Fish Anatomy

The S.PA.C. does it’s best to provide a variety of types and styles of venue and, along with those, a variety of different species of fish to try for. This has, even to some of the more experienced anglers, brought with it a degree of confusion as to what has actually been caught. This feature will hopefully eliminate some of those doubts by pointing out the differences between the more closely related, or similar, fish species available.

There are a number of British fish which are so distinctive and unique that they are quite easy to distinguish, such as the tench, the perch, and the pike. The fish shown above is one of these but has been chosen simply to display and put names to the different features of a fish so that we can go on to discuss the subtle differences between some of those fish which are not so easy to distinguish from each other.

Those fish often confused with each other are often referred to as ‘silver fish’, although the colouring of fish can actually vary to suit the conditions in which the fish is living. Tench, for instance, can vary in colour from sandy brown, through green, to almost black. Fish, particularly in stillwaters, develop their own characteristics through being so confined to one group of adult, parent, fish, and the likelihood of one colour of fish surviving better against predators.   

The shape of fish can also vary considerably depending on whether, for instance, they live in still or running water, or how many fish there are in the water.

You will see, then, that the shape or colour of fish cannot always be relied upon for fish identification as easily as the Perch above. We therefore tend to refer to their fins, mouth, eyes, and scales for a definitive identification in these following examples.

You will see that what we often refer to as the tail, the gill cover, etc, actually have ‘proper’ names and it is worth learning these so you can better discuss the features of fish. On the diagram above you will notice the Adipose fin indicated but this tiny fin is seen only on Trout and Salmon. It serves no purpose

The fish to be compared in this feature are the roach, the rudd, the chub, bream and the ide, all of which you can catch in our club waters.