Red gurnard, popularly known as ‘carrots’ for their vibrant colours and long, tapering bodies, are a welcome sight on the end of the line.
Typically a reddish-pink to bright orange with purple-brown hues, they possess brightly-hued butterfly-type pectoral fins they stretch out when caught. Gurnard look stunning and have a flavour to match.
While not especially large - around a kilo is considered a big fish – gurnard are predators in every sense of the word, using their long, spindly pectoral ‘fingers’ to creep along silty bottoms in search of potential prey, probing for buried sea creatures as they go.
Gurnard are mostly caught on baited rigs – ledger/dropper-types especially – but readily take smallish lures as well.
