Photo: Luc Viatour (lucnix.be), Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Scophthalmus maximus
Offshore sandbanks and gravel in strong tide; the famous Channel banks above all.
Long flowing traces drifted with sandeel or mackerel strip just off the bottom.
If the plaice is the people's flatfish, the turbot is the connoisseur's. Nearly circular, thick through the shoulder and freckled with bony tubercles instead of scales, a turbot is an ambush predator that buries itself on sandbanks and engulfs whole sandeels in a single lunge.
The famous English Channel banks - the Shambles off Portland, the Skerries off Dartmouth - are the classic grounds. Sport is a drifting game: long traces, a slither of fresh mackerel or a whole sandeel bouncing down the tide, and a take that starts as dead weight before the fish wakes up.
Turbot are not abundant and never were, which is partly why a good one is such an event - and why they command the prices they do. A double-figure fish from a drifting charter boat is one of British sea angling's genuine red-letter days.
The UK boat record is around 33 lb 12 oz - from the Lands End grounds.
None of our skippers are targeting turbot at the moment - but there is always something biting. Browse what is running and catch something else.
