Feeling brave Thursday

[Malc]

Forecast was good but I take them with a pinch of salt, so the idea was go out past the piers and fish the wrecks, if the bar was too choppy I would fish the river on the incoming tide for herring. Set off before the tide was really moving and had a couple of drops when I was passing over baitfish or fish arches mid to bottom of water column, but the river was manky from recent rain thet had washed from the roads rather than down river. Phoned the boss and told her (also known as - getting permission) that I was heading out over the bar and headed for the first wreck. There was a merryfisher iirc near the mark and they were bemused to see me peddling over, I got the drift totally wrong, which isn`t uncommon first drift, and headed back to try again and the merryfisher motored off and another boat headed over, also with bemused looks. They were feathering for mackerel and we had a wee chat until I hit the wreck square on and had a double header of codling and mackerel, the mackerel was kept and I passed it over to them as they were wanting fresh bait. It was hit and miss with most fish either just downtide of the hull or 50m away where the water gets a bit deeper with some nice codling , pout, and the occasional mackerel.

Several boats came over but none were interested in anything other than getting mackerel, later a potter came by asking if I had much and I told him what I`d had and he went in close to the north pier (Tynemouth) to try there as the flooding tide comes from the north and gets a kick out by the north pier making it attractive to mackerel. After a while I saw he was getting some herring so I headed over but it must have been an isolated shoal and I was hitting mackerel, most I could T bar off but I ended up with four for making fishcakes. I tried a few drops inside the piers hoping to get into the herring as the flood was cleaning the river up and I thought I was on them when I got a light rattle and a pretty gurnard came in, which is most unusual for up here. I was just moving out of the way of a container vessel and the pilot boat when I got a call and had to head in, one deeply hooked codling for a neighbour and four fresh mackerel to take home and I was happy to have made it out of the river and back without incident.

Any ideas what kind? Red Gurnard?

Greedy codling...

[daio web]

nice one fella great report 2

[Andy135]

Good session and write up. Nice fish too. That looks like a red gurnard to me.

[jonnyswamp]

Nice little sesh, I'd say red as well

[GPSguru]

9 hours ago, Malc said:

Any ideas what kind? Red Gurnard?

 

 

 

 

Looking closely, I am pretty sure that is a juvenile Grey Gurnard. It has the well defined lateral line and just behind the gills the classic grey /brown spots fading to white.

It also has the more spotted pattern on the head. Reds are generally what it says on the tin, they range from vivid red (almost orange) to an all over Red blotchy pattern.

We catch loads of Grey's on the Skerries, Reds and Tubs off the wrecks, and the very occasional Streaked Gurnard.

 

 

[mike farrants]

its deffo a grey gurnard!

theres no mistaking the reds!

and Tubs have blue edges to their pectoral fins

[Malc]

1 hour ago, mike farrants said:

Tubs have blue edges to their pectoral fins

I looked in my very old copy of "The observers book of sea fish" and that was the fish I could rule out and as it is immature that makes it harder to ID, more so because we rarely get them this far north unless we are on the west coast. 

Edited August 30, 2022 by Malc

[Malc]

Think I am leaning towards Grey due to the fins, the start of the 2nd dorsal is in front of the start of the anal and the pectoral looks like it wouldn't have reached as far back as the anal. I should put it in the PB section 🤣

Cheers everyone 👍🏻