Sea anglers understandably kill fish; generally edible fish, though increasingly fears of fish stock depletion has to some extent become a limiting factor here. Less often discussed is the fact that fish can, and sometimes do also kill anglers, a trend which may become ever more of a possibility as rising sea temperatures brings increasing numbers of new species to within UK angling range. In fact, some of them have already arrived.

Biting The Hand That Feeds You: The most obvious candidates, and the ones which most readily spring to many peoples minds are sharks, and the Great White Shark in particular. However, what many people fail to appreciate, is that you do not need elevated sea temperatures to create the potential for a Great White visit. From a climatic point of view, UK waters have been within their preferred environmental range for a good number of years. Great Whites are actually a temperate to cold water species thought to have thermo-regulatory abilities, which means that unlike most other fish which are cold blooded, they can generate some measure of internal body heat. This would explain their ability for such sudden and violent bursts of speed when on the feed. Probably the main reason why one has yet to be officially recorded here is the sparsity of suitable prey. Great Whites love the high energy hit derived from eating seal blubber, and are at their most abundant inshore where huge seal or sea lion colonies exist, which doesn't exactly describe the UK. That said, they have reliably, though as yet unofficially, been reported as far north as Western Scotland by marine biologist divers, but never actually caught or found dead here to provide overwhelming proof. In 2007, bookmakers Totesport offered odds of 25 to 1 on a Great White being caught in British Waters that year based on information given to them by experts in that field. As we all know, bookies are financially shrewd customers when it comes to predicting the likelihood of things happening, so to pitch the odds that low means there must, in their eyes at least, be a reasonable chance of them having to pay out.

All sharks, including our own humble Tope, have the capability of inflicting nasty wounds of one sort or another with their teeth, but very likely none of those species officially listed from UK waters, with the possible exception of the Mako, might ever deliberately mount an attack at our latitude. According to shark attack experts, the attack threshold temperature for the Blue Shark, which regularly visits the UK, is 21 degrees C, something we don't see even in a good summer along the Cornish coast..... yet. But for reasons already outlined, Great Whites are exempt from this. I remember going out from Gaansbai near Capetown to shark alley off Dyer Island on a miserable, wet, freezing cold day, only to have five Great Whites up to the boat feeding at the same time. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), the sea was too rough to safely put the viewing cage into the water, so all we could do was surface watch. However, it isn't only sharks that have the potential to cause bite damage to UK anglers. Fish as non threatening as the humble Whiting can make quite a mess of un-wary fingers during disgorging. But deliberate intent is quite another thing. That said, Barracuda and Moray Eels are certainly capable of deliberate intent, and both species have been caught commercially within just a few miles of the Cornish coast since the year 2000. The Moray in particular can be a nasty piece of work. One put me into hospital in Gibraltar, and I didn't even catch the thing. I was only taking a picture of it when it struck. A police launch had to take me in to the beach where an ambulance was waiting. Injections, stitches and antibiotics followed.

Poisson Poison: Venomous spines are a completely different 'kettle of fish'. The ability for a fish to inject toxin via hollow spines is usually something those capable of doing so keep in reserve as a defence mechanism, though in the case of the infamous Lionfish, one of which we actually caught on rod and line while reef fishing in India recently, gives it the ability to become more aggressive, and thus more likely to score with its hunting, because it knows it doesn't have to keep looking over its shoulder so to speak to see if an even bigger predator is stalking it. Lionfish are natives of the Red Sea and the adjacent Indo-Pacific region including the Arabian Sea where we caught ours just off the coast of Goa. However, irresponsible introductions of specimens that had outgrown domestic aquariums to the Gulf of Mexico have seen an explosion by the species, which is quite literally eating other indigenous reef species out of existence. Already it has progressed as far up as North Carolina to a latitude of approximately 36 degrees north which is pretty much on a par with say Gibraltar. Our most southerly point, The Isles of Scilly off the Cornish coast, has a latitude of approximately 50 degrees north. At the moment a latitude of around 36 degrees probably coincides with the Lionfishes lower temperature tolerance limitation, though in light of current trends towards elevated sea temperatures, that could well change. And all because some bright spark somewhere in Florida decided to liberate some. Okay, so if the same were to be repeated this side of the pond, the chances of them reaching us at present is a non stater. Not that we need foreign imports to have venomous fish species in UK waters, because some are indigenous to the UK.

Forget uninformed fear provoking reports regarding fish such as Sea Scorpions and Dragonets as having the potential to deliver toxins to wounds caused by their spines leading to infection. These fish might sound, and in some cases even look as if they should not be touched, but I've been handling the things without incident for years. They pose no threat. Like a great many species including prized angling catches such as Bass and Bream, their main weapons, if you can call them that, are their sharp spines which need to be flattened down by running the hand in a head to tail direction before taking a firm hold for disgorging. And that's pretty much it so for as those species go. They have the potential to puncture the skin and cause a bit of bleeding. But so too have many other fish such as Gurnards and Wrasse. It's the fish you might not immediately recognize and which don't stand out physically from the crowd as something you perhaps should not be touching that are in fact the ones to be wary of. Fish which at a glance could be, and frequently are mistaken for say a small Whiting and grabbed for disgorging.

