Rare Fish Miscellany
The majority of unusual fish taken off the Yorkshire Coast are from areas well to the south of the British Isles, or from the open Atlantic, while a few others of more northern distribution also occur sporadically. Most of these are variable both in the timing of their annual appearance and in the small numbers in which they occur in north-eastern waters. The reasons for such captures are probably as many and as varied, and indeed just as intangeable, as are the theories for their happening at all.
Some of the Ray's bream recorded and sampled at Scarborough during the winter of 2008-9; all findings of this fish are of interest.
Thus, the early years of the survey were dominated by the phenomenal appearance of the Ray’s bream, Brama brama, whose migration into the North sea progressively increased and waned from the late 1960’s to the mid 1980’s, and may now be repeating the same phenomenon 40 years later. Hundreds of specimens have been examined, measured and recorded at Scarborough since 1967, including 50 from the recent winter of 2008/9.
This apparent increase in the numbers of this fish migrating northward and into the North sea from the late 1960’s and throughout the 1970’s, was not reflected by captures of any other oceanic species taken in these waters. There was, for example, no increase in occurrences of the oceanic blackfish, Centrolophus, or of the sunfish, Mola, during that period, although the latter was captured in far greater numbers during 1973 than had been recorded in any previous year in the historical record.
Since 1967 the general pattern of the migrations of the more frequent arrivals has become more clear, but every now and then a boat returns with one of the more interesting infrequent captures, such as that by George Pockley of Flamborough, of a fine ribbon-like dealfish, Trachipterus, in his salmon net in 1970.
In 1971, a gilthead sea-bream, Sparus aurata, was trawled up by Scarborough Skipper Jim Sheader of Mary Allison, while a Spanish bream, Pagellus acarne, was caught by Jim Mason of Onward Star in 1974; both of these are extremely rare visitors to the North Sea. Equally surprising was the trawling of a Greenland Shark, Somniosus, only 3ft. in length, just 16 miles off Scarborough by Michael “Andy” Anderson of Nicola Suzanne in 1978.
This shark was an occasional capture off the Yorkshire coast during the latter part of the 19th century, but the 1978 fish was only the third to be recorded here in the next, and was more remarkable for such a small, recently liberated pup, to be found so far south.
A large opah, a rare visitor to the central North sea, trawled off the Yorkshire coast
The singular occurrence of such ‘exotics’ in waters far from their normal habitat may be expected as a matter of course on every fishing ground, every year, but on occasion the numbers are greater, or a number of species from distant home grounds may appear together.
In 1977 the largest number of the Greater fork-beard, Phycis, taken in Yorkshire waters were accompanied by another rare sea-bream, the Bogue, Boops boops, again from Filey bay, and a fine example of that diminutive tuna, the Frigate mackerel, Auxis rochei, taken by Fred Walkington in his nets in Bridlington Bay, was one of a mere handful of occasions when this fish has been taken so far north, while a related small tuna, the Bonito or Pelamid, Sarda sarda, has occurred a little more frequently, usually in the salmon nets in Filey Bay.
The appearance of species in this manner may perhaps be clues to slight or evenly grossly abnormal variations in hydrological systems, perhaps greater insurgence of water masses into the North sea from either its northern or southern entrances, but this is speculation, of course, unless correlation can be achieved with available data from observations on salinities, sea temperatures, and especially studies on the minute drifting life of the sea, the plankton.
During the 70’s, Blue whiting, Micromesistius were taken by by Scarborough and Whitby boats, the first time during the present survey, and equally surprising were captures of the rabbit-fish, Chimaera monstrosa, by Jim Leadley, just a few miles off Whitby, and of the large red-fish, Sebastes marinus, by Scarborough skipper Frank Taal of ‘Tim Windsor’, both of which were recorded for the first time on this part of the coast.
Survey work also extends to sampling of secretive, resident fish such as the Tadpole fish, Raniceps and the Yarrell’s blenny, Chirolophis, both of which are well-known to local crab and lobster fishermen, at least by sight if not by name, as frequent captures in their baited traps, but whose biology is still little known and which elsewhere around much of the British Isles are much overlooked and even today regarded as rare or unusual.