THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

Distribution extends throughout all home waters, though it is said to be sparser in the English Channel,
with the females having the greatest growth potential and a weight capability of maybe as much as
twenty pounds.
A curious, yet strangely interesting fish to scientists, if not to the angler, the lumpsucker with its misshaped
body profile, abdominal suction pad, and unusual parental habits, is not something out of the
regular fish mould.
Essentially, it is an offshore fish which makes predictable annual migrations into the rocky coastal
shallows where specimens not infrequently become stranded and die.
The north east coast in particular used to see a lot of them, and indeed, Whitley Bay angler Ken
Robinson once collected a whole load casualties for me in that area a number of years ago where the
driving force behind this phenomenon in the late winter-early spring time is to reproduce.
Lumpsuckers live out most of their lives in deep water often well beyond angling range, with depths
well in excess of a hundred and fifty fathoms recorded.
Their reproductive cycle however brings them to the other extreme, with the mature fish coming right
up to, and at times inside of the spring low water tide line, which can over a tide cycle, leave them
vulnerable to attack by sea birds and possible stranding.
After a period of courtship, the male persuades his mate to deposit her clump of eggs in a rock crevice
or other similar nesting site which he will then stand guard over.
After depositing the eggs, she immediately heads back to the safety of the depths, leaving her mate to
anchor himself to an adjacent rock where he will stay put for perhaps several weeks until the eggs are
ready to hatch.
Aggressive advances by other inshore fishes are defended with bold retaliation from the devoted parent.
Invertebrate predators such as sea urchins are also shown short shrift, and throughout the incubation
period, the eggs are guarded diligently.
At times of reduced water movement, the male will even fan the eggs with his pectoral fins or tail, both
to deliver oxygen, and to prevent suffocation by sediments coming out of suspension. Jets of water may
also be blown over the eggs from his mouth.
Only when the eggs eventually hatch and the emerging fry are blown clear of the site will the male head
back into deep water where the females have been for perhaps a couple of months.
On the one hand, such parental attention can reap high rewards with perhaps a full one hundred percent
hatch, while on the other, losses due to parental stranding and persistent attacks from bands of small
fish such as wrasse, can easily wipe out a whole family in a way which free floating pelagic eggs would
not be subjected to. A lesson to some extent taken onboard by the emergent fry, which take up sanctuary
in rafts of loose weed.
So the next time you fish out a clump of floating weed offshore, take a closer look at it. On quite a
number of occasions, I've found tiny half inch long lumpsuckers tucked away between the fronds where
they feed initially on plankton, later switching to small crustacea and anything else that is available.
Later, they become demersal, where their bottom feeding again takes in more or less anything that is
available, with molluscs, worms, crustaceans and small fish featuring regularly. This means they will
take virtually any sort of a bait put in front of them.
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