Associated audio interview numbers: 161.
COUCHES BREAM Pagrus pagrus
Bucket List status – result outside of home waters
Couches bream is one of the typically
deeper bodied species, but with a
noticeably flattened blunt facial profile.
The other `red' bream species such as
the pandora and true red bream lack this
sudden change of profile angle above
the eye.
Colouration is basically silvery with a
slight tinge of pinkish red washed over
the upper parts and fins with some
darker and lighter blotching.
Phill Williams, Couches Bream
A species belonging to the protogynous
hermaphrodite category of having both
sets of sex organs, maturing as a female,
only for large specimens to switch over
to being males as and when the need
requires them to.
My experience of the species is of catching them on small fish baits out over moderately deep water off
Puerto Rico at the southern end of Gran Canaria, and off Gibraltar, where if you fished small enough,
in the company of other 'UK exotics', they were fairly easy to catch.
The mid 1990's saw quite a number of reported occurrences, including rod caught specimens, from
around the Channel Islands, and Guernsey in particular, where they are now thought to be quite firmly
established, and may even be breeding both off there and along the Cornish Coast. One more indication
perhaps, if ever it were needed, of rising sea temperatures making their mark.
Quite a large growing fish with weights up around fifteen pounds potentially attainable, though it has
to be said that in today's commercially pressured climate, those sorts of weights are rarely achievable,
particularly as this is a species on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
endangered list.
Sandy or patchy ground is generally favoured where a diet of crabs, prawns, shrimps and small fishes
is pursued.
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