Once an important pastime for me was angling and in following this sport I fished many
rivers, lakes, piers and coasts around eastern and southern England. Then my attention
turned to 'catching' fossil fish and think I might have found that more rewarding than hauling
out living forms. But residing close to the shore here in Holland-on-Sea, I still find interest in
seeing what the angling fraternity manages to catch. All along much of the sea wall here
we have the added protection of granite rocks, mostly shipped in from Norway, to add a
further line of defense to the concrete and steel fortifications. Thus the thought struck me
that we may have unintentionally changed the immediate ecology of the upper shore and
wave splash zones. That we now have a produced new habitats in place of the natural
sand, shingle and muddy environment. There was always breakwaters to provide anchorage
for sea weed, limpets and mussels, oysters too are locally abundant, but never were there
all the crevaces amongst this granite 'armour' to attract creatures that might have previou-
sly stayed clear of our East Anglian shoreline. Perhaps it would be both interesting and
useful to know how significant has been the effect of these rock installations on the marine
wildlife of our low lying Essex shores.
In my angling days when fishing off Dorset and Devon rocks, Wrasse were common amongst the catches, but speaking to one angler taking part in a local competition here, he informed me that he had recently taken two of these fish from off our sea wall. Significant?