The rarest fish you've caught?

[john step]

This thread has finally enabled me to identify a fish I caught back in 2007! I visited a local water and caught a fish that thwarted me in the id stakes. It looked like a hybrid but like no other. About the same time I was also having problems with some of the F1s/goldfish from the same water. They turned out to be gibel carp which meant a consignment of fish from abroad. That was the clue that my mystery hybrid might be an incomer and some careful checking has revealed that I caught a 'vimba' that day.

The golden rudd shown above is just that, a rudd. As for chub x bream, that combination doesn't seem to work (Colin Pitt thesis) so might have been something else??????????

Vimba

[]

Mark, it was swimming with a shoal of chub. It looked chubby but very breamy as well. I cannot remember where I looked it up but at the time I read somewhere that the hybridisation was very rare but possible. I have always believed that is what it was. I shall try to find a reference again.

Edited, Mark I found a reference by you on this subject in this forum FM on 12 th August 2011. You said it was possible but never seen one outside a lab. I am convinced due to its size that this may have been a million to one chance. I dont think there are ide in this river. The fish was just too deep not to be some sort of bream hybrid.

Edited again. There were a lot of silver bream in the Ancholme at that time. I never considered a chub x silver bream hybrid due to its large size and silver bream being so small, but who knows.

 

[spenbeck]

Had a Bullhead out of the Nidd in a match. I took a lobby head on a size 8!!!!

Greedy guts just wouldn't let go!

 

[silvers]

I've not had any of the whitefish species or a char, but I have had several bitterling from the Lancaster Canal when practising for a national in the 1990s.
So I guess mine would probably be a hybrid that I caught from the Great Ouse as a teenager in the early 80s. The only possible hybrid it could have been was Chub x Bleak!!

 

[Philip]

The golden rudd shown above is just that, a rudd

You might be right Mark & I would be happy for that to be the case as from memory it went well over 2lb but athough I was back & forth on it but I have never been 100% happy it was all Rudd.

You probably wont remember as it was a long time ago but I shared the photo with you in the past but your opinion was not 100% back then so I dont think its clear cut.

That said, you will always be one of the peoples whose opinion on these matters I certainly listen to.

 

[bleak]

A few Cucumber smelt from the Medway estuary in the early seventies spring to mind. Yes they do really smell of fresh cucumbers.

 

[spenbeck]

I remember seeing in a pet shop in the lates seventies a tank with garden ornament fish in it. The one that fascinated me was a proper 'black tench'. Must have been bred that way. Not a hint of green. Love to catch one in the wild!

 

[The Runner]

Had a Ray's Bream at Seaton Sluice in Northumberland when I was in my teens. There were a few more of them caught in the same general area that year.
Also in Northumberland, early 80s, had a 5lb lumpsucker from the breakwater at Warkworth, down the side on a feeder rod. Even on light tackle, still just a dead weight.

Had a few Arctic Char, but all in Finnish Lapland so they don't count.

 

[no-one in particular]

I was confused by some of this so a did some googling. First I have caught Bullheads in the sea at least that is what we called them but they are a different fish, they are also known as Long/short Spinned Scorpion fish, they look like the freshwater ones as well. Bullhead (Millers Thumb) (Cottus gobio) and : Myoxocephalus scorpius; Also know as: Bull Rout, Bullhead, Greater Bullhead, Sculpin, Short-horn Sea Sculpin, Father Lasher, Rock Sculpin. Note they have different Latin names.
Also confused by the term Cucumber Smelt, I have never heard that term before, although it is known that Smelt smell like cucumber I did not think there were a sub species, a smelt is a smelt. Googling says they are of the order Osmeriformes but no cucumber order. several sub species throughout the world and sometimes referred to as freshwater or sea smelt but considered the same species.

 

[Philip]

Smelt smell like cucumber I did not think there were a sub species, a smelt is a smelt. Googling says they are of the order Osmeriformes but no cucumber order. several sub species throughout the world and sometimes referred to as freshwater or sea smelt but considered the same species.

Someone may correct me but I think the "cucumber" reference in cumcumber smelt is just an extra people sometimes add Mark rather than it being a actual sub species.

Like "Skimmer" Bream or "Jack" Pike etc.

"Starry" Smoothhound was an interesting one as they were thought to be an actual sub species until quite recently.

 

[Mark Wintle]

Cucumber is an added name but also helps distinguish them from the unrelated sand smelt.

 

[Ray Roberts]

I used to fish for stingray and had several up to fifty pounds from the Thames estuary and a couple from the Solent.

I also caught pumpkinseed in Sussex which are an invasive species and fairly rare, not in the lake i was fishing though, it was rammed with the little blighters.


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