The goby, like many other representatives of small fish, is a collective name for a whole galaxy of small aquatic predators. According to the biological classification, they are included in the ranks of gobies, which joined the order of perciformes.

Such a fish has a number of distinctive external advantages, among which the elongated body, which is compressed closer to the tail, is especially notable. Also, marine and any other species have a fairly impressive head and close-set eyes.

In addition to the upper fins, which are distinguished by their outstanding size in relation to the body, they received fused ventral fins. As a result of an unusual evolution, the fish acquired a suction cup, with which it can attach to almost any object located on the bottom. Thanks to this natural design, the river inhabitant tolerates fast currents well and also survives storms without consequences.

Variety of species

Usually consumers at least approximately know what this fish species looks like. But many still have difficulties with its habitats. Predators prefer to live in the coastal zone, which is used by fishermen and representatives of industrial fishing.

In total, there are about two thousand varieties of goby. The Black Sea and the Sea of ​​Azov alone became a haven for three dozen types. About fifteen more species live in river mouths. You can even find them in the Dnieper reservoirs, because freshwater residents there are far from rare.

Despite many common features, they also have outstanding differences, which are almost always based on sizing or coloring. Experts distinguish one species from another simply by the characteristic painting of the carcass, which includes either stripes or spots.

A little less often, the technique of counting scales in certain places or the number of rays on the fins is used for recognition. But such a difficult-to-memorize method is only suitable for zoologists and fishermen with many years of experience. Ordinary people usually do not pay much attention to a specific family, assessing, for the most part, the weight and taste characteristics of the finished product. Moreover, how to prepare the catch is completely up to the consumer himself, because the fish is tasty no matter the heat treatment.

There is no average body length here, if only because some subspecies have modest sizes of about 5 centimeters, and there are also giants reaching 35 cm. Hence, the weight of the harvested aquatic crop varies: from 50 grams to half a kilogram.

Also, the name of the species predetermines the life cycle of the individual, which never exceeds four years. There are even options when bull calves only have time to live for a year.

Since these are predators, regardless of their habitat, they prefer to feed on young fish, small crustaceans or mollusks. There are almost legends about how voracious all their species are. Anglers have a passion for food and use almost anything as bait as long as it is edible.

Depending on where a particular representative is found, its spawning should fit within the framework of the spring-summer season. Females are responsible for laying eggs in previously prepared cavities, which are dug out by males for future offspring. If there is no surface suitable for digging, then parents secure their future children on or even stones. Next comes the era of caring dads who will defend their territory to the last. The fathers will shake off the silt from the nest and scare away potential caviar lovers until the fry emerge from the eggs.

How to recognize someone?

Experts divide all gobies according to their habitat into only two camps. The first involves a maritime group that entered the Black Sea directly from the Mediterranean. And the second selection is called brackish water and refers to the original inhabitants of the Black Sea and Azov waters. There they live in shallow estuaries or swim in river mouths. It’s not for nothing that they were nicknamed the Azov bull.

Their trump card over other relatives is rapid adaptation to salinity levels. They practically don’t care where exactly they hunt, be it a sea body of water or a freshwater environment. The most important thing is the food source.

The most popular varieties, which are often found by fishermen from the countries of the former Soviet Union, are called: martovik, gorlac, round timber, bubyr, tsutsik.

But this does not mean that it is impossible to find variants similar to them in terms of kinship in the country’s water bodies. The same Black Sea bull is sold annually in literally tons at the resorts closest to the sea in dry and boiled form.

Depending on what species the specimen is classified as, they will differ in soil preferences. Nimble sandpipers, whose weight rarely exceeds 200 grams, choose sandy soil of the same name, densely covered with a shell layer.

The sculpin was also named based on the principle of its favorite habitat. But herbalists prefer the bottom, which is abundantly overgrown with plants. The rocky bottom is preferred by martins, at the same time being the largest representatives of the gobies. Their weight sometimes reaches 500 grams, for which they are highly valued by gourmets who prefer cooking in a frying pan with plenty of it.

Despite the fact that today the tiger and other types of this extensive family are still considered regulars on holiday and everyday tables, environmental deterioration has greatly affected their population. Today, the black goby and its other brethren, acting as industrial fish, have lost approximately a third of their former percentage of production.

