THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

PART THREE
INDIVIDUAL TARGETS
THE CATCHING OF SPECIFIC SPECIMEN FISH
Bucket List status – Incomplete
This part of my bucket list is a collection of individual fish target weights as opposed to personal bests
or species head counts. The sort of thing that most fishermen other than genuine pleasure anglers and
pure match specialists have as an agenda in some form or another.
My particular take on things, while it isn't exhaustive, has most certainly been exhausting in the sense
that a lot of travelling has gone in to catching a lot of very big fish, with a lot of equally exhausting near
misses and frustrating failures along the way, with one tick that clearly now is never going to grace my
list, arguably the most elusive of the bunch........the big one.
NATIONAL RECORD FISH
Bucket List status – result
Way back in 1970 when the embryonic version of what would ultimately become my bucket list, my
life-long quest, and now this book was beginning to emerge, I'm pretty sure I would have settled for
any national record, never mind a British record.
But, times and ambitions evolve and move on. That was the year I joined the Leyland and Farington
Boat Angling Club, and for the first time in my sea angling life, I had some measure of regimented
order and camaraderie.
Almost immediately, my début trip
came around taking us to nearby
Morecambe, which may initially sound
a million miles away from any record
breaking potential or influence, but
bear with me here.
One of the local shrimpers took us out
on a grim blustery day to fish the
channel just up from the stone jetty,
where the only thing I can remember us
catching was shed loads of sea
scorpions, a species you rarely if ever
see there these days.
Shrimp Boat Morecambe
tender, and the skipper started rowing them back to shore.
Obviously, the trip eventually came to
an end and we motored back to the
nearby moorings, at which point, the
first half of the party piled into the
485