THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

A fish with an extraordinarily large mouth containing sharp back facing teeth which are hinged inwards
to facilitate easy access for prey while at the same time offering little in the way of escape potential
should a victim try to struggle free.
The best one line description I ever heard came from a fellow angler Ray Cattoor who compared it to a
'rent mon's bag with teeth'. In addition, the skin has no scales and appears loose, which along with
fringed appendages around the front end resembling seaweed fronds, helps break up its outline on the
sea bed.
Colouration and patterning are highly variable depending on terrain, but usually comprise of a
camouflage pattern of browns and greens with spots.
A fish likely to be found anywhere from the low water area down to depths in excess of fifteen hundred
feet, though most commonly around the three hundred foot contour. Said to be common throughout
home waters, it can grow to lengths of over six feet.
Numbers of angler fish caught on rod and line, which are never great, and the locations at which they
are caught, which can be scattered far and wide, depend almost entirely on the degree to which lure
fishing is practised.
Having studied catch reports over many years, there is a direct correlation between bottom bouncing
fish imitating lures and hook-up rates, the reason being that angler fish feed on live prey.
There have been occasional reports of angler fish on bait too. What we don't know is how that bait was
being presented, and therefore what it appeared to be to the angler fish that took it. It may well have
looked as though it was alive if fished from a rolling drifting boat.
As their anatomy suggests, angler fish feed in a very
specific way and are reliant on small living fish
approaching them as opposed to regular opportunist
scavenging, which explains why they never do well in
aquaria, where in most instances they eventually starve to
death.
Yet clearly, they will pick up baits from time to time, as
evidenced by shore catches from the various national
record lists, with some very sizeable specimens having
been caught, which is difficult to explain away in light of
what has already been said, so I won't even hazard a guess.
My only query would be, was the bait fished static or on
the move. That said, I once saw and photographed an
angler fish swimming at the surface in Lerwick Harbour
as fish scraps were being shaken out of trawl net. Whether
it was the fish bits that attracted it or the other small fish
mopping them up is impossible to say. Either way, not
something I have witnessed either before or since.
Reports suggest that angler fish catches were more
common some years ago when anglers fishing for cod in
the mid section of the North Sea, particularly along the
Yorkshire Coast, did so with pirks and strings of muppets.
Legendary JJ McVicar, Plymouth
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