A case of mistaken identity?

On Wednesday I got up early and drove west to fish Upper Loch Creran. I was hoping to get out of the wind on is northern shore, but couldn't find an access point where I could park my car. I drove around to the southern side, parked my car in a lay-by, made the short climb down through the trees and got set up on a small rocky peninsula. Fishing tiny pieces of ragworm on #18 hooks, I was hoping to pick up something unusual that I've never caught before in Scotland. Things were pretty slow, and after a few hours, all I'd caught were a few black goby.

Not very exciting. They seem to be the prominent mini species in Upper Loch Creran.

After a short period, where even the black goby stopped biting, I wound in to put fresh bait on and felt a heavy weight. Please be a lumpsucker. Please be a lumpsucker. Please be a lumpsucker! It wasn't a lumpsucker sadly! It was a rather large, bright orange starfish.

Heaviest catch of the session.

After a while I caught a small dab, and then a double shot of a dab and a small dragonet. The dragonet looked a little bit peculiar though, and this got me a little bit excited. I quickly unhooked the dab, returned it, and began inspected the dragonet. It looked different to every other common dragonet I'd ever caught and had vivid ruby red saddles on its back. Had I caught my first Scottish reticulated dragonet? I've only ever caught one reticulated dragonet before, and that was many years ago at Mevagissey Breakwater in Cornwall.

Here's one I caught earlier! An actual reticulated dragonet. It did have saddles, but they were much less obvious as you can see in this photo.

The fish I had just caught was certainly small enough to be a reticulated dragonet. They don't reach the sizes that common dragonets do.

It had these ruby red saddles on its back. I'd never seen those on a common dragonet before.

I popped it into my tank for further inspection.

Colouration is sometimes not the best way to identify a fish to species level, so I began carefully checking some of its anatomical features. I began by lifting the little fish out of the tank again and checking for a fourth, forward facing spine on the back edge of the operculum. This is not visible to the naked eye, but is instead located by gentle running a fingernail back towards the three backwards facing spines. It was present, and this is a key distinguishing feature of the common dragonet. The reticulated dragonet lacks this fourth spine. I then placed the fish back into the tank and took a photo showing its second dorsal fin. Being a juvenile/female it lacked the obvious colourful patterns on it, so the next thing I checked was the number of rays it had.

I counted nine in total. *The final ray is branched from the same root and is counted as one.

Again, this is the number that a common dragonet is supposed to have. I then compared this to a photo I took of the reticulated dragonet I caught at Mivagissey.

The reticulated dragonet has ten rays in its second dorsal fin. *Again, the final ray is branched from the same root and is counted as one.

So in conclusion, I'd simply caught an oddly coloured common dragonet. Perhaps their colouration varies depending on the sea floor they live on? Usually, common dragonet are found over sandy areas and juvenile/female specimens have a "sandy" livery to match that. The area I was fishing was mixed ground, sloping down from the shore into much deeper water. Perhaps any common dragonet living in such a habitat had this different colouration?

Is this photograph of a "reticulated dragonet" actually a common dragonet that has decided to lead a slightly different lifestyle to most of its species? The internet is full of similar photos that are labelled as reticulated dragonet. Perhaps this is a case of mistaken identity that is now being perpetuated?

Anyway, potential dragonet identification issues aside, I hadn't caught a new Scottish species, which was pretty disappointing after my initial excitement! I carried on fishing for a few more hours, but things remained very slow and all I caught was a few more black goby. I'll be visiting Loch Creran again in the not too distant future. Hopefully I'll get lucky and catch something that's rarely caught, that will push me a little closer to my goal of one hundred species from Scottish venues!

Tight lines, Scott.