Species Hunt....With a Twist

TV Priest anyone ? They've listened to the Fall quite a bit which is obviously a good thing. And while we're on music, The Bug Club, my new favourite band, courtesy of Marc Riley's R6  evening show.

The species hunt ? I'm doing the normal how-many-species-can-you-catch-anywhere ( shore only...boat is cheating isn't it ? ) but in addition I'm seeing how many I can catch from the Suffolk Stour. For the sake of the hunt the Stour ends at Harwich-Shotley, so a combination of freshwater and salt.

I've had three new 2022 species in the past couple of days, a little ballan wrasse yesterday and a three spined stickleback and sand goby today.

The ballan is a bit of a bonus as almost all the wrasse I've had locally have been corkwings.

Nodding about today in the sunshine along the tidal Stour I crawled up to the brackish dyke, connected to the main river by a sluice and peered in to the almost crystal clear water.

Yep. Little sticklebacks. At first they ignored the spec of ragworm on my size 22 hook. I jiggled the bait in front of them and three or four rushed in to sieze the worm

.

Yes ! A tiny fish with a bright red chest. Another one in the bag.

It took me a while to find the sand gobies, they're so well camouflaged and.....well, fecking small. I lowered the pin head sized bait down by the sluice and though I couldn't see the fish, the bait disappeared from view.

A very fat, quite big sand goby sat awaiting a photo on the unhooking mat. Well, on the steps actually.

I'm well aware that catch little fish is quite ridiculous but, again, I'll quote Steve Peters.

"Everything is as important or as unimportant as you choose to make it"

Anyway, in my book washing the car or doing DIY are far more ludicrous activities. Each to their own eh ?

I reckon I'll do thirty or more species from the Stour this year. Maybe more.

'Ave it.

I realise