THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

Again, the mouth comes in the form
of an elongated trunk or snout. This
particular species has no pectoral or
anal fins, but does have a slight trace
of a tail fin if you look hard enough.
No other potential home waters
pipefish species has this fin
combination. Male snake pipefish
can carry up to a thousand eggs on
their abdomen.
By all accounts, a very much rarer species than the great pipefish and the rest of the clan, with less of a
tendency for anglers to come across it due to its favoured deep open water life-style, only rarely making
it into inshore waters, and usually only then when caught up in weed rafts that are themselves delivered
inshore by the wind or the tide.
Not exactly a collection of facts which should make any difference on the angling front. Again, I'm
absolutely amazed it appears on the list in the first place. But as ever, if it's included there, then it also
has to be included here. Grows to maybe sixteen inches.
POGGE Agonus cataphractus
Bucket List status – no result yet
An unusual fish in appearance, having
a complete external body armour made
up from overlapping bony plates. At the
tip of the snout there are two upward
facing hooks, while the underside of the
head has many short barbels extending
from the bottom jaw to the operculum
or gill cover. Colouration is generally a
drab brown with distinct wide slightly
lighter coloured vertical hoops around
the body.
Now this is one small fish I as very
familiar with. We see lots of them up
here along the Lancashire coast, both in the shrimp nets and in the stomach contents of cod, suggesting
they are just as much at home over mixed as well as clean sandy ground where they are quite active
little predators in their own right taking small crabs, shrimps, worms, and even fish fry or eggs.
A common fish throughout all home waters from the English Channel up to the Shetland Islands and
beyond, ranging from the coastal shallows during the summer, seaward to depths in excess of a hundred
fathoms over the cooler winter months.
Not a fish which anglers in the normal course of events are likely to pick up. With a growth potential
of at best six inches, any catching would need to be deliberately done with tiny hooks and equally tiny
baits.
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