ATTENTION***WEAVER FISH***

[Mike T]

as its weaver time again I thought I would bump this,

[Bill Bodger]

Nice one Mike

Here's some more info on the little blighters

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weever

The species you can eat is much bigger than the ones we get locally in the NW. The French love them to eat but they haven't really taken off over here. Possibly some of the Southern members might be able to shed a bit more light on the subject. My own view is to be careful of grabbing any small fish without identifying it. If it is a Weever unhook with care and as Paul says put it back alive.

BB

[John Clayton]

I have actually been stung by weever, it occurred when I was a lad fishing of Blackpool north jetty during the hot summer of 1976. A family were fishing next to me and I remember them bringing in a weever fish on their paternoster rig which one of them went to grab, I reached over and snatched it away and unfortunately it stung me on the thumb.
I remember it being extremely painful for a couple of hours with a bit of localised swelling, but the worst thing was it took weeks and weeks to heal probably which is apparently quite common.
The pain was far worse than a bee or wasp sting which only last for a few minutes, and since that day I have treated weever fish with respect.
The weever fish that we catch and see is the lesser weever, the greeter weever lives in water up to a 100ft or so and is unlikely to be caught from the shore very often and have never seen one except in France and Spain at fish markets, where it is considered a delicacy.
Most people spell weever with an 'a' which is apparently incorrect it comes from an old French word ‘wivre’ which means dragon and was itself derived from the Latin word for viper.

John Clayton

[grandadruss]

I have actually been stung by weever, it occurred when I was a lad fishing of Blackpool north jetty during the hot summer of 1976. A family were fishing next to me and I remember them bringing in a weever fish on their paternoster rig which one of them went to grab, I reached over and snatched it away and unfortunately it stung me on the thumb.
I remember it being extremely painful for a couple of hours with a bit of localised swelling, but the worst thing was it took weeks and weeks to heal probably which is apparently quite common.
The pain was far worse than a bee or wasp sting which only last for a few minutes, and since that day I have treated weever fish with respect.
The weever fish that we catch and see is the lesser weever, the greeter weever lives in water up to a 100ft or so and is unlikely to be caught from the shore very often and have never seen one except in France and Spain at fish markets, where it is considered a delicacy.
Most people spell weever with an 'a' which is apparently incorrect it comes from an old French word ‘wivre’ which means dragon and was itself derived from the Latin word for viper.

John Clayton

Brilliant John
Possibly the first use of Latin on this site,like it.
I think I tie Weever flies because I always stick one in my thumb when tying and it hurts
I've had a beer so I'm telling the truth or to put it in Latin...I'll vino veritas

[billy bennett]

Sometimes when out in the boat Mackerel bashing you catch weever's 4-5 at a time, on one trip I was stung several times trying to get them off the hooks, I never had a glove on the boat so was wrapping a towel around them, the spines came right through it.
Fortunately I had a flask of hot water for making tea so dunked my fingers into a cup which breaks down the venum, after a while I was fine but I felt my arm going numb as the poison spread up my arm.
I always either use pliers or forceps to remove the hooks now (and a gardening glove)or cut the hook off if its deep hooked.