Josh Pickett

  2024 has been a great year! I picked up where I left off in 2023 with light rock fishing (LRF), accounting for most of my fishing, though I didn’t limit myself, and did some boat charters, shore fishing with bait, and went back to freshwater to tick off some species I had not yet caught. Below is a tally of all the rod and line species I've ticked off this year... All photos/icons are my own catches  

    1st April 2024 - 31st March 2025 Shore fishing only (sea), with bait and lures   TOTAL 32 SPECIES *8 new species    I found out about this competition late into 2023, and really wanted to join. I decided to start it at the beginning of next years hunt, to give myself a fighting chance. Like all competitions, I don't go in with the intention of winning, but rather my own personal goals; I think these hunts are a fantastic incentive to get out of the house! As these catches overlap with my 2024 species tally, I won't go into detail on every catch, rather I'll do a brief overview of each month.

♪ Scales 29 lateral, with markings unnatural; that's Amur-ay ♪ Joshua Pickett   Adorned in sunset red daubs; peppered with dalmation-esque speckling; shiny, steel blue scales; streaked in vibrant orange; or completely piebald—these ornated fish come in a wild assortment of markings and colours that would've made the likes of even Vivienne Westwood envious. To the Japanese, they're called Nishikigoi, to species competition organisers, they're known as a nightmare, and to you and me, they're the kicky koi carp!

  *Please note, this is the short version of the article, which excludes discussion around the Cottus revision, their migration history, and the reasons why they are surrounded with misinformation. The full version was published here , on CE Fish Essentials*  The northern branch of Cottus perifretum from the River Wharfe, Yorkshire © max-pics, iNaturalist, 2024   For many years, the classification of the freshwater bullhead has been a topic of much confusion. So what species do we have in Britain, and how did they get here? Growing up along the river Avon, before I’d ever considered fishing with rod and line, as all young children should, I explored! I can recall many fond memories of walking along the margins with a little dip net, catching Three-Spined Stickleback, Minnows, and tadpoles; turning up stones in chalk streams, clutching Stone Loach and prickly Bullhead by hand; and even the using the age-old jam-jar-tied-to-string-with-a-chunk-of-bread-inside tec...

A rough result from a really rough day in Weymouth with Lee. We got up early and headed up together, both with certain goals in mind. Immediately, we found fishing to be tough! Very little was coming out on unscented, and we suspected that the hammering Weymouth got in the lead up days to the event, left many fish bite-shy. Though reliably we had plague levels of Pouting; at least 100 caught by myself alone. The extremely heavy rain ended up defeating us, as it had got underneath our waterproofs, so we headed home a couple of hours early.

As with virtually every contemporary tale of misidentification, it starts with a "Google said"; two words which send a chill down my spine every time I hear or read them. What may feel like a comfort blanket of confirmation bias to some, can mean an investment of hours for science communicators, who often need to access (sometimes quite obscure or costly) papers or surveys to effectively relay the relevant information over, and then summarise why the Google algorithm frequently pushes incorrect or dated material, even from reputable sources, to the top of the search. Sci-comm is generally a rewarding experience, as with every delve into a study, we learn more and become better communicators; though, in this "Age of Information", every peer-reviewed paper is countered with a more popular webpage lacking in any references.

A long [sting]way away!

  1st December 2023 - 31st March 2024 Shore fishing with lures only   TOTAL 15 SPECIES *6 new species   This was my first Winter League, and having planned ahead and scouted marks and methods throughout November, I felt prepared. I had certain targets in mind, and had taken a week holiday in December specifically to hit the spots early, before the temperatures got too cold. I was probably too ambitious; and I did not take into account that I would catch Covid-19 right before my time off; scuppering my plans. I ended up mostly fishing an hour or two after work some days, plus a couple of full days in January and December. I got out briefly in February, with nothing to add, and didn't fish the league at all in March. Happy to say, I did at least catch six new lifers! WINTER LEAGUE TALLY STATUS #1 Pollack Pollachius pollachius Uneune Stick on light split shot 1 Dec 2023 Charlestown  #2 Pilchard Sardina pilchardus   Shirasu on glow cheb 1 Dec 2023 Charlestow...