The reason for this was climatic conditions, poachers and unfavorable ecology, which people are not always in a hurry to deal with. Some scientists believe that the day is not far off when the species and other similar predators will only be found in pictures in biology textbooks.

Application not only in cooking

The popularity of gobies is so great that over time people even began to have aquarium relatives of predators. They are not considered noteworthy specimens in private collections, but many buyers who simply like to have animals in the aquarium are often content with just such residents. They are loved for their unpretentiousness in food and living conditions. But still, gobies are most often mentioned in the context of how to clean them to make a simple but satisfying lunch.

In coastal areas, residents not only know how to cook such seafood correctly, but also have a whole carload of all sorts of tricks and secrets to improve the taste characteristics.

Historians note that during wartime there would have been much more civilian casualties if villagers along the coast had not had constant access to marine goby supplies.

Those fish lovers who live far beyond the coastal zone are usually forced to be content only with the riches brought from the seabed. Another favorite alternative for bachelors, students and busy mothers is the famous canned food. They offer to try the legendary tomato-based gobies, which have gone from being eaten by tourists to being regulars in the refrigerators of busy people.

If the buyer is lucky enough to find a frozen version, the seller will offer whole fish that are not gutted and still have their heads intact. Such a catch can not only be put into soup, but also make a delicious gravy.

There is a separate category of eaters who are crazy about cutlets based on them. But for those who are preparing this dish for the first time, experts recommend first looking for packs of frozen round timber. Only this type does not have many small seeds that spoil the whole taste.

Cookbooks can also offer recipes that involve frying in hot oil. And here the main secret is thorough washing of the main ingredient without subsequent cleaning of the scales. It is this that will provide the finished product with a pleasant crispy crust.

A large percentage of the consumption of bulls falls on their preparation in a dried form. But here you should be very careful about observing all sanitary standards at the preparatory stage of the procedure. You should be even more vigilant if the eater intends to buy already dried fish string from hand. Such a purchase often turns into Russian roulette, since it is unclear under what conditions the drying was carried out.

A ready-to-eat product must not have any foreign unpleasantness or bitter aftertaste. All carcasses must be intact without any broken spots and not have “rusty” stains on the surface.

Composition and benefits

In addition to its outstanding taste characteristics, such fish can delight you with the presence of easily digestible substances. Also, the content of each individual will delight you with a rich composition such as:

Particularly significant reserves of nutrients are retained in dried versions, which are prepared in accordance with all food safety standards.

Available here in a sufficient number of formats and . The human body is not able to generate them on its own, so we have to extract them from incoming food.

With a cumulative effect, acids inhibit the aging process and are a reliable protection against the possible development of cardiovascular diseases. If you consume goodies on a regular basis in the dosages required for the body, then over time you will be able to achieve significant success in this field.

In particular, bulls are useful for the prevention of the following diseases.

It would seem that this small fish is unremarkable in appearance, but it is popular among fish and seafood lovers. It is very tasty not only fried, but also stewed and dried. The menu of cafes, bars and restaurants on the Black Sea coast must include such a dish as, and you can often find sellers at the food market who will offer them to you in the heat of the moment. There is nothing complicated about frying delicious bulls. To make the fish even more tasty, just like the meat for, it is recommended to marinate it first.

Ingredients:

• Bulls – 500 gr.,
• Salt – 1 tbsp. spoon (without a slide),
• Ground black pepper - on the tip of a teaspoon,
• Lemon – 1 pc.,
• Water – 1 glass,
• Dried Provençal herbs – 10 g.,
• Flour – about 150 gr.,
• Refined sunflower oil for sauce – 50 ml.,

Fried bullocks - recipe

Clean the bulls from scales. Cut off large fins with a sharp knife. The dorsal fin of Black Sea beaver gobies is very large and dense; it is convenient to cut it off with scissors. Open the belly of the fish and remove the entrails. Rinse the fish thoroughly inside and out. Place in a bowl. After a few minutes, water will drain from the bulls into the bowl. Transfer the fish to a clean bowl.

