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Fancy catching something slightly different? How about an Angler Fish?
B2B' Watch Your Mouth!There was a precious time then business-to-business (B2B) ecommerce was the sweet darling of .....
Catching an Angler Fish is not actually as uncommon as it sounds
and many charter fishing boats around the UK and Ireland list
them as a targeted species in their area. Indeed, if you want to
go Angler Fish fishing then now is the best time - July, August
and September are optimum months.
The true Angler Fish lives in both shallow and deep water and
there is regularly confusion over their identity as either
Angler Fish or Monkfish. It is more a case that there is more
than one variety of both and at some point the two species cross
over. Some Angler Fish can legitimately be called Monkfish and
vice versa, but then again, there are some Monkfish (although
equally entitled to the name) which are actually from the Shark
family. To go into that further would involve getting into the
Latin names of the species which I'm not going to do here!
It is not the sort of fish that most people target but more the
type that you would happen upon by accident when fishing for
Flatties. They're prefered habitat is a sandy/mud seabed but
gravel or shell beds also offer much of an attraction where they
eat anything in their path, especially smaller fish and
shellfish. Their enormous mouths are adorned with large,
extremely sharp and backwards facing teeth and they even have
teeth in their throats so as to stop their prey from escaping
until it has been safely swallowed.
It is, therefore, advisable to use a wire rig when targeting
Angler Fish!
A good rig to use would be the standard paternoster or flapper
rig with a grip lead as an anchor on the bottom and a flowing
hook trace of about 3-4 feet. This allows the bait to move
freely and naturally just above the seabed giving a great
presentation and covering a wider area. Good baits to try would
be baitfish such as Launce, Sandeel or a strip of Mackerel,
Shellfish or Squid. Use a strong forged hook.
Scotland is a good place for Angler Fish including marks such as
the islands of the Firth of Forth and the Summer Isles. Also,
the offshore reefs around Wales, many areas within the Irish
Channel and around the Isle of Man, and the northern and
southern coasts of Devon and Cornwall.
If you catch an Angler Fish, it is advised that you operate a
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