Our Friend, the Wrasse.

Sunday 8th of April 2018. The sun is shining, wind absent and Falmouth is experiencing a neap tide. 2 weeks earlier to the day, lured by a false promise of small surf, I'd ventured the first kayak fishing trip of 2018 only to be sent back frustrated at time lost to sketchy strong winds and currents, resulting in large standing waves, anchoring dangerous and fishing impossible. But today there's a buzz in the air. Riding on this seasonal shift seemed to be the whole of Falmouth's inhabitants, with surfboard laden cars queuing towards every beach, the smell of barbequed meat hazily spreading and warmth reflected in many smiles. And I was with them, taking the kayak for a walk through town to launch from Gylly, my nearest beach. 

Last time I launched with apprehension, seeing the waves bigger than anticipated, telling of the futility to come. This time the gentle surf just kissed the sides of the kayak, sending me off into the calm blue with a gentle glide (though admittedly I still haven't quite mastered the art of graceful entry with a tackle-laden kayak). I headed for an old favourite reef of mine, past the nudist beach (equally busy as everywhere else today), to a spot that has consistently delivered wrasse, pollock and even a good number of bass. After trying with metal jigs and feathers over the length of this ground it seemed that the pollock weren't home today, so to wrasse my attention turned. Ballan wrasse have a special place in my heart, skulking territorially in underwater labyrinths of rock and kelp, venturing out only a little way to pugnaciously see your lure away. I vertically jigged a weedless soft-plastic lure beneath with the slow drift of the kayak, making sure to feel regular snatches of rock and kelp to know that the lure was in the bite zone. 

Pretty soon I was greeted by a snag that snatched some line from my spool with a thump before leaving the lure free. It seemed odd, so I lowered the lure straight back down. This time I had a much more solid connection with this thumping snag, it could only be the characteristic take of a wrasse. After curbing the first dive of my quarry to its tackle-snatching snags, I gained a little line towards the surface. This wrasse must have now realized all was not well, and it reacted the way that wrasse always seem to. My rod tip plunged beneath the surface and my reel was screaming with glee as the fish tore line back, leaving me palming the spool and hoping the backbone of my spro would be enough to win over this aggressive fight. After a couple more dives I found myself unhooking a large, brilliantly bronze coloured ballan wrasse.

Fighting till the end, this wrasse was nicely sticking up its fins in defiance. Fiiish black minnow lure used to catch this individual can be seen folded over on the upper lip.

 

Other great things to love about wrasse: They come in such a suite of colours to camouflage themselves against their domain of choice, from this burnished bronze to strawberry-like red with pale spots. They also have a crazy life cycle, starting off as female and then transitioning to male when dominant males die, with large males territorially defending their harem of females. Thirdly, they have a formidable set of jaws if you're a marine invertebrate, with their broad teeth making light work of any unfortunate crab's exoskeleton. 

Nice red-brown ballan caught on previous trip, quite typical of the kelp bed that it was caught from. 

After a couple of pictures and admiration my wrasse was quickly slipped back to its home below. But I can't talk about this brilliant species without a word of anxiety. You see, while this species has largely avoided commercial exploitation due to its bony meat (so I hear, never tried but will happily tell others that such is the case if it keeps the wrasse safe!) a new threat faces these fish. Salmon farms in Scotland, amongst a plethora of other environmental crimes, have begun importing live wrasse from the coasts of South West England. Such action is to control salmon lice infections that plague farms due to chronically high stocking density allowing easy transmission, with wrasse happily performing cleaner function in eating these lice. However, this wholesale theft of wrasse populations is fundamentally unsustainable, as a farm manager conceded 6 years ago even before the practice became widespread [1]. 

Now I know that wrasse probably aren't on the top of everyone's radar, perhaps not even on those of people disposed to reading to this blog, but bear with me on this one. Recent predictions stand that a million wrasse are taken every year from Special Areas of Conservation in Southern British waters every year [2]. This entirely unregulated depletion of natural populations has raised alarm bells from a number of marine conservation groups, as there is no real knowing what effect loss of this unique predator from marine ecosystems might have. We've already seen the collapse of many marine ecosystems, from the great banks fisheries collapse to our pitifully low bass breeding populations, and the fact remains that there is little else that can replace the top-down predation function that the ballan wrasse performs in their ecosystem. Further, as my 3^rd year research project taught me, exploitation of sequential hermaphroditic species such as wrasse is likely to have a disproportionate affect in disrupting their population structure, and wrasse are slow growing to recover from this exploitation- meaning massive, long-lasting negative impact.

So next time you're in the fishmongers, or realistically for most of us, the supermarket, take a moment to think. Is the damage that our obsession with unnaturally pink salmon worth debt that it takes from our beautiful coastal ecosystems? Can that middle-class seafood brunch really compare to the breathtaking connection of coming face-to-face with the bold and pugnacious native character of our coastlines for millions of snorklers, divers and anglers around the UK? I beg of you to put positive environmental change before petit comforts. Consider our friend, the wrasse. 

Dan

Consider our friend, the wrasse. 

