I'm saury.

I received a WhatsApp message from my mate Nick the other day. He'd found what he thought was a garfish, washed up and barely alive, on an East Lothian beach whilst he was out walking his dog. Interesting, I thought, but zooming in for a closer look at the fish, I realised it wasn't a garfish. It wasn't long enough, and the shape of its head and length and thickness of its beak were not right. It also had rows of pronounced finlets behind its dorsal and anal fins. So what was it then?

"That's not a garfish!" I replied, adding that I thought it might be a needlefish of some description.

Turns out I was correct. After a bit of discussion in work and some Googling, we established that the mystery fish was in fact an Atlantic saury, a member of the needlefish family. Most UK sea anglers will probably be familiar with the Pacific saury, it's sold here frozen as "bluey" and is used as a very oily fish bait. The Atlantic saury is likely much less well known. I'd never heard of it and learning about it was quite interesting. I discovered that it also goes by another name in the UK, the skipper. No doubt because, like the garfish, they can "skip" along the surface of the water to evade predators or move out of the path of approaching boats. With another quick Google search I discovered there is a UK record for this species, standing since 1994 when a specimen of 148 grams was caught from Chemical Beach in Seaham, County Durham.

What a cool find! I'm wondering if there are more around? I might have to do a bit of chumming and try float fishing tiny slivers of mackerel belly under a float on the east coast this summer. Nick's find was a reminder that you never know what species you might potentially catch around our coastline!

Tight lines, Scott.