Read the article with FishingTheSpot: the brill fish
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See the fishing tripsThe Brill fish
All year
30 cm
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The brill fish belongs to the Scophthalmidae family. The minimum size of capture is 30 cm but can reach 75 cm for 6 kg. He can live up to 3 years. It breeds from late spring to early summer. The female can lay up to 15 million eggs. It can be fished all year.
The brill has an oval body. It rests on its right side and has its left side. Thus, when placed with the head facing left, both eyes are located above the mouth. Its common name of brill comes from a particularity of its dorsal fin, whose origin is far in front of the eye and whose first rays are free and branched. The distance between the two eyes is greater than the diameter of one eye. The lateral line is very curved at the pectoral fin. As with many flatfish, the coloring is variable and depends on the biotope. The brill is indeed capable of homochromia, i.e. to match the color of the background. The coloring is rather brown, more or less speckled, and also varies according to the environment on a live fish. It has many round spots whose edges are incomplete rings of darker colors. The blind side is whitish.
The Brill fish lifestyle
The Brill fish hunt by sight, mainly small fish (herring, gadids, sometimes other flatfish). Young species also ingests small crustaceans.
Its reproduction takes place in late spring and early summer in the Atlantic and further north, earlier in the Mediterranean. It is a very fertile species: the largest females can lay up to 15 million eggs. Egg laying is carried out on stone or gravel bottoms, up to 80 m deep. Eggs are 1 mm in diameters and larvae (3 mm at birth) live in open water. The latter has a classic, symmetrical appearance, with an eye on each side. One of the two eyes migrates to the opposite side; the metamorphosis ends between about four and five months, at a height of 3 cm. The juvenile then reaches the bottom of the coastal zones.
The Brill fish habitat
The brill lives on sandy bottoms, and sometimes on mud or gravel, up to 200 m deep. The juvenile is more coastal and live at depths of less than 10 m, while adults are rarely found at depths of less than 15 m. It does not silt up but has a strong mimicry ability that allows it to blend in with the background color and thus go unnoticed.
The brill is found in the North-East Atlantic, between Norway and Morocco, in the Mediterranean and in the Black Sea.
The Brill Fish Angling
The brill is mainly fished with bottom trawls, nets and perch. It is also sometimes caught in shellfish dredges when fishing for scallops, meadows or mussels. It can be fished all year but it is very abundant during fall and winter.