Prepare the marinade. Pour water and sunflower oil into a small salad bowl. Add the juice of half a lemon to it. Add Provençal herbs, ground black pepper and salt. Stir the marinade. Pour it over the bulls. Mix them with your hands. Leave them to marinate for 1 hour in a warm place. This time is enough for the bulls to become saturated with the aroma of herbs and acquire a sour-salty taste. After this time, place the frying pan with sunflower oil poured into it on the stove. Heat it well. Pour flour into a bowl. Drain the marinade from the bulls.

Roll each fish in flour on all sides. Place on a hot frying pan. As soon as the bottom of the bulls turns golden, turn them over to the other side with a spatula. The degree of frying of fish may vary. You can fry it until golden brown, or until crispy chips form. In the second option, it seems to me, this fish is much tastier. They turn out just as tasty fried bullocks Odessa style or as it is also popularly called - you can find the preparation of bull-calves in tomato sauce on the website.

Fried bulls. Photo

Cooking delicious goby soup

Gobies make luxurious fish soups, and fish soup made with them is simply unique. Especially if it is cooked right on the shore from a freshly caught catch, and even over a fire. Borscht with gobies and beans is something fantastic! Everything is cooked as usual, only the role of meat is played by bullheads, which, unlike it, we put at the very end (or maybe at the beginning - to get the broth, but then take out the fish and put it on plates). Soups with meatballs made from bull calves are no less tasty. The minced meat is prepared as for cutlets. Just don’t put bread, potatoes and some vegetables here such as cabbage, zucchini, etc. The bulls, ground in a meat grinder, combine with chopped onion and sweet bell pepper (or without it). We must try to ensure that the minced meat does not turn out liquid. Otherwise, the meatballs will fall apart right in the pan! Let's pepper and add more herbs, I really like dried dill. Let's stick the meatballs and cook them further like meat balls.

I don't put an egg. This is especially convenient when cooking during fasting.

How to cook fried bulls correctly and tasty?

Making a universal appetizer from bull caviar

And finally, about snacks involving bull. There are countless of them! Salads, sandwiches and so on. But this is a separate topic. And I would like to finish this topic with a delicious salad with boiled caviar. But first, I’ll share my experience on how to cook caviar correctly. It is important to remove it correctly so that it does not fall apart, but is preserved in the shell. Although it’s good when there are both intact ones and those that have fallen apart. In short, you need to cut the belly of the fish and gently squeeze out the caviar with your thumb.

Step 1. Use your thumb to gently squeeze the caviar out of the cut belly.

Then this caviar can be fried over high heat if the liver allows it, but I usually boil it and then use it gradually.

Step 2. Collect caviar

It makes unique delicate salads. Here is one of the recipes. Thinly slice cucumber, tomato, leek, lots of herbs, add boiled caviar and season with vegetable oil. The perfect snack for any time of day, even at night!

Step 3. Add cooked goby caviar to vegetable salad

In a word, there is and never will be a limit to your imagination when it comes to preparing a bullock correctly. Because – how many people, . I live on the Sea of ​​Azov, so most likely I will offer more than one recipe involving gobies!

If you are wondering how to cook gobies: small and large fish can be excellent for lunch with vegetables in tomato juice. Very tasty, much tastier than the notorious Soviet canned food with bulls, which cost a penny and helped out cash-strapped students. I offer for your consideration a recipe for cooking bulls. You can take any fish, but since my relatives caught them in the Sea of ​​Azov and treated us to bulls, I cooked them. The recipe is the easiest and simplest, it does not require any special culinary skills or costs. By the way, from my student days there is a cheap and tasty recipe for cooking like sprat, try it - easy, cheap and tasty!

My grandmother also told me that during the years of the USSR, tomato bulls were a delicious delicacy for breakfast and dinner for students and tourists, when a jar of canned food cost 25 kopecks. Now, unfortunately, there are no such prices for canned food, but gobies are not a rare fish; they are always available in the markets at an affordable price for every family, or you can simply catch them and cook them deliciously in a tomato sauce at home. They go great with a side dish of mashed potatoes, it’s also very tasty with pasta, and in general it’s amazingly delicious dipping fresh bread into tomato gravy. It’s probably time to get down to business, otherwise I’m drooling. So, let's begin.

• Fresh steers 500 g.
• Tomato juice with pulp 1 l.
• Onions 2 pcs.
• Carrots 3 pcs.
• Salt, black pepper.
• Vegetable oil 2 tbsp. l.

