Garfish

Few fish look like the garfish. Slim as a ribbon and tipped with a needle-sharp beak, it skims the warm Cornish surface through high summer, often shadowing the mackerel shoals. Anglers overlook it, which is their loss: it fights above its weight on light float gear and makes surprisingly fine eating.

What is a garfish?

A garfish, Belone belone, is a long, slender sea fish with a beak-like jaw lined with small teeth. In the UK it is a spring and summer visitor that hunts small fish near the surface, often alongside mackerel. You will see it written as gar fish, and older anglers may call it a garpike or, in Cornwall, snook, but around our coasts it is the same fish. It is perfectly good to eat, and its bones turn green when cooked, which is harmless.

How to spot it

You won't mistake a garfish for anything else. Long, ribbon-thin and tipped with a slender pointed beak, it looks like a scaled-down swordfish gliding just under the surface. The back carries a deep greeny-blue sheen that fades into a bright silver belly, ideal camouflage against surface glare. It reaches around 80cm yet stays so narrow it always feels lighter than its length suggests. That eel-like body and miniature sword of a beak set it apart from anything else off the Cornish coast.

Where it lives

Garfish hold in the upper water, rarely dropping below the top twenty metres. They cruise near harbour walls, around rocks and moored boats, and very often track the summer mackerel shoals as they sweep through. In Cornwall they are a strong summer visitor, showing best through May and June as the seas warm. Marks around Mullion, St Keverne, Coverack and Mevagissey all see them once the water temperature climbs. Patrolling so close to the top, they are reachable straight off the shore, with no boat or long casting needed.

Catching it

Float fishing is the classic way to reach a garfish, with the bait set just under the surface where they patrol. They are not fussy: a strip of mackerel, a peeled prawn, a section of worm or a slim sand eel all draw interest. The bite is a darting, twitchy thing as the fish worries at the bait with that bony beak, so hold off and let it commit before you strike. Work the warmer months from harbour walls and rock marks, ideally where mackerel are already showing. Garfish are listed as Least Concern and aren't a pressured species, though they've never been formally stock-assessed; there are no size or bag limits, but the habit still holds here: take a couple for the pan and slip the rest back.

In the kitchen

Do not let the odd shape fool you: garfish makes fine eating. The flesh is firm and meaty, and it stands up to a hot pan, the grill or the barbecue. To fillet one, run a sharp knife down each side of that long backbone; the frame lifts away cleanly and leaves two slim, almost boneless fillets. Crumb them and shallow-fry, or coil the whole gutted fish on the barbecue with bay and lemon. Now the party trick: the bones turn vivid green once cooked. That is biliverdin, a harmless natural pigment, and it changes nothing about the taste, however alarming it looks on the plate.

When and where to find garfish in the UK

Garfish move inshore in spring, usually around April or May, and stay through the summer, with some still about into early autumn. They are caught right around the UK, but the warmer south and west see the most. Look for clear, calm water off rocks, piers, harbour walls and steep beaches, especially where mackerel or small baitfish are showing. A garfish skittering across the surface, or a flash of green just under it, is the giveaway. They feed mostly in daylight and are easiest to find in settled weather.

Catching garfish on lures

Small metal lures, spinners and slim casting jigs catch plenty of garfish when they are chasing baitfish. Retrieve fairly quickly and keep the lure high in the water, because garfish rarely dive deep to chase. Their hard, bony beaks make them tricky to hook, so expect missed bites; small, sharp hooks help. Mackerel feathers will catch them too, but a float with a thin strip of fish usually gives more fish that stay on. Our sea fishing lures guide explains which small lures to start with.

Handling and preparing a garfish

Hold a garfish gently but firmly behind the head and keep your fingers away from the beak, which is lined with small, sharp teeth. Use pliers or a disgorger to unhook it, and return any you do not want quickly. To prepare one for the pan, cut off the beak and head, slit the belly and remove the guts, then either cut the body into short lengths on the bone or fillet it along the backbone.

What does garfish taste like?

Garfish has firm, pale flesh with a mild, clean flavour: lighter than mackerel and less oily, but with more bite than most white fish. It suits frying, grilling and the barbecue, and needs little more than salt, oil and lemon. Cook it until the flesh is opaque and lifts easily from the bone.