Many years ago when there was such a thing as the close season that applied to all water I used to travel to Anglesey off the tip of North Wales along with fellow members of the Coventry Specimen Group for the Easter Holiday.
Our target was wrasse and we would stop off at the Menai Strait to collect lugworm and then continue our way to Lynas Point just on the NE tip of the island.
These trips were great fun and quite a few fish were caught of many different species, then one day I hit the jackpot. Merv fishing just along from me came to help as I reeled what appeared to be a better fish in to the side. We were fishing off quite high rocks and Merv went to the bottom to get the fish, no net, it would be just handed in.
As the quarry came to the side, Merv took one look and his comment would not be polite to repeat on an open forum, enough to say he was not going to handle this perticular specimen.
It looked like a brown football with spikes all over it's body and a big orange circle on it's chest. At 7lb 14oz quite a size, along with teeth that looked like they would cut through nails.
At the time I had no idea what it was but a check through the books upon my return home showed I had a nice Lumpsucker.
Some time after this I noticed a piece in the papers that made reference the the Welsh Record committee and I contacted them to find more detail of the general size of these fish since they were rarely reported, I was told if I submitted the details I could claim the Welsh Record.
The world has moved on since then but there is no doubt they are quite ugly.
