Stories

Catching Dogfish and Pout Whiting

Dogfish - Also know as "Rock Salmon"

As I live in the UK, and I’m originally from the south coast (where my Parents still live), I like to go back from time to time and do some fishing. If you’re doing beech fishing then you can catch things like Pout Whiting (related to Cod), Mackerel, Dogfish (from shark family), Gurnard, Sea Bass, squid and more.

I like to do beach casting for either mackerel or Pout Whiting. For the bottom feeders, it’s normally best to do this at night and reasonably high tide, the fish like to come in close to the shore to feed off worms, normally rag worms. I found threading these fat critters pretty disgusting the first time as their black blood squirts all over you, they smell like sh*t and they can bite. Using a threading needle makes these job a lot easier though.

As it was one of the first times I went fishing, I set up my rod as best as possible but on the first attempt, I managed to thread the line through all the hoops, attached the tackle but then found that because I hadn’t threaded it through the sppol of the reel, I had to take it all out again.

Before it got dark we decided to do a bit of mackerel, it’s normally best to do this a couple of hours or two before sun set. I tied the tackle to the line as best as possible, and then cast out. Well, that was the last I saw of that weight and hook as the whole lot flew out to sea. I’m sure you remember something like this happening to you the first time?

It was a bit rough, not really the right conditions so no luck on that occasion so we started to bait up with worms as the sun was going down quickly. It’s only at this point do you realise the importance of a head lamp, I had to share my friend’s light which made threading the ragworms even more difficult. However, once they were on (single hook), I cast out a few times and then got lucky with my first fish, a Pout Whiting which I was told is a relative of the Cod. It was hardly Moby Dick, but from the picture, you can see it was at least big enough to eat.

My first ever Pout Whiting

After catching a few of these, we decided to try for Dogfish using strips of mackerel as bait. For some reason, I wasn’t having any luck with these but my mate Jason managed to catch 3, one of which put up a pretty good fight, even when it was on land managing to draw blood with a graze, apparently fishermen used to use their skin as sandpaper.

I was amazed at the power they had and you could feel their thick muscles working as they tried to escape your grasps. They also managed to swallow the entire bait and tackle which made it really difficult to remove the hook, added to the fact that they are trying to bite you in the process!

You can find these being sold in some fish and chip shops under the name of Rock Salmon, probably because it sounds nicer than Dogfish. We did actually eat the ones we caught, quite nice but a very strong flavour which may not suite everybody. Also a bit weird that it was still moving 2 hours after we caught it, despite at this point it had no head, no internal organs and no skin. I half expected it to wake me up in the morning with a cup of tea!

Anyway, all in all, it was a great night’s fishing and having finally caught my first fish, I couldn’t wait to go back and try it again.

Phil Wheatley

Our Dogfish catch enjoying a bath in the sink

Darren Tett’s Road to Fishing Success

A great friend of mine and the site, Darren, gives an amusing account of how he went from catching everything BUT fish to catching more fish in an hour than he knew what to do with! See below:

Darren Tett

Hi, I’m Darren and I want to tell you about how I caught the fishing “bug” …. no pun intended! I guess I was about 14 or so when one evening I was watching the infamous John Wilson on TV land a fish the size of jaws with a stick and a piece of string!!! He was basically saying you don’t need the state of the art tackle if you have the location. I then thought “how hard can it be” so I went out the following day and bought a license and basic fishing gear. As I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, I just bought the most colorful floats and collection of tackle I saw as I was too embarrassed to ask for advice!!

Mackerel like the ones caught by Darren

I must have spent the next few years sitting on river banks wondering why I never caught a damn thing but the fact I was a “fisherman” clouded better judgment. I even took to the local pier where I lost count of how many shaken fists were aimed at my direction as I snarled the lines of the gentlemen on the opposite pier! Then as I got a little older, my friends and I took to beach fishing. I remember the first mackerel I ever caught making me feel like I’d achieved my goal!

On a recent occasion 3 friends and I were fishing off a local beach under perfect conditions (about a couple of hours before sunset at high tide) and in about an hour we caught over 150 mackerel which for us was very good. Each time we cast we were bringing in 3 or 4 at a time. At one point, one of my mates looked up and said “what the f**k are we going to do with all these fish?” We then broke out in laughter and agreed to stop…but we couldn’t!!

We kept fishing, praying every time we cast out that we would bring in more, and then saying “better make this the last one lads” After giving them away to family members and friends I think I still have a freezer full of fish! That’s how I started fishing and now I can’t stop!

Cheers Darren.

Sea fishing for Pollock and Mackerel

After doing some beach casting, we decided it would be fun to go out to sea in a boat to do some sea fishing. I figured it should be much easier as you don’t have to cast out, should just be a case of dropping the line and hoping for the best.

The boat we went on was a small fishing boat called Dawn Mist which runs small fishing trips in Dorset, Uk. For anybody who knows Hugh Fernly-Whittingstall, this is the boat he fishes on in his TV programmes. It was a bit choppy so I made sure I kept my eye on the horizon as much as possible t try and prevent sickness.

One of the Pollocks caught from the boat

After about 20 minutes heading out to sea, the skipper anchored the boat and baited up our rods for us. For many people, it was their first time fishing from a boat she he explained to everyone how to use the rod, basically a case of releasing the catch so that the bait (Ragworms) dropped to the very bottom (about 50 feet) and then turned the reel about 5 half turns and then wait.

The funny thing was the minute I did this, my rod suddenly started bending and the skipper said “hey, you’ve got a fish already”. I reeled it in quickly but carefully and as it broke the surface, it was a decent sized Pollock which makes a nice alternative to Cod.

The next fish I caught was probably the biggest Mackerel I’d ever caught, another one for the pot which was going to end up in a frying pan at some point or on the BBQ. After that we caught a couple more Pollock, some of which were too small to keep and we also caught some coloured fish which the skipper informed me are not good to eat.

After 3 hours at sea, I have to admit that the rolling of the boat was starting to get to me and it was also hard trying to hold a rod, bait up, hold on to the edge of the boat and also a cup of tea which the skipper had made all at the same time. It was nice to get back on to dry land carrying my bag of fish (see pic below), again, nothing I caught was hardly huge but I didn’t give a crap because it was great fun and thoughts of owning my own boat started going through my mind…