• • Scientific name: Limanda limanda
  • Also known as: Common Dab
  • Size: Up to 18ins and 3lb. UK shore caught typically well under 1lb.
  • UK minimum size: 20cms/8ins
  • UK shore caught record: 2lb 9oz
  • IUCN Status: LC (Least Concern)
  • Distribution: Common over clear seabeds all around the UK, but particularly common in the North Sea with its range extending into Scandinavian waters.
  • Feeds on: Marine worms, prawns, molluscs, shellfish and small crustaceans.
  • Description: Small right-eyed flatfish. Sandy brown colour with faint orange spots and black or dark brown flecks. The underside is white, occasionally with a bluish tinge. Skin is rough. Noticeable curve to lateral line.
  • Additional notes: The long rough dab is a separate species.

Dab is a common flatfish all around the UK but is at its most abundant in the North Sea. They will live over sandy, muddy and to a lesser extend shingle seabeds down to a maximum of around 100 metres deep. Dab are a small fish and one approaching a pound is a very good catch from the shore. Despite this small size dab are numerous and good to eat, meaning that many anglers can have an entertaining fishing session catching a large number of dab. Dab feed mostly on marine worms and small crustaceans, prawns and molluscs. They will also feed on dead or rotting fish. See the article on flatfish identification to see the main difference between dab and other flatfish found in British waters.

Dab as a Commercial Fish

Dab were not previously highly rated as a commercial fish and were often disposed at sea when caught as unwanted bycatch by trawlers, or used as bait for crab and lobster pots. However, recent years have seen people catch on to how good dab are as a food fish, and many celebrity chefs have boosted the sales of dab by using this species in their recipes. With declining stocks of popular traditional species such as cod and haddock organisations such as the Marine Conservation Society have also called for UK consumers to switch to eating species such as dab to take the pressure off overfished species. Creating a market for dab will increase its value and mean that commercial fishermen land the dab they catch, rather than classing them as bycatch. Dab’s growing reputation as a food fish is helped by the fact that it can be grilled, baked or fried, and because dab is so small it is often cooked whole with the head and fins still attached – another plus point as filleting flatfish is a lot more tricky than filleting a roundfish.

Reproduction and Spawning

Dab spawn in the spring when the sea temperatures being to rise. Eggs hatch after about ten days and, like most flatfish species the young are the same shape as roundfish until they are around an inch in length when they will begin to transform into their flatfish shape and live the rest of their life on the seabed. Dab can reproduce within two years when they are only around fifteen centimetres long. This early reproduction explains why dab is so numerous in UK waters. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature classes dab as a species of Least Concern globally and in Europe, with an increasing population trend.

Methods and Techniques to Catch Dab

Dab will feed in most sea conditions and in both daylight and darkness, making them a regular and reliable catch for the sea angler. Sandy surf beaches offer the best chance of catching decent numbers of dab, but small sandy outcrops in the middle of rocky areas can also contain dab. Dab can be found in estuaries – sometimes in high numbers – but unlike flatfish such as flounder they cannot tolerate brackish water with low salinity levels and are therefore not found along rivers or far inland.

On sandy beaches dab will often gather in a shoal around a gully or indentation in the seabed which has attracted debris and small creatures which the dab will feed on. Locating a feature such as this can be the key to catching dab. Due to the small size of the dab’s mouth hooks sized 2 – 6 need to be used and baits should be correspondingly small. Like flounder the dab can move into very shallow water, particularly under the cover of darkness, meaning that short casts are sometimes all that is needed to put a bait among the feeding fish. Dab can begin to move further out with the tide as it goes out, so anglers should try casting a further distance as the tide ebbs.

When it comes to bait dab are not fussy and will take all baits if they are feeding. Ragworm and lugworm are popular baits when fishing for this species, as is mackerel, mussels, squid strip and especially black lugworm. While the importance of fresh bait is stressed in sea fishing this does not apply when it comes to dab – they are known to prefer stale and past their best baits. Black lugworm which has been left out of refrigeration for a while is often seen as the best dab bait, but mackerel or herring strip that has turned a bit smelly is also good. Cocktail baits are also effective when dab fishing. Peeler crab can account for some of the better specimens but few anglers will waste such a valuable and expensive bait fishing for a species as small and unfussy as the dab.

Long-Standing Shore Caught Record

The UK shore caught record for dab is one of the oldest records in British sea angling. The record was set by Mr M. L. Watts who caught a dab of 2lb 9oz 8dr off the coast of Port Talbot in Wales back in 1936. No other species has a shore caught record dating back this far.