Written by Jack Perks
Published by New Holland
in 2016
Star Rating ****
Many books have been published in the past depicting the freshwater fishes
of Britain
so you may well ask why we need another?
Many of the previous books published used artists' impressions of fish
before the development of amazing technology and one such book is Houghton's
"Britain's Freshwater Fishes" published in 1879. In my view,
the illustrations in that publication have never been surpassed and today, are
highly collectible as works of art.
This book however is solely concerned with allowing the reader to
identify his fish and brings us into the 21st century using the latest
technology of underwater cameras to give clear photographs.
Each fish detailed in the book is covered by a selection of images ranging
from the close-ups of features such as the stickleback's eye shown on the cover
to others of a shoal, all in their natural habitat. This makes
identification of the fish you have caught much easier and therefore more
accurate.
Accompanying each fish is a brief description highlighting
distinguishing features, breeding information and their habitat.
This work also scores over its predecessors by being up to date including
many alien species that have been introduced into the UK over the previous
decades and have not been covered previously, many of which have become
accepted as UK fish, such as the wels catfish, and many that are
here illegally and are very damaging to the environment like the
topmouth gudgeon.
In short, this excellent book enables the reader to identify fish more
easily and I have no doubt that it will become the benchmark reference work for
fish identification for everyone who has a keen interest in knowing exactly
which fish they have caught.