The Skipper's Blog
December Blog
People often ask what they are likely to catch in any particular month. Well, during the last four weeks' unrelenting gales, boredom finally drove me to some number crunching so that I might answer that question more accurately.
I looked back over my log books for the last four seasons and produced the following table.
I have used data only from trips where I have kept a complete list of all species caught. That amounts to almost 200 trip records. The season covered extends from mid-April to the end of September. There were not enough records for October to be of any statistical value.
It shows "species catch frequency" in terms of the percentage of all trips in each month when each species was caught. For instance, we caught mackerel on 98% of all fishing trips in the month of June over the last four years and we caught tope on 23% of all trips in the month of July over the same period.
April
May
June
July
Aug.
Sept.
Mackerel
14
50
98
97
88
75
Herring
7
50
49
31
17
14
Launce
7
14
16
5
29
7
Scad
0
0
5
3
5
0
Cod
79
91
93
79
88
79
Haddock
50
64
79
67
71
50
Whiting
64
77
77
74
76
68
Coalfish
29
41
30
44
37
32
Pollack
57
55
67
74
80
57
Ling
14
23
12
21
24
43
Turbot
0
0
2
5
0
0
Plaice
0
0
5
5
10
4
Flounder
0
5
0
0
5
4
Dab
0
5
12
10
20
14
Conger
0
0
0
3
5
11
Grey gurnard
14
50
77
72
78
82
Red gurnard
7
0
40
51
63
82
Tub gurnard
0
0
23
23
27
14
Ballan wrasse
0
9
12
18
10
14
Cuckoo wrasse
0
9
5
5
2
14
LSD
79
82
95
77
68
82
Huss
57
41
51
51
29
61
Spurdog
7
0
12
21
15
11
Smooth hound
0
0
2
5
0
0
Tope
0
0
7
23
12
18
Ray (all spp)
0
5
2
3
2
0
This catch frequency table is a bit of a generalisation in that it assumes we are equally likely to fish over the habitats of all species on every trip.
Now, we do tend to fish a variety of habitats every trip; from deep sand/shingle banks, to muddy banks, to deep and shallow rocky reefs. So for most of the species on the table the frequency is a fair representation.
But to those habitats we only occasionally add wrecks because the characteristics of the wrecks on our patch - deep and in exposed locations - require the best of weather and tide conditions to be fishable. The relatively small proportion of time spent over wrecks will go some way to explain, for instance, the scarcity of cuckoo wrasse catches. We do get them over other habitats, of course, which is why I've included them in the table. However we hardly ever get pouting other than over a wreck so I have not bothered to include them in the table.
The relative scarcity of the flatties also suggests we don't spend enough time over their habitats. Sure, during June and early July, fishing big baits for huss we get the occasional good turbot on the shingle banks. But if we were to target turbot and plaice we would have to spend more time over the rolling sandy banks off the north of the Rhins. That would also probably increase the catch frequency of rays.
Of course it is unrealistic to try to spend a useful amount of time on every type of ground in a single trip. But the fact that we have such a variety of species and habitats available means that a two or three day species hunt can be very productive. The boat record at present stands at 22 species over 3 days.
I also extracted water temperature records for the last couple of years and plotted the following chart. The temperatures recorded were those shown on my Koden sounder. I do not know how accurate the temperature measurement is in absolute terms but I think it is probably good in comparative terms. The winter of 2009/10 was very cold and that of 2010/11 was little warmer. The late arrival of mackerel in both of the last two seasons fits quite well with this temperature chart.
Well, that's enough navel gazing for now. The weather has improved so I'll get out into the back yard and cast some ball weights for next season.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!
