Smoothhound fishing in the Bristol Channel

Smoothhounds are strong fighters and are usually caught in shallow water inshore. The Starry Smoothhound is light brown with numerous pale star like spots along its flanks just above the lateral line, this distinguishes it from the common smoothhound, which does not have the star like spots.

The quick way to separate Smoothhound from small Tope is by the teeth, the Tope's teeth are triangular and ultra sharp capable of chopping prey clean through, whereas the Smoothound's teeth are flattened and blunt similar to a rays and designed for crushing crabs etc, and not designed for cutting. The smoothhounds dorsal fin, when viewed from the side, is also set nearer to the pectoral fins than that on the tope which is positioned more rearwards. The tail indentation on the smoothound is less deep than that on the tope, and the smoothies lower tail lobe is small but on the tope both upper and lower lobes are roughly equal in length.

The best bait for Smoothounds is just simply crabs.

The Welsh rod-caught record Smoothhound came from just off Nash sands in 1996 and weighed 17lb by M Maloney and the record Starry Smoothhound came also from just off Nash sands in the same year weighed 26lb by P Jenkins.
28lb A Chivers, Heacham, Norfolk 1969, Starry is also 28lb R Grady Maplin Sands 1980
May to August