Coal Fish, Dungeness

You Just Never Know What You'll Catch

 Dungeness, Romney Marsh, Kent TN29, UK

Having seemingly being forced at short notice to take my remaining years quota of holiday before the 1st of April or else lose it, left me with nothing to do except a bit of fishing, see life's not that bad! I have done a 6 hour session at Hastings resulting in Rockling after Rockling and to rub salt into my pain of catching these cursed creatures the wind was ferocious. having practically given up, I decided to fish a sabiki rig off a sea wall, baiting the hooks with very small pieces of lug worm, in a vain hope of catching something different, I wasn't disappointed! after a few minutes of the rig being in the water the rod tip bounced up and down, I lifted the rod and reeled in a small 10cm Pollock to my surprise.

And today I fished Dungeness beach, the weather was a lot kinder, the sun was out, the wind was calm and the fish were constantly throwing their selves on my hooks, what a lovely little session, 29 fish comprising of Dabs, three of which were keepers at about 30cm, Whiting, Flounders and micro Rockling, most of my bigger fish had all come from a single 1/0 hook on a running leger fished 20 to 30 yards out, I was hoping for a Bass. As I dragged 2 more Dabs onto the beach with my Continental rod, I saw my bass rod swing round to the left and bounce violently almost pulling the rod sidewards off the stand, in a fisherman's style panic I dumped the rod in my hands faster than a magician and grabbed the rod which was still bouncing and lifted into a bigger and harder fighting fish, which I was convinced was a Bass, But no! A Pollock? but something was wrong, the colour wasn't a Pollock's rusty brown colour, this was blue, It was a Coal Fish, a very rare catch in this neck of the woods, the first I've seen and my first ever Coal fish at 1lb 4oz.

Coal Fish at Dungeness - Species No. 12

This by its self isn't that strange, fishing always throws up the odd surprise, but now having caught my first 2 Pollock from the beach this month, the fact that lots of tiny Cod are still being caught along the coast, and that I have just seen my first Coal Fish which is seldom seen this far south is telling me this season is going to be very different, and for the better!! and I bet it's got something to do with the very mild winter and severe flooding and storms that constantly battered our shores for a few months, I know the commercial fishing nets have not been out during these months and some which were seemed to of been destroyed and washed ashore.  Either way, this seems to be good for the fishing, and my UK shore caught fish tally for the year all ready stands at 12, and with such a good start with so many species I cannot help myself! I'm setting a target of 25 UK species to catch off the shore, and with the summer species coming soon and with a little bit of effort I'm going to have a lot of fun trying to achieve this!