SEA ANGLER
UK & IRELAND SPECIALIST SPECIES HUNTER
Known for inhabiting deep water the blue whiting can be caught much closer to shore. In fact, you may have already caught one and misidentified it as its much commoner cousin, as Dave Lewis explains
TACTICS
Even though blue whiting are essentially a fish of the deep, open ocean, they can be targeted with a good degree of success much closer to land. Anglers fishing baited feathers on the bottom aboard boats off the Cornish peninsula not infrequently catch blue whiting, usually when waiting for a run during shark trips. Recently I was fishing for sharks in the Celtic
My one and only encounter with blue whiting, Micromesistius poutassou, was during a long range, multi-day charter fishing trip off the western side of the Isles of Scilly for six gill sharks. I was keen to try some light bottom fishing to add to my personal species tally, using baited feathers.
No sooner than I felt the lead touch bottom the rod tip registered a tip rattling bite. A gentle bend as I lifted the blank indicated I had hooked a fish, albeit a small one, but what was it? As I wound it up through the water column my mind was filled with thoughts of Ray’s bream or perhaps a boar fish, possibly even a grenadier?
When, finally, we got our first glimpse of the little fish in the clear water our questions were answered: I had caught a poor cod! Ditto the next couple of drops. Eventually I did manage to catch one of the iconic deep-water species associated with the near continental shelf, a blue whiting, which I closely followed with a second. Blue whiting are very similar to a common whiting but they have a noticeably larger eye
