Species Hunt 2011

People: Dan, Mick and gfkelly

Duration: 3pm - 8.30pm

Tide: rising+falling

Weather: sunny and dry.

Bait:, Mackerel, Lug sand eel

Rigs: 3 hook flapper and 1 hook.

Result, flounder. sea trout. plaice. turbot.

Report:

.We got to the fishing mark a bit late and the surf looked good. We all taught the weed would be around but not a single piece of weed all day. . My first cast out i spotted the rod nod and i left it to do ts own thing. when i reeled in it was a nice flounder. happy days blank saved. the other rod that was at distance took a massive bend and i pulled into it. with a fight all the way to the beach my first and PB sea trout was landed it was in great condition and swam away at speed. mick was the next to land a flounder . it went quite for a while and Gerry pulled in a flounder. so we were all happy no blank today. mick soon was pulling in a double shot of flounder and plaice. I then got a plaice followed by a flounder . another species to the list. It was soon time to call it a day and as we were rapping up i spotted a splash at the end of the line a turbot. . brilliant 4 species for the day. . mick reeled in and landed another double shot with flounder and turbot. and Gerry was also in to another flounder. a good day out and a good mix of species {not specimens} for the day.

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nice going dan.........

nice mixed bag lads great fishing well done

well done lads,nice to see that beach coming on again!

well done dan,,,,,,,,,,,if dan cant do it no one can

nice variety of spesies Dan, well done

Well done

Nice report Dan, Gotta say, it was a cracking days fishing for this early in the year, considering the weather and gale force winds the day before. Always good to meet up with the lads and have the crack, plus that is the species list kicked off officially for this year... Not a bad start for the first species outing...

Mick

that plaice is actually a flounder. nice fishing all the same dan, little turbo's are deadly looking

thanks for the replys lads. { nicely said Brian }.just looked it up and that looks like a plaice to me.if not fair enough. .

nice going lads and well done on the trout,,,,,

great fishing lads always nice to get a good mix of species in the one session .but sadly eric is right, your plaice is a spotty orange flounder . those wee fish had us fooled for the first few dozen too. if i remember rightly it spawned (pardon the pun ) a whole debate on flounder and place spawning in the same areas at the same time with some hillbilly "keep it in the family" action going on.

nice one well done on the pb 4species

Thanks for the replies lads. but can some one tell me where Ive gone wrong with the flounder / plaice identifying. i taught a flounder had a load of small lumps up the back to the top of the head and the plaice has a smooth back up to the head where there is small lumps on the head.?.

hi dan. the differences between the 2 species can be fairly similar in some cases as we mis identified a brave few in our first year of fishing for them. i have loads of refrence books at home with conflicting ideas about how to tell them apart. but when you know what to look for they are pretty easily told apart. some books telly you to look for things like the colour of the underbelly ans skin colour and texture but over the last few years i've found the easiest way to tell them apart is from 3 simplified indicators.

1. if you look at the lateral line on a flounder from the middle of the fish going back towards the head you'll see as you get closer to the head there is a clump of rougher scales either side of the line. on a plaice there are only a few in a single line rather than an increasing clump or none at all.

2. the orange spots on a plaice can almost be red at times or are more like a circle with a skin coloured dot in the middle. but in both cases the spots are striking and very strong instead of fainty marked.

3. on a flounder if you look from the back if it's eye to the lateral line you'll see it looks like a raised ridge of bone below the skin. where as on a plaice it is a row of boney nodules with a wee gap between each bump. it's usually a row of 4 bumps, but i have seen cases where there can be as many as 6.

but sadly the last nail in the coffin of your spotty orange flounder is the fact he is a lefty. plaice are exclusevly a right handed fish with less than 0.5% of the entire hatch ever being found to be left handed. to catch a left handed plaice would be very rare catch indeed. where as almost a quarter of the hatch of flounder revert to being left handed rather than right handed. the only species of flatfish where this occurs. so that in it's self makes your spotty fella still a worthy catch as you'll only see a few each year if your lucky i hope this softens the blow as you thought it was a plaice. but a lefty flounder is still a nice unusual variation that some people never see

hope this helps for future identification man as they had us baffled for the first year or so too
i'll add a few pics to see if it shows better what i'm talking about. but never worry, with the ammount of fishing you boys get in, it's only a matter of time before you get your plaice
happy hunting

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thanks al and jordan. that clears that up. great pointers to look out fot al. tight lines regards Dan.

nice report Dan,it was great to meet up with yourself and Mick again for a session and I was delighted to see the turbot as its a species I would like to get this year

interesting what al said about the identification of the flounder and the plaice,the flounder and the plaice are as confusing as the dogfish and the bull huss

nice species bein caught there Dan, nice fishin.
and a great wee post on info for differentiating between plaice and 'spotty-orange' flounder there Al.