Oops! We did it again

What’s better than catching a Butterfly Blenny by fluke? Targeting Butterfly Blenny to order!

And that’s what Dan and myself set out to achieve this mid-July. After catching our first (three) Butterfly Blenny in 2022 we’d spent a lot of time researching and trying to work out why they were in the habitat we found them. The clues we had were that they were inshore, relatively, in around 40-50ft depth. Shallow for this species. And we knew that they were located on a bank of old shell. This lead us to the assumption that they were in a part of their breeding cycle.

It turned out that Butterfly Blenny (Blennius ocellaris) lays their eggs in Spring and early Summer. They move up into shallower water and ideally they like to lay the eggs in an abandoned shell. As it turns out, we believe they might be quite choosy about the shell they pick. An old, calcified slipper limpet feels ideal.

All this intel and theorising seemed to make sense, but the only way we were going to try to prove this was to repeat the encounter, ideally at the very same time of year. So that’s what we did.

We’d missed our opportunity in 2023. The weather and other priorities conspired against us. So this year, when a little weather window opened up we both tried to engineer the session. I’ll be honest. I wasn’t completely sold. 2024’s weather had been temperamental to say the least. A 50 mile round trip to discover that the conditions weren’t viable for the level of finesse required to target 9cm fish in 45ft of water, would have been a real disaster. In fact, we only called it around 4.30am dockside, at the boat. It turned out to be the right decision. For once!

The hour or so run East passed in no time at all. The weather was behaving, the sun beginning to show, and optimism was growing between us.

With almost perfect conditions, I’m delighted to say Dan secured the target very quickly. We were both over the moon. Securing a target that was two years in the making. It may sound weird that two middle-aged men can get excited about putting so much effort and expense into catch a 9cm fish, but to us it’s the exact same feeling as catching a denizen of the deep. It’s about learning fish behaviour, forming a plan, and executing that plan. We’d done it. We’d learned a thing!

I genuinely would have been happy, ecstatic even, if Dan’s blenny was the only one we caught. It was the target we set out to achieve. But of course I wanted to try and catch another for myself. I endured just over an hour of building pressure and countless Black Gobies before I eventually swung my own to hand. What an amazing creature to study up close.

We then left them to do their thing, with a little bit more knowledge garnered. Some of which we share on a dedicated, hour-long podcast on the subject. Find it HERE