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-19878554

[2] https://www.undercurrentnews.com/2018/03/12/anglers-could-sue-uk-govt-over-wrasse-catches-for-salmon-farming/

Tassie trout #1

Here’s a post I never got around to finishing and uploading whilst out camping this summer as my laptop ran out of battery!


January 2018 – Rainforest trout fishing

“I’m currently enjoying my summer holiday, and as I write this am sitting in a forest clearing, it’s around 20 degrees Celsius and the sound of birds, insects and running water fills the air. Although it’s quite a small island, there is an incredible amount of wilderness out there to explore, and the South west national park which covers about 25% of the state is labelled “The last great temperate wilderness”. It is so remote, that some of the bays along that coast are simply labelled “un-surveyed” on some nautical charts. The South and West coasts of Tasmania are at the mercy of the “roaring forties”, winds which encircle the Antarctic continent and Southern Ocean, are some of the most extreme places I have sea fished. 

For now, though, I’ll write about my most recent trips. I’m currently spending some time exploring the far-south of Tasmania, only a couple hours drive from Hobart, but somewhere I hadn’t yet properly been to.

Yesterday I left the camping area I had stayed the night at and made my way to a bridge over a river which I had scouted out the day before. It looked promising, about 10m wide, and about a foot and a half deep on average. The waters were dark, tannin stained from the dense surrounding forest. I had seen two small trout so thought it was worth a go. I had originally planned to go sea fishing, but I was also keen to do some more trout fishing as I had only made use of my seasons licence on two other occasions, blanking both times. I thought this would be a good spot to have a try at cracking Tasmania’s rivers. It was fairly remote, even by Tasmanian standards. I had lost phone signal about 80km away, and it was 20k from the nearest tarred road. The other spots I had unsuccessfully fished before were both accessible, and I had been led to the conclusion that they were over-fished.

To make sure I wasn’t wasting time, I made the decision to not fish for about half an hour, and use the time to walk deeper into the forest (temperate rainforest) to find some less pressured water. I didn’t get very far in those 30 minutes, the vegetation was thick, and with no path, fighting through the vines, rotting trees and giant tree ferns whilst holding an ultralight spinning rod was not easy.

Dense temperate rainforest

I tied on my go-to trout lure I would use back home, an ecogear grass minnow around 1 inch in length on a half gram jighead. This river was however very different to what I am used to fishing, its waters absolutely choked with fallen trees and debris, with very few pools which looked like likely ambush spots for trout.

Back home, trout fishing is fairly simple. Walk along the river and fish the pools between the riffles, usually where there was a bend in the river. Simply locate the spots where the flow was pushed into a narrow, slightly deeper spot, flick the small soft plastic in the current and wait for the take. Here, there weren’t really any of these “text book” spots, and any that were there were buried in a mess of rotting logs. I ended up just sinking my lures into the debris any time I tried to drift a lure into a likely spot. The combination of losing gear, not seeing any trout, having to untangle the line from branches and being eaten alive by giant mosquitos, (whose bites swelled up like a 50p coin) made me consider turning back on more than one occasion. However, not one for giving up easily, I decided to persevere and push deeper into the forest.

I soon came across a spot which was fairly open, and relatively clear of dead trees. I made a cast and to my surprise a trout actually followed the lure! I proceeded to snag another sunken branch. I decided perhaps it was time I changed lure, an unused size 0 mepps sitting in my box looked like it might be able to keep high enough in the water to stay above some snags, and could be run alongside fallen trees to try and draw out a fish. I started to see more fish follow, but they continued to do just that. The calm, clear water lit by the midday sun which reached through the canopy meant the trout were being very shy. I decided I needed to focus on searching the fast flowing water, where hopefully the trout would not have a chance to follow and inspect the lure.

Ideally, I would simply walk upstream, casting into all likely spots. However, this was not possible as the banks were steep and the river totally blocked by fallen trees. The only way to go about fishing it was to walk through the forest and look for a spot that was worth trying. Then, to get to the water either climb down the bank or walk out on one of the fallen trees which bridged the river to make a cast. After yet more gruellingly slow progress, I saw a spot that looked perfect. Some rocks and branches were deflecting the flow and concentrating it so it moved fast, but was still deep enough to hold a fish.

I flicked the spinner out into the flow and wound it in, guiding it past obstacles on the way. Out of nowhere, a small trout about 25cm long threw itself onto the lure and was hooked! To make sure I landed it I jumped into the shallow water and stood on a sandy patch, and drew the fish ashore. I didn’t want to risk swinging it into my hand whilst balanced precariously on the tree-trunk bridge from which I had made my cast.

                                                              My first Tasmanian brown trout!

Back in the UK I would hardly take notice of a fish this size, but several hours into the rainforest, stung/bitten and tired, I was elated. I held the fish gently and it soon recovered and sped off back to it’s hideout. I carried on a little further, but soon the river became more wood than water so called it a day and started back. I was glad to see the bridge and road, and once back at the car headed off for the hills to where I planned to camp the night. On the way to the campsite I saw a spiny echindna on the verge so pulled over to get a closer look, but he wasn’t too happy to see me so just hid and showed me spines. 100% the strangest trout session I had ever had!"

                                         
                                                Fishing became impossible past this point

                                                                              Spiny echidna