Found this in the guardian this week, obviously the 30lb bit is wong???
A fish that is believed to have died out in Britain 40 years ago has been bred by scientists at Brooksby Melton College in Leicestershire, who are hoping to reintroduce it. More than 200 burbot fry have been produced in laboratory conditions that mimic British rivers. If they thrive, they will be put into the wild. Burbots, which are related to cod and were probably wiped out by pollution, like fast-flowing rivers and deep, cold lakes, and can weigh up to 30lb. Scientist Ian Wellby said: "Rivers are much cleaner now and we hope that global warming has not warmed up the rivers too much."
yes they are only fry species Fred, the Guardian have got it wrong of course, and are to all intent and purposes extinct in the UK, I think the last recorded one was Rev Alstons in the late 60s. I`ve seen them in Europe but never in the UK, I think it would be nice to see them in British rivers again, of interest they are the only freshwater member of the cod family, so burbot and chips might be on the menu, if may however be difficult identifying which is the chip and which is the burbot?
The burbot (Lota lota), often referred to as a "junkfish", is a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresh_water" title="Fresh water">freshwater</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish" title="Fish">fish</a> related to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cod" title="Cod">cods</a>. It is also known as the lawyer, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eelpout" title="Eelpout">eelpout</a>, and closely related to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ling" title="Ling">ling</a> and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cusk_%28fish%29" title="Cusk (fish)">cusk</a>. It is most common in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream" title="Stream">streams</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake" title="Lake">lakes</a> of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_America" title="North America">North America</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe" title="Europe">Europe</a> above 40°N <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latitude" title="Latitude">latitude</a>. They are fairly common in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Erie" title="Lake Erie">Lake Erie</a> but are also found in the other <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes" title="Great Lakes">Great Lakes</a>In Britain, the burbot is possibly an extinct fish as it is believed that there have been no documented catches of the species since the 1970s <a href="http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/item.php?news=246" title="http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/item.php?news=246">[1]</a>. If the burbot does still survive in the UK, the counties of Cambridgeshire and Yorkshire (particularly the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Derwent%2C_Yorkshire" title="River Derwent, Yorkshire">River Derwent</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Ouse%2C_Yorkshire" title="River Ouse, Yorkshire">River Ouse</a>) seem to be the strongest candidates for areas in which the species might yet continue to survive <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/whatson/prog_parse.cgi?FILENAME=20050313/20050313_1330_49700_46694_30" title="http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/whatson/prog_parse.cgi?FILENAME=20050313/20050313_1330_49700_46694_30">[2]</a>. There have been plans to re-introduce this freshwater member of the cod family back into British waters but these have yet to come to fruition.
In the 1920s, Minnesota druggist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_H._Rowell" title="Theodore H. Rowell">Theodore H. Rowell</a> and his father Joseph Rowell, a commercial fisherman on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_of_the_Woods" title="Lake of the Woods">Lake of the Woods</a>, were using the burbot as feed for the foxes on Joe’s blue fox farm. They discovered that the burbot contained something that improved the quality of the fox’s furs; this was confirmed by the fur buyers who commented that these furs were superior to other furs they were seeing. Ted felt it was something in the burbot, so he extracted some oil and sent it away to be assayed. The result of the assay was that the liver of the burbot is 3-4 times more potent in vitamin D, and 4 – 10 times more potent in vitamin A than “good grades” of cod liver oil.
I agree with Woody too. I would much rather have a few burbot in the river than even carp. I certainly hope the project succeeds.
Certainly according to my research, burbot, being closely related to cod, are extremely good eating. Properly managed it would certainly be nice if specific burbot fisheries existed where an angler could pay and take home a nice burbot to eat.
I`m not sure now you come to mention it Fred, i`ve always classed Burbot as a fry specie, alomng with bullhead, ruffe, bleak, , gudeon , minnow, and all the other little stuff ???
Coloring:mottled olive-green to shades of brown on back; cream-colored underneath
Common Names:lawyer, American burbot, ling, eelpout, loche, freshwater cod
Found in Lakes:Michigan, Huron, Ontario, Erie and Superior (but uncommon in Erie)
These elongated, cylindrical, freshwater codfish inhabit most waters of Alaska, Canada and northern United States as well as corresponding latitudes of Eurasia. Despite the burbot's homely form, its meat is palatable and nutritious. A delicacy in Scandinavia, the burbot's liver contains oil said to rival that of the saltwater cod. In the U.S., burbots -- commonly called "lawyers" in the Great Lakes region -- have long been overlooked as a food fish. Early Great Lakes fishermen derided them as trash fish. In the middle of the 20th century, the lakes' burbot populations declined under the onslaught of the sea lamprey. Today, however, burbot are returning to the lakes in increasing numbers. Burbot spawn under the midwinter ice, usually in one to four feet of water, though sometimes deeper. By midsummer, they move out to the cool depths of the lake, where they roam the open waters with lake trout, lake whitefish and other deepwater fish. Many knowledgeable fishermen savor burbot. When boiled and buttered, the sweet flavor of burbot has earned it the title of "poor man's lobster." Though they continue to have an undeserved reputation as "trash fish," the commercial harvest of burbot from Green Bay and northern Lake Michigan increased nearly fivefold during the early 1980s to a total of nearly 100,000 pounds annually.
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