Josh Pickett

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.