Cooking method:

The bulls should be thoroughly washed to remove mucus under running water and the entrails should be discarded. If you wish, you can trim off the heads and fins, but I did not do this. Then we peel the vegetables. We cut the onion into small half rings, and three carrots on a fine grater. Then sauté them in a frying pan with vegetable oil until the onions are transparent.

Then top the fish with a layer of remaining vegetables.

The last thing to do is pour a liter of tomato juice into a saucepan with fish and vegetables; it contains all the suitable spices.

Simmer it all for 1-1.5 hours over low heat. Although the bulls have a lot of bones, after a long stew they become soft and cannot be felt. You should taste the gravy for salt and add more salt if necessary. For lovers of sweet and sour soup, you can add vinegar and sugar if desired.

Bulls stewed with vegetables in tomato juice are ready. At that moment, we ate them with pasta, we really like this combination, because it is so tasty.

Now you know how to cook bulls in tomato sauce, try it yourself. Tasty!!

Cooked by Elena Fedotova

Gobies are small fish, but tasty. You need to buy more of it at once, so that after cleaning there is enough for all household members. The most popular way to cook bulls is frying. If you have time, desire and patience, you can make cutlets that will reward you with their taste for all your efforts. Here it is, the big-eyed and big-headed goby fish. The photo is so touching that it’s a pity to even eat it. However, tomatoes are probably no less alive. And they are also useful, but not so nutritious, after all, gobies are fish. There are numerous recipes for its preparation, and most of them came from Odessa, where they especially love to eat this cutie.

Fried bulls

You will need: two kilograms of calves, two onions, flour, salt, vegetable oil, basil. Preparation: clean the fish, cut off the head and fins, gut, wash, dry. Mix flour, pepper and salt in a bowl, place the dried fish and bread thoroughly, shaking the bowl. Heat a wide frying pan with vegetable oil and arrange the fish in one layer. Fry until golden brown on each side. Cover the entire surface with onion, cut into thin half rings, sprinkle with basil. Shake the pan several times to mix the fish and onions, cover with a lid, reduce heat and simmer until the onions are completely soft. This is how fried bulls are prepared in Odessa, a fish that can be said to be popular among all the people.

Baked bulls

We will need fried bulls, as in the previous recipe. Fish goes well with potatoes and tomatoes, which is why this recipe is also considered an everyday one. Who hasn’t heard about the canned food “Bulls in Tomato”? The basics are pretty much the same. Place the fish in a greased frying pan, alternating it with small young boiled potatoes. Prepare the filling in advance: fry the onion in vegetable oil, add champignons cut into petals, after five to seven minutes, scald and peel the tomatoes, add salt, sprinkle with sugar, simmer until the onions are completely soft and the tomatoes are soft. Pour over the fish, sprinkle with ground wheat breadcrumbs, pour over vegetable oil and bake in a hot oven for about twenty minutes. Serve the dish hot!

Stewed steers

You will need: a kilogram of bulls, three tablespoons of flour, four tablespoons of vegetable oil, lemon, orange, salt, half a kilogram of potatoes, onion, black pepper.

Here's how we'll do it. Squeeze the juice of orange and lemon and marinate the cleaned and washed fish in it for half an hour to an hour. Peel and cut the potatoes into thin slices, pour vegetable oil over them and stir. Thinly slice the onion into half rings. All this needs to be done while the bulls are marinating. Before frying, the fish should be wrung out and lightly dried with a napkin. Do not throw out the citrus juice - it will come in handy. Add salt to the fish, roll in flour and fry lightly without drying it out. Two minutes on each side is enough. Remove the fish from the pan, add oil and fry the potatoes until nicely browned. Add onion, a little salt and pepper, place the calves on the potatoes and pour over the citrus marinade. Cover with a lid and simmer for seven to eight minutes so that both the fish and potatoes are saturated with the sourness of the marinade.

Fried gobies recipe with photos on how to cook delicious fish

It’s not at all difficult to prepare fried fish like gobies. And if you are afraid of the large number of small bones in it, then it is worth noting separately that this fish is eaten directly with the bones.

