It can be distinguished by the long spine in front of the gill cover. There are four shorter spines on the gill cover. It has a clearly visible barbell at the corner of the mouth. The sea scorpion is quite small, never exceeding a length of 20 cm. The lateral line is spiny. The colour of the fish varies with the surroundings that it has grown. It can be red with pink spots when living on rock covered in pink algae and greenish-brown amongst brown seaweed. Despite their small size they are aggressive and will attack fish bigger than themselves. They lie in wait for prey, camouflaged against rocks and weed before striking out at anything that passes. Like all fish in the Cottidae family the Bullhead does not have a swim bladder, meaning that it sinks as soon as it stops swimming.
Habitat:
Bigger specimens are most frequent around rocky inshore reefs an harbour entrances amongst structure, where depths of water is 5 meters or more.
Distribution:
Scorpion fish are known to be inhabiting most coastal waters of Northern Europe, along the Atlantic coasts from Murmansk to Portugal, Iceland and the Shetlands
Caught Using:
ECOGEAR POWER ISOME mounted on a size 18 kamasan hook, 2lb fluorocarbon leader weighted with 2 AA split shot 3 inches up the trace. Method (LRF)
Location Caught:
Weymouth Harbour (mid way stone pier) summer
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