Read the article with FishingTheSpot: the burbot
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See the fishing tripsThe Burbot
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The Burbot fish belongs to the Lotidae family. The burbot can measure 30 to 120 cm and weigh up to 3 kg. It can live from 15 to 20 years. It breeds from December to March and can lay up to one million eggs. It can be fished all year round.
The body is cylindrical, elongated, slightly compressed towards the tail, covered with small scales covered with a thick layer of mucus. The back is greenish brown or yellowish with darker mottling, with a gradation becoming lighter on the sides. The belly is yellowish white. The short, rounded pectoral fins, close to the head, overhang the ventral side with their first very elongated radius. The first dorsal fin is short, the second, very long, continues until the birth of the caudal, which is rounded. The lower jaw has a single long barbel and the nostrils have two fairly distant orifices, each with a small barbel. The mouth is wide, with many fine teeth.
The Burbot fish lifestyle
The burbot fish is a nocturnal fish that lives in schools. Adults, carnivores, feed on small mollusks, insect larvae and crustaceans, but also on fry, other groundfish and fish eggs. They detect or attract their food with the barbel under their chin. Fry feed on benthic invertebrates.
Reproduction takes place from December to March. By bank, when the temperature varies from 1 to 5° C, the burbot approach the banks to lay eggs. Egg laying takes place at night at a shallow depth (less than 3 m) where a dozen burbot form a ball about half a meter in diameter. There is no nest built. The female lays 500,000 to more than 1,000,000,000 eggs above stone and gravel substrates. Small (1 mm in diameter), they flow slowly to the bottom. Incubation lasts 40 to 50 days.
The young fry (3-4 mm at hatching) are first pelagic. They feed on plankton directly below the surface. Once they reach 3 cm in height, usually after 2 months, they sink to the bottom and become solitary.
Sexual maturity is reached at around 3 or 4 years of age.
The Burbot fish habitat
The burbot lives in fresh water. It frequents the fresh, living water of rivers, but also stagnant waters (clear lakes) and brackish waters (lagoons). It likes cold water and relatively large bottoms (more than 200 m in a lake environment). It returns to the banks from May onwards. This fish does not tolerate polluted waters very well.
The burbot is looking for environments that offer shelter (rocks, shoreline crevices, tree roots, dense aquatic vegetation).
It is present in Central and Western Europe (but absent in Spain and Greece), and in North America.
The burbot fish angling
Many fishermen know that you can catch burbot other than by plugging or bottom line. It is fished with nets, and even more often with lignettes (cords) stretched at night and armed with earthworms.
The burbot is still fished only in winter, and for no good reason, as there is nothing to prevent it from being caught in the middle of summer and during the day. It should be noted that it is therefore active in turbid water between 35 and 50 m deep, even if it makes a big sun on the surface!
The best time to catch it is at night, 2 or 3 hours after sunset and a few hours before sunrise.
