Photo: Georges Jansoone, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
Merlangius merlangus
Clean sand and shingle banks, typically in 20-60 ft of water; close inshore after dark in winter.
Multi-hook rigs with mackerel strip, squid or worm baits fished to the bottom.
When the November sea is cold and empty, the whiting keeps British shore angling honest. A slim, silvery member of the cod family with a fine appetite and no table manners, it shoals in huge numbers over clean sand from autumn onwards.
Whiting feed boldly and bite with a distinctive rattle. They are rarely large - a pound is decent, two is a specimen - but on light tackle and in numbers they make for genuinely entertaining sport, and after-dark sessions can produce fish on every cast.
A simple two- or three-hook flapper rig with strips of mackerel, squid or lugworm covers it. Fresh whiting is underrated on the plate: sweet, delicate flesh that was once the staple of every British fish market.
The UK boat record is around 6 lb 12 oz - most are a tenth of that, and none the worse for it.
12 trips are currently targeting whiting.
