What Is This Fish

[Norm B]

Theres thousands of them coming ashore up here along with some other weired specimens, last year we had several oarfish get washed up. There was quite a few last year (Rays Bream) but there is lots more this year. The press around here have tried to portray it as a sign of global warming, but all the older anglers will remember these things coming ashore on the Yorkshire coast in the cold winters of the 60's and 70's. Im not sure why they choose to commit suicide but they do come ashore alive then they die on the beach. Lots of people up here are eating the live ones and say they taste like Tuna

 

They don't commit suicide, the cold water sends them into a coma and they was up with the tide.

[Kayakero]

Hello guys,

I'm italian anglers, and i think this fish is named in Italy "Castagna" (Brama Brama)

 

http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.php?ID=391

 

This fish is not rare in Mediterranean sea when to catch with natural bait at deep fishing tecnique.

 

Regards,

 

Kayakero

 

 

http://www.kayakero-kayakero.blogspot.com/

[Brian Carragher]

Those that are coming ashore alive are being taken and eaten by locals and they reckon they taste better than bass, some say they are tuna like in flesh and taste but all agree they're good eating

[glennk]

I remember those oarfish, Glenn. Bloody weird looking things!

 

I'm not surprised that people are trying to use this as a reason to justify their global warming spin. It was inevitable, really.

 

Are people eating the bream? Anyone fishing for them?

 

The local clubs and open matches banned them. Some clubs recently rewrote their rules to deal with it as the potential for cheating was obvious, and indeed I heard some people treid to weigh them in to win money. I have never heard of one claim (Or one that I believe, that is) that people have legally caught one fair and sqaure in the mouth. As Brian says though, people are eating them and say they are very tastey.

[Elton]

LOL I've got visions of someone turning up for a weigh-in with a wheelbarrow full of them

[chesters1]

i remember in 73/4 part of the coast about the same place being inundated with angler fish ,where the lighthouse is on that little island at whitley bay was about 3ft deep in them ,after a few days it really ponged

Edited February 27, 2010 by chesters1

[Vagabond]

I have never heard of one claim (Or one that I believe, that is) that people have legally caught one fair and sqaure in the mouth.

Nor me, apart from the one I mention in Post 2. Its a long time ago, and if memory serves me, caught on a three-hook brass paternoster. Bait would be lugworm - I used nothing else in those days. Can't remember exactly how it was hooked, so couldn't swear it was not a foulhook, but AFAIK it was hooked in the mouth. It was definitely flapping when it came in! The bit I do remember is taking it home and looking it up in my uncle's Fish of the British Isles by Travis Jenkins

 

Caught one off Salthouse beach in about 1944

 

Anyone else had one by "fair angling" ??

[Nick88]

There was a pic of a 30ft oarfish caught in the firth of forth in total sea fishing magazine a good few years back,there was about 10 folk holding it up!!!

[Prof]

I received the following by email. If you can help, please post your reply to this thread:

 

 

 

 

Looks like Rays Bream but I ain't an expert.

 

Prof

[glennk]

This is one of the oarfish pictures that Alan Charlton took