Especially small fish. The bulls are fried until they become chips, and then the bones are not felt at all. Gobies are seemingly inconspicuous small fish, which, in theory, should not attract much attention. But no matter how the fish looks, many people love it. After all, this is the simplest snack to accompany beer. If you don't like beer, then go with a glass of wine, too.

The recipe for fried fish, including gobies, is known to every housewife, and every housewife has her own secrets for preparing this simple snack. But for those who are just starting their journey through the culinary country, even such a simple dish may be too much for them. After all, a lot of questions arise - how to clean the fish, what to dip it in, how much to salt it. All these questions for experienced housewives are the ABCs, which were covered a long time ago, but for beginners they are extremely important questions.

This recipe for fried bulls with photos is for everyone, but especially for novice cooks. A detailed description and photo will leave you with no questions. Let's look at the recipe.

Set of products for cooking fried bulls:

• fresh bull calves – 1 kg,
• flour - 3 tablespoons,
• salt – 1 teaspoon.
• ground black pepper – 0.5 teaspoon,
• curry – 0.5 teaspoon,
• vegetable oil – 50-70 ml.

Step-by-step instructions for the “Roasted bull” dish:

It is best to take fresh bulls for frying. So that the gills are pink or dark red. If the color is different, then it is better to refuse to buy fish. The carcass of the fish should be dense. How can I check this? Press the belly with your finger; if the dimple disappears immediately, the fish is fresh.

So, we bought the fish, came home, and started cleaning it. Immediately remove the scales, moving from the tail to the head. Then we make an incision on the abdomen. We cut off the head from the spine to the bottom and immediately take out all the insides. If you have cats, be sure to pamper them with a fish delicacy. Only the fish must first be boiled for 10 minutes after boiling.

So, the fish is cleaned. Place it in a bowl, add salt and mix.

Let's prepare the breading. Mix flour with black pepper and curry. Mix well.

Roll each fish in flour. Instead of flour, you can use breadcrumbs. Also mix them with spices and roll the fish in them. If the gobies are large, then you can rub each fish with salt and pepper. Our fish was small, so we mixed it in a bowl.

Heat the oil in a frying pan and add the fish. Fry over medium heat until golden brown. This takes 3-4 minutes on each side. Pour oil so that it covers half of the fish, then it will be golden brown on all sides. To remove excess fat, place the finished fish on a paper towel.

That's all. Fried bulls are ready to eat. Fresh dill, vegetables and a glass of beer are what you need for this dish.

Goby fish

Goby- This is a perch fish that does not migrate - it grows where it grew. When cold weather sets in, it descends deeper. It has a special structure of fins, thanks to which it can stick to stones and no currents or waves can peel it off. During the war, when the food supply situation was tense, some cities and towns along the coast of the Azov and Black Seas survived solely thanks to gobies. And in Berdyansk they even erected a monument to the goby, as a fish that helped to survive. The bulls are fried, salted and dried; they also make excellent fish soup. But it is worth remembering that only the freshest catch needs to be dried and dried; it is not for nothing that in places other than those where gobies are caught commercially, it is not sold - it loses all its properties and taste within a few hours.

The benefits of bull

The goby stands apart from other fish due to its composition. It contains a lot of PP vitamins, and also contains zinc, fluorine, nickel, molybdenum and sulfur. It can enrich any meal, because it can be dried, dried, boiled, or fried. They even make cutlets from it.

Harm and contraindications

Goby is not recommended for consumption by those who suffer from allergies. It should also be given very carefully to children and consumed by pregnant women. The goby cleans the pond, stones and other fish. This is due to the special structure of this fish. But if the reservoir was oversaturated with harmful substances, they may remain in the goby. Therefore, the bull should be washed thoroughly before eating. It cannot be consumed raw - only after processing.

Goby fish. Photo, description

Gobies are small fish belonging to the order Perciformes. You will learn the varieties, photos and descriptions of these fish from our article.
There are about 2 thousand species of gobies. The closest relatives of gobies are mandarin ducks and true jumpers.

Appearance of bulls

The fish got its name due to its characteristic appearance: the head is large, the forehead is large, like a balyk. The body tapers evenly towards the tail.

The tail is quite small, the anal and dorsal fins are long, and the dorsal fin can be divided into two. The pelvic fins grow together to form a funnel, with the help of which the goby sticks to the stones. This adaptation is important for gobies because they live in shallow water, so they can easily be washed ashore by the surf. The pectoral fins usually have a rounded shape.

