00:00At Lyme Regis we have a species hunt competition. There's two branches of it.
00:05There's boat fishing and shore fishing. A few basic rules like one rod maximum
00:11of three hooks and you can fish anywhere in the UK. It doesn't have to be on any
00:19specific boats. The aim is to catch as many different species as possible. So
00:24be that mini species this big or giant sharks or tuna any new species counts
00:31towards the total. You can double up and do the combined shore and boat competition
00:36if you want and then at the end of the year there's a big presentation and if
00:41you've climbed the table high enough there's prizes. Last year I won all three
00:47events probably because I'm out on a boat most of the time but we did a lot of
00:54fishing all around the country. 45 species off the boat last year which was
00:59very I was very proud of that. The smallest was probably a smelt about it two inches
01:06long and the biggest was probably a taupe about 45 pounds. It's changed quite a bit
01:13in the past of like 10-15 years. The same as everywhere mackerel numbers are down
01:18but you're starting to see species that you wouldn't necessarily have seen before
01:22like the the scad or the horse mackerel. They're suddenly becoming the new mackerel
01:27in terms of numbers. You pick up huge shoals of those and a lot of people will
01:32say they're terrible to eat but most people who say that haven't tried them.
01:37They're not bad fish to eat and they make very good sushi as well and they give a
01:42really good fight on light gear. How about things we've heard of like octopuses and tuna and stuff like that?
01:47The octopus, they are, everyone's heard in the news that they've made a big, well, I won't say
01:54comeback but they are moving in the past few years and doing quite a lot of damage to
01:58the lobster and the crab stocks, even the scallop. They'll get inside the pot, eat
02:04everything, move on to the next pot, eat everything. But the tuna as well, the tuna have made a huge
02:10comeback.
02:11Everyone thinks they're new to the waters but around 1900, they were everywhere.
02:17We overfished them and migration patterns changed but now they've made a huge comeback.
02:23It's great to see, they eat absolutely everything from mackerel, garfish, they love garfish, even bass.
02:31Many people I know have had bass at the side of the boat, go to net them and suddenly you've
02:35got a tuna
02:35come out and just inhale a whole five, six pound bass. And you've got other species that follow the tuna,
02:40like blue runners and other, the fish that come and clean up the scraps after the tuna are fed.
02:48And you get things like comers as well, little wrasse type fish, started coming in in Cornwall,
02:54making their way up the whole south coast. As far as I'm aware, tote fishing hasn't really changed that much.
03:01Bristol Channel seems to fish very well for them, as it does off Portland, but they're not always in the
03:12same place
03:12where you'd expect them to be. We've fished for them before down in Cornwall and normally you'll catch loads of
03:18tote,
03:19big tote, big females, but we've had days where you couldn't even find one, let alone a charter's worth of
03:27tote.
03:27The flounder competitions there, they've been very disappointing, especially mainly due to the protection of the bass in the nursery
03:38areas.
03:39You protect the bass and they just eat all of the flounder fry and there's none left to turn into
03:46adults and breed.
03:47So the numbers have dropped for flounder, but they seem in the past year, it's been making a little bit
03:51of a comeback.
03:53We like to try and make it a bit different, obviously with the numbers of mackerel dropping, we try and
03:57find alternate fish to catch.
03:59We'll do a lot of bottom fishing or go wrasse fishing.
04:06If one thing's not available, we'll try and at least catch something else.
04:12It's been quite a slow start this year for the mackerel, so a lot of the time we've been going
04:17wrasse fishing, pollock fishing, whiting fishing.
04:20I think generally as long as people are catching fish, they're quite happy.
04:23But I can stay in the middle of the way.
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