Skate

[tugmistress]

so the tagging could be very important in that direction then

[SandTiger]

Can you not age them by just cutting their wings off and counting the annual growth rings?

[sam-cox]

Davy, cant all fish be agaed by the ears? I know they arnt realy ears but I forgoten the correct techy name. I also apriciate that the fish would have to be dead for this but there must of been a dead skate at some point that the scientist could of worked on., probably caught commercialy.

[nemofish2000]

http://www.mikeladle.com/chapter5.html

[Sharkbyte]

Otoliths Sam.

[Newt]

But I'm not sure you would do much good Sam since decent otoliths are mostly found in teleost fish (bony skeleton like a bass) and I think skate are probably cartilaginous.

 

BTW - your 'ear bones' was close since a common name for otoliths is 'ear stones'.

[Alan Stubbs]

At the time that article was written, my marriage had jsut broken up - Alan was unaware of this at the time.

 

He called me to say that he was offering me first refusal on his carp gear - then as an aside said 'Alan, you're OK with words, I've done an article about a skate fishing trip, and although I've done a spell-check please go through it to see if you can make it readable!'

 

I received the article and phoned him back to say that nothing I could do to it would do it justice. I just read the piece again. I have no reason to change my point of view.

 

The overwhelming feeling was of loss of a really good friend, and pure unadulterated envy! Those of us lucky enough to have met the man know that the picture of Alan with theskate on that article has the inner man just desperate to be punching the air and yelling 'YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!'

 

I phoned Sonja over Christmas, and hope we can get her over to Wingham in May for Steve Burke's fish-in.

[Vagabond]

Yes, a superb article that brings back memories of the man himself.

 

Thanks Elton

[SandTiger]

How spooky!!

 

When Alan passed away Bobreefcat kindly had an otolith (common jewelry in Portugal) mounted on a gold clasp & chain which was given to Sonja from Alan's close friends.