Conquering coalies
The coalfish has a recorded history stretching back nine decades
History of the records stretching back 90 years.
T
he coalfish is a species with an ability to cope with change in water pressure, which enables it to scrap all the way to the boat’s gunnel, where many have been lost. In the great ‘electronic wrecking’ era, which began in 1963, the coalfish was a major species, most notably in the waters of the western English Channel, and between that year and 1986, its UK record was broken 10 times.
Up to the early 1960s, the biggest coalfish known had weighed 23lb, taken by a Captain H Millais, who in June 1922 had been drifting rough ground off Sennen Cove, near Land’s End. That fish was part of a momentous catch of 34 coalfish and pollack that had a total weight of 416lb made by the captain and his wife.
The previous evening, the pair had caught 24 fish, including a coalfish of 20lb and a pollack of 21lb, which was also accepted as a UK record. Both fish were widely acclaimed and reported in the ‘Fishing Gazette’, regarded at the time as the anglers’ bible and, subsequently, in numerous books.
RECORD BREAKING
The coalfish record remained unchanged for almost half a century. Then, in the summer of 1971, John Trust, co-skipper of the Brixham charter boat Our Unity, took a turn on a rod and caught a fish of 26lb 2oz at a wreck in Lyme Bay off the Dorset coast.
Four months later ‘JJ’ McVicar, who skippered the Plymouth charter boat June Lipet, got his hands on the coalie record not once, but twice in consecutive days at the wreck some way south of the Eddystone Reef. His fish weighed 26lb 12oz 8dr and 27lb 10oz 8dr, both falling to artificial eels connected to a heavy-duty paternoster.
Record breaking seemed possible every time the charter boats put to sea out of Devon ports, and in the mere 10 weeks after the McVicar successes, the record was broken again from June Lipet. The captor of the 28lb 4oz fish was demolition contractor Stan Stevens, a member of a charter party that took many big fish on the day. Within a month the record was lifted to 29lb 2oz by another Plymouth-based angler Ron Phillips.
BRING ON THE THIRTIES
So now the first 30-pounder was in the offing, and Bristol’s Tony Harris achieved it during a trip out on June Lipet. His fish weighed 30lb 12oz and took a 26oz pirk that weighted the eel-carrying paternoster.
This brought the great spate of records to an end for seven long years, until Lloyd Saunders, who ran Saltwind of Dart out of Dartmouth, became the third charter skipper to hold the coalfish record. The fish weighed 33lb 7oz and came from one of the hundreds of wrecks in Lyme Bay.
Three years later Lloyd’s father Bill took the record with a fish of 33lb 10oz. Also in 1983, the record passed to a fish of 35lb 4oz caught 50 miles off Whitby by Tony Neatby. This held until 1986 when Swindon’s Gordon Wheeler became the next incumbent at a weight of 36lb, the fish taken from Geordie Dickson’s Plymouth-based Artilleryman 11. Within a month, though, it passed to the present holder, Dave Brown, at 37lb 5oz from the same boat.
This, sadly, brought Britain’s coalfish saga to an end as, quite suddenly, the coalfish virtually disappeared from the area where it had been so prolific.
Whether or not the coalfish will ever return in large numbers to south-west waters is a million-dollar question. The occasional fish is caught, while in 2014 there was a flurry of half-a-dozen in as many months.
Marine biologists have noted 30-year cycles of fish movement, so with that number getting close, the present famine should, hopefully, be coming to an end.