The bulls have a protective color. But the color type varies greatly, as it is influenced by living conditions. For example, bulls living in the temperate zone have a modest color: the body is dotted with spots of gray, black, greenish and sand color. Thanks to this color, the gobies remain invisible against the background of sand, stones and algae. Tropical bulls, on the contrary, are distinguished by their bright colors, and the body can be decorated with a geometric pattern. Tropical individuals remain invisible due to this color against the background of corals. Bottom gobies are gray and monochromatic, while gobies living in the water column are transparent.

Goby (Gobiidae).

These fish exhibit sexual dimorphism: females are much larger than males - approximately 1.3-1.5 times. There may be differences in color, but mostly they are minor.

Gobies are small in size, but the range in body length is large. As a rule, the average length is 10-20 centimeters.

Note that pandaka gobies are the smallest vertebrates on the planet, since the length of females does not exceed 11-14 millimeters, and males generally reach only 7.5-10 millimeters. The body length of the largest March gobies reaches 40-50 centimeters, and the weight is 1-1.5 kilograms.

Goby habitats

The variety of appearance of gobies is due to their wide distribution: they are found in all salty warm waters. In temperate regions this species is also quite numerous. For example, in the Far East there lives the rotan goby, which is so resistant to frost that it does not even die when frozen into ice.

Gobies are bottom-dwelling coastal fish.

A lot of gobies are found in the Black, Azov and Caspian seas. There are also freshwater representatives among this family, but they are less numerous. At the same time, river gobies stay in the lower reaches of rivers, but spawn in the delta or sea. Freshwater individuals are well adapted to life in salt water. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that they often live in estuaries where water from the sea flows, and on the other hand, during migration from one river to another, they cross areas with high salinity. On the contrary, sea gobies cannot tolerate low salinity of water.

Goby lifestyle

Gobies live alone, and try to stick to specific areas. Gobies do not make seasonal migrations. For the most part, they swim near the bottom because food sources are located there.

But pelagic gobies are a rare exception. There are species that do not leave the soil throughout their lives, for example, tape gobies dig holes in the silt in which they live and feed on small animals. Toothed gobies with a worm-like body live in deep burrows. The depth of the burrows of these fish can reach up to 90 centimeters.

Freshwater gobies can live not only in fresh water bodies, but sea gobies die without salt water.

Most gobies are carnivores: they feed on worms, mollusks, crustaceans, and shrimp. Large bulls often attack smaller brothers, even other bulls. The rotana firebrand is a voracious predator, as it can attack larger fish. In this regard, the rotana firebrand is considered a pest of fisheries. An exception among carnivorous gobies are Stephodon gobies, whose diet consists of microscopic algae.

Goby breeding

In April, gobies living in the temperate zone begin spawning, at which time the water temperature is about 15 degrees. The male sets up a shelter for the offspring. Attracting a female, he finds a stone, removes debris, making a burrow under the stone. Having made the nest, the male begins to “sing”.

Gobies are generally the most “talkative” fish on Earth; they make various sounds by vibrating their heads and gill covers. For example, black-mouthed gobies croak, Azov gobies growl, and the bull goby makes something like a drum roll. Females recognize the sounds of mating songs even outside the breeding season.

Over the course of 12-24 hours, the chosen one masters the home, periodically swimming out of it and swimming in.

Most often, bulls lead a sedentary lifestyle and do not migrate anywhere.

After this, the female attaches eggs to the walls of the hole in even rows. The clutch of different types of gobies can include 200-3900 eggs. Gobies have unusual caviar; it is not round, like other fish, but has an oval shape. At one end there is a bundle of sticky threads, with the help of which the egg is attached to the walls of the hole. Having laid eggs, the female leaves the hole, and the offspring are left in the care of the father. It guards the home for about a week while the eggs develop, constantly ventilating the hole.

Sexual maturity in males occurs at 1-3 years, and in females, as a rule, at 3 years. Most of the gobies die after the first spawning, most often this happens in August. Surviving individuals overwinter and re-spawn. Bulls live a maximum of 5-7 years.

Natural enemies of gobies are predatory fish, terns, gulls and water snakes.

