THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

In the egg guarding period, baits would need to be dropped
quite literally on a fish’s nose where mainly it will be the
smaller males which are hooked, and perhaps more regularly
than anglers are actually aware of.
Some of those `snags' encountered during the spring over
heavy ground might actually be a nest guarding lumpsucker
attached to a rock. In fact, I once read a report of one boat
angler cod fishing in Scotland who thought he was into a real
monster, only to haul up a small lumpsucker firmly anchored
to a big rock.
Those fish collected by Ken Robinson I mentioned earlier
were individuals that had for various reasons died during nest
guarding, and were so regular an occurrence that we
confidently arranged to make the collection the year before.
I don't know to what extent it still happens. But not being of
any real commercial interest will, hopefully, see numbers
holding, making all rocky areas, and in particular small rocky
harbours at least worth a look.
Phill Williams Lumpsucker, Iceland
Unfortunately, that can't be said of everywhere, with my
most vivid memories of the lumpsucker coming from
Akranes in southern Iceland.
I was over there fishing when I was introduced to a man who seasonally gill netted them inshore at
spawning time for their eggs which was marketed as a cheap caviare.
Not exactly an ecologically sustainable fishery. He had literally dozens of them on the boat, and to
demonstrate their eating qualities, he turned one upside down, trapped it between his knee's, then opened
up its body cavity and scooped out some eggs which he started eating raw his bare hands before passing
the thing to me so that I could do the same.
JOHN DORY Zeus faber
Bucket List status – no result yet
278
A bizarre looking and therefore very
easily identified fish with a deep oval
laterally compressed body,
exaggerated fins, and a single large
dark spot circled in yellow on each side
of the body just below the lateral line
and to the rear of the pectoral fin. This
supposedly is the apostles thumb print,
hence the occasionally used alternative
name of St. Peters fish.
The head is large, as is the mouth
which is protrusible. The first spiny
section of the dorsal fin is tall with