Two species of Weever are resident in UK waters. Both are extremely abundant, though rather localised in their distribution. The larger growing of the two, the Greater Weever, is more of an offshore and therefore boat angling species often caught in Cardigan Bay and around the Cornish Coast over sand. Fishing out from Aberystwyth, you need only let a set of feathers, particularly if they are baited, stray too close to the bottom and they will almost certainly be grabbed by a Greater Weever or two. Most weigh between half a pound and a pound, though they can get as big as a couple of pounds and more. In other parts of the world, and France in particular (which is no culinary recommendation) they are sought commercially and marketed. With that in mind, I took a couple home myself once and tried them. They were okay, but nothing to get too excited about. The Lesser Weever on the other hand is as the name implies a very much smaller fish usually around a couple of inches in length, and very much like a small Whiting at a glance. This is a particularly common species over shallow lying estuarine sand. The Ribble estuary along with Blackpool and Southport either side of it is alive with the things. Both species have a black first dorsal fin with hollow spines connected to a venom sac which is activated by pressure. The spines penetrate the victim such as when you grab the fish, and the pressure exerted on the venom sac then forces the toxin up into the wounds. A spine on each gill cover can also deliver the same venom.

Generally speaking, Weever toxin should not be lethal, certainly to a healthy angler, though people with pre-existing health issues, particularly heart complaints, can be at risk and have reputedly been killed by Weever stings in the past. I haven't been done by one myself yet, though I have come close a time or two while sorting shrimps when push netting for bait. I am told that the pain is both acute and intense, increasing in intensity for the first half hour or so, then slowly going away. The best treatment is apparently not to worry, and to immerse the wound in hot water until the pain starts to recede. Reading up on the treatment of Lionfish stings, the recommendations there are exactly the same, though Lionfish venom is much more powerful than that which Weevers have. There is however another UK fish capable of delivering quite a nasty sting – the aptly named Stingray. This is the fish that killed naturalist Steve Irwin by unintentionally puncturing his heart in a freak accident when he spooked one while filming underwater. I also know of a charter boat skipper who was killed by one at Puerto Rico on Gran Canaria. This one penetrated an artery in his leg while he was dealing with it for an angler. So they are potentially very dangerous fish. The sting, which is situated part way along the top of the tail, is both pointed and serrated along its length like a hacksaw blade. Whether or not these fish can deliver a toxic sting as is sometimes suggested is another matter. But it is possible that the mucus you find on and around the sting could turn a wound nasty if not cleaned and treated antiseptically. The Eagle Ray is a similar fish, though its sting is situated much closer to the start of the tail just behind a tiny dorsal fin which the Stingray does not have. Eagle Rays traditionally have been rare fish in UK waters, though that could be in the process of changing as further south into Europe they can be extremely common. You get loads of the things off Gran Canaria. Stingrays on the other hand have been with us for years, particularly between the Solent and The Wash. We've even had them up here in Lancashire along the Fylde Coast in years gone by.

Shock Tactics: This leaves us with one final group of potentially dangerous, even lethal fishes, the Electric Rays. Worldwide, fourteen species of Electric Ray have been identified, three of which have been recorded in British waters. Generally speaking, these are warmer water species at the very edge of their northerly distribution at our latitude, though the Common Electric Ray Torpedo nobiliana has been recorded as far north as the Shetland Islands. The two other species, the Marbled and the Eyed Electric Rays, rarely stray north of the English Channel, but as has been said for some of the other fish species, with our climate changing the way it currently is, that could very easily change too. All are potentially highly dangerous fish if handled, with a big healthy specimen having the capability of delivering up to 220 volts at 8 amps, which is not much different to poking your finger inside a live plug socket. Unlike the venomous fishes which use their weapons as a defence mechanism, the ability to shock is used both for defence and attack. These are quite slow moving cumbersome fish as predators go, so the ability to stun prey fish before consuming them is a very big plus. Not a fish I personally have come across yet, though I did once catch an Electric Eel which can do similar damage. That particular fish was caught in the Amazon while I was standing knee deep in the water wearing nothing more protective than a pair of walking boots. I suspect this fish had discharged much of its battery power out in deeper water when first hooked. On the same day I also caught a freshwater Stingray, which considering that we were more than 3000 miles from the sea, came as something of a shock of a different kind.

WEEVER IDENTIFICATION

As Weevers are the most likely 'dangerous' fish species for anglers to come across, particularly the Lesser Weever, and also the most likely to cause handling problems through mis-identification, then a few words on picking them out from the crowd might not go amiss here. Both species are elongate with a long second dorsal fin and long anal fin. The first dorsal fin, which in the case of the Lesser Weever is completely black, and in the Greater Weever for the most part covered by a black blotch, is short and supported by hollow spines connected into the poison sack. Actually telling the two species apart is academic in terms of avoiding getting stung. Knowing the fish you have just caught is a Weever species is of greater importance. Both have large upward angled mouths for a life spent concealed in the sand waiting to break cover and seize prey passing over head. The Greater Weever relatively speaking has a much smaller head than the Lesser Weever, with a more conventional mouth and eyes located at the side of the head as opposed to on top as in the Lesser Weever. But probably the easiest and most telling point of difference between the two is to look at the end of pectoral fin. That of the Greater Weever looks to have a notch cut into its top half whereas the Lesser Weever's is outwardly rounded. Colouration for the Greater Weever is a brownish grey on the back and upper flanks, becoming more yellowish lower down then white underneath with angled light lines and spots. In fresh specimens it can also have a purplish sheen, whereas the Lesser Weever is yellowish or light brown with irregular slightly darker spots becoming silvery white underneath.