NESA Species Hunt 2013

[Aqua-holic]

Five bearded rockling

Five bearded rockling

 

[Thunderpants]

Rockling added.

 

[lumpsucker]

Pollock

 

[Thunderpants]

Three Bearded Rockling.

 

[Thunderpants]

Rockling Identification​

There are quite a few rocklings in the Species Hunt which have been labelled Shore Rockling and I now think that this is wrong and that most of them should be relabelled Three Bearded Rocklings. I have written this little article to explain why .....

Rockling identification has always been a tricky one and has caused some confusion, for me just as much as anybody. It's easy enough to spot a Five Bearded Rockling as it is the only one with five beards but the difficult one is the difference between the Three Bearded Rockling and the Shore Rockling both of which have three beards (three barbels). Generally the Three Bearded Rockling is described as having dark spots on a lighter coloured body whereas the Shore Rockling is plain looking or sometimes has a mottled pattern (light patches on a dark background). The Lyme Regis SAC website describes this with photos shown below LRSAC Official Website.

Three Bearded Rockling

Shore Rocklings

Based on this I have previously assumed that the plain looking rocklings we have been catching in the north east were Shore Rocklings but it appears that this is not the case. Lambtonworm has pointed out to me that there are no records of Shore Rocklings ever being caught in the north east (thanks for the heads up mate). I have had a look around on the internet and found this distribution map for the Shore Rockling on the Marlin website MarLIN - The Marine Life Information Network

Shore rockling - Gaidropsarus mediterraneus

The blue dots show where Shore Rocklings have been recorded and as you can see there are none in our area. The Lyme Regis SAC website says they mainly catch Shore Rocklings where they are on the south coast and that the Three Bearded Rockling is extremely rare there. This website Shore rockling says that "Shore Rocklings live in and around rocky areas throughout the English Channel".

According to wikepedia the "Three-bearded rockling (Gaidropsarus vulgaris) is found in European waters from the central Norwegian coast and the Faroe Islands, through the North Sea and around the British Isles to the region around the Western Mediterranean." Three-bearded rockling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So it looks like in our region any rockling we catch with three barbels must be a Three Bearded Rockling as the Shore Rockling does not venture this far north. I will change the ones in the Species Hunt to 3B Rocklings with the exception of the one caught by Bassboyo as his shows the distinctive mottled pattern of a Shore Rockling and his southern location (we assume ) is correct for that species. If anyone has any objections or would like to discuss please comment below.

In future then, if anyone catches a rockling for the species hunt please bear in mind the part of the UK it was caught in and also count the barbels. They are easy enough to count - they are often stuck to the head when you pull them out of the sea but if you run your finger gently across the top of its head from front to back you can flick them up. If it has five barbels (four on top of the head and one under the chin) then you have caught a Five Bearded Rockling, if it has three (two on top of the head and one under the chin) and if you are in the north east you have caught a Three Bearded Rockling and if in you are in the South Coast / English Channel area then you have probably caught a Shore Rockling. Does that sound ok with everybody?

 

[finding nemo]

i believe we do get shore rocklings in the north east.

i have cought 1 fish that i knew was a 3bd due to its bright colouration and lighter spots but the rest of the rockling ive had were pretty much same colour but plain looking in comparison

but this one and the only pic i have of any rocking ive cought matches every possible description for a shore rockling i can find.

i think it would be a mistake to dismiss any entrys of shore rockling cought on our coast.

i cant proove i have cought shore rocklings for a fact but i really beleive i have.


just my thoughts but i could be wrong

 

[lobsterwells]

i think mikes information is good but i tend to agree that you never know what you may catch . a swordfish turn up in a salmon net a couple of years ago just 2 mile off newbiggin by the sea. and i decided to go out last night after work to try out my new lrf gear just to get a feel for it and with the millennium bridge in sight i tried a few casts . too my surprise ii caught these 2 .

 

[lobsterwells]

who would of thought you could catch fish on a lure in the tyne at the dead of night surprised me . cant wait to get down the coast of some of our piers where theres more species .... happy hooking lads mmmmmm n lasses

 

[Thunderpants]

Finding Nemo, yes that pic does seem to show the white mottling of a shore rockling. As Lobsterwells says you do get surprises turning up so there's no reason why one of us would not catch one. My problem was that the species hunt table had lots of shore rocklings listed which cannot possibly be true based on their recorded distribution.

Here is another spanner in the works ...... some five bearded rockling only have short stumps for the lower two barbels even just tiny humps. It is possible that all the rocklings in the table are the five beard species just with the lower two barbels small, not showing or missing which makes identification of rocklings a nightmare. I guess without the expert opionion of a marine biologist and a DNA test we can never be sure but as the hunt is just a bit of fun with no cash or prizes involved I am happy to say that any rockling we catch where we can see three barbels are Three Bearded Rocklings and any with five barbels are Five Bearded Rocklings. Any that are definately shore rocklings will be labelled as such too. How does that sound?

Lobsterwells, welcome to the board champ. Amazing you could catch those two on lures at night. I am going to have to look into this LRF stuff.

Table updated.

Also I think I forgot to post it but the hagfish vote the majority was against including it in this years hunt so hagfish will not be allowed this year. I have added that into the rules in the first post.

 

[finding nemo]

aye mate its a bit of a nytmare like,

the rules are fair enuff and like you say its only a bit of fun. would be nice if there was a defining feature that distinguished the two species but dosnt look like there is one.

i think your righy tho most of the listed shore rocklings are the 3 bd.

 

[Bassboyo]

Am happy with that lads, no worries

Can I add this to the table please

Sea trout

 

[lobsterwells]

lovely fish mate never caught a sea trout myself but that's the one i wanna get this year. must have giving a great fight on the light tackle

 

[Thunderpants]

Well done Bassboyo. Sea Trout added.

 

[OXY]

nice sea trout that matey

 

[toonboymc]

A blenny

 

[Stewart 1971]

Pretty sure that's another Eelpout mate, orange fin and eyes on top of the heed are the giveaway

 

[Thunderpants]

Sorry Michael that's an eelpout and you've already got one of those. :calim:

 

[toonboymc]

Sorry boys

 

[fishingmark]

I've printed a card out so going to give the species hunt a shot this year. Here's a flounder to start with.

 

[Thunderpants]

Welcome to the league fishingmark.