Gobies like to hide under stones, in thickets of grass, or bury themselves in the sand.

Economic importance of bulls

Gobies are a favorite fishing object in the Black and Azov Seas. Industrial fishing of gobies is also practiced in these same areas. The meat of gobies tastes a little sweet, there are few bones, and they are overcooked, so the gobies are suitable for making canned food.

Recently, poaching and deteriorating environmental conditions have significantly reduced the number of gobies, but at the moment this species does not need protection.

Residents of the Black and Azov Seas are huge connoisseurs of bull meat.

Varieties of aquarium gobies

Interestingly, gobies are classified as aquarium fish. Even modest European gobies have very interesting habits that attract aquarists.

Brachygobius, or bee gobies

These bulls got their name due to their characteristic striped black and yellow coloring. During the spawning season, the males' stripes turn red or orange. The length of the bee gobies does not exceed 4.5 centimeters.

Under natural conditions, these fish are found in mangrove swamps and rivers of Asia. These fish are slow, have a peaceful nature, but they are characterized by territorial behavior, so if they are kept in an aquarium, then there should be plenty of hiding places.

Goldenstriped gobies like to hide, but in general they have a peaceful nature.

Green-striped goby

In their natural environment, these gobies live in Puerto Rico. Green-striped gobies have a dark green color, and white transverse lines run along the body. There is a wide black stripe across the eyes.

These bulls are unpretentious in keeping, they have a peaceful character. They reproduce easily in an aquarium and lay their eggs between stones.

There are freshwater species of gobies that can be kept in an aquarium.

Striped shrimp goby

These gobies are also called threadfin red-striped gobies. In nature, they live among the reefs of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The body length of shrimp gobies does not exceed 4-5 centimeters. These fish live together with click shrimp. Shrimps provide fish with housing by digging a burrow; they get along well in the burrow. The shrimp benefits from such a neighborhood, since the fish thanks the hostess for her hospitality, warning her about the danger. If an enemy approaches, the goby pushes the shrimp, which has difficulty seeing, towards the hole with its tail.

In captivity, these gobies can live without shrimp. They get along well with other gobies, but the aquarium should not be cramped.

To catch gobies, they use the local method - under the boat, near the pier, etc., or they catch it “by stretch”.

Yellow clown goby or Okinawan goby

These gobies live in reefs in Indonesia and the Philippines. They are small in size - the body length does not exceed 2.5-3.5 centimeters. The coloring of these fish is bright canary.

Clown bulls are peaceful creatures. They have a timid disposition. They get along well with other fish, but they constantly fight with representatives of their own species for cover. Therefore, they must live in spacious aquariums, and each individual must have enough places to hide.

Goby - relict fish

General information about goby fish.

Goby - one of the few fish awarded its own monument.
They erected a monument to him “The Breadwinner Goby” in Ukraine in the city of Berdyansk and a meter-long sculpture “The Goby King of the Azov Sea” in the center of Yeisk.
They love bull residents of the Azov coast, and how can one not love it if, thanks to this little fish, they escaped hunger during the difficult years of the Great Patriotic War.

Goby - coastal, bottom-dwelling, fish of the goby family, perch-like order . Gobies, one of the largest families consisting of more than 200 genera and numbering about 2000 species.

About 30 species are known in Russia and the CIS countries, most of them inhabit the warm seas of our country: the Black, Caspian, and Azov. Many belong to relict species that have lived since the times when the Black Sea was called the Pontic Sea and was connected to the Caspian Sea.

They easily tolerate changes in the salinity of water, and are able to live in fresh and salty environments. There are about 5 - 6 species, those that moved from sea areas to the mouths and lower reaches of rivers flowing into them. Some even rose high upstream, migrated through tributaries and systems of small rivers to other waterways, settling at a great distance from their native shores .

Thus, some species of gobies migrated to the rivers of Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Kazakhstan and other countries adjacent to these seas.

The smallest gobies have a length of 2.5 cm, the largest 40 cm. The life expectancy of most is 3 - 5 years, in some species up to 8 years. They spawn from the beginning of spring to the end of summer at a temperature of 10° - 18° C. The female spawns from 700 to 2500 eggs into a nest previously built by the male under one of the coastal kamos; if there is no nest, the mothers spawn on stones or plants. After spawning, the males guard the clutch adhered to the substrate, protecting it from being eaten by other fish.

Gobies owe their special name to their large head size and sedentary, sedentary lifestyle. The slowness of the fish is explained by its lazy disposition and the fact that it firmly sticks to the stones with pelvic fins fused into a suction cup and once again does not change its location, for fear of being thrown ashore by the surf.

Many people confuse the goby with a similar Amur predatory fish of the firebrand family - “Rotan”, brought to St. Petersburg by aquarists at the beginning of the twentieth century. It is even called the “rotan goby” or “Amur goby,” although it has nothing in common with the goby family, but also belongs to the order of perciformes.

Today Rotan lives in most of Russia and European countries. It quickly spread in different directions from St. Petersburg, thanks to its endurance and excellent adaptive abilities, allowing it to survive in the most polluted bodies of water, and even return to life after freezing.

Its high fertility contributes to a sharp increase in numbers, and in small reservoirs it is capable of completely destroying other fish species. Because of him and other fish very similar to our hero, the impression was that the goby is a resident of the southern seas, found everywhere and even in northern latitudes.

Large Black Sea and Azov gobies are the object of fishing, and for many years they constitute the bulk of the total production of Russian fish in the Azov-Black Sea basin.

Types of gobies and their description.

River goby or goby - sandpiper — Ponto Caspian relict species, belongs to the malacophages - animals that feed on mollusks, most often found in rivers. Size from 7 cm to 20 cm.

The color is yellowish-brown, with a camouflage pattern in the form of darkened spots. During the mating season, males turn black. The body is densely and densely covered with small scales, noticeable both on the occipital region of the head and on individual parts of the gill covers. The mouth is upper, the lower jaw predominates, protruding slightly forward, the snout is pointed. The mouth has conical teeth.

The natural habitat is considered to be the Sea of ​​Marmara, Black, Caspian and Azov, and is found in the rivers flowing into them. Lives on the sandy bottom of the coastal zone, in burrows or shelters made from sunken objects (boxes, tires, boots, etc.). The diet includes: mollusks, crustaceans, sea and earthworms, amphipods, juveniles and small individuals of their species.

Goby - March , aka bull - whip or toad. Lives everywhere in the Black and Azov Seas and at the mouths of rivers flowing into them. The largest species, its maximum dimensions reach 40 cm and weigh 600 g. In fishermen's catches it is often caught up to 25 cm - 30 cm in size, with a weight of up to 350 - 400 g. The color is yellowish-brown, similar to the sandpiper goby.

It is a predatory commercial fish. It watches for prey in ambush, and can slightly change skin color, masquerading as the environment. It feeds on juvenile fish, small fish, fish eggs and its relatives of suitable size. Lives up to 7 years.

A more cold-loving species, it spawns in March at 10° C, which is why it received the name “martovik”. In the catches of amateur fishermen, of all the gobies, whip It is considered the most desirable trophy, as it has very tasty meat and large size.

On the coast it is caught in different ways, using all kinds of devices and gear. It takes well worms, pieces of mussels, meat of relatives and other fish, shrimp and other bait. Sometimes it is caught on the silicone baits of spinning anglers, and very large specimens become the target of spearfishing.

Goby - messenger or gray grandma . It belongs to the small species of the genus Babka living in fresh and brackish waters of the lower reaches and estuaries of rivers of the Black Sea and Azov basins.

It has, like all gobies, two dorsal fins, in which there are a total of 8 spiny rays and 14 soft ones, an oblong round body tapering towards the tail. The color is gray with a greenish tint, camouflaged with darkened transverse stripes and spots. The mouth is terminal with tiny teeth, the jaws are identical, the snout is rounded. The eyes are large, close to each other at the top of the head. The body length can reach 26 cm, on average in fishermen's catches it is 15-18 cm. It spawns in shallow water at a temperature of 12°-14° C. Experts believe that the messenger goby is very quickly expanding its habitat.

It was first discovered at a great distance from the sea in 1997 in the Pripyat River, and has now traveled along the Danube to Austria, and even managed to penetrate through the system of rivers and canals from the Dnieper to the river. Vistula. At the beginning of 2010 it was noticed in the Rhine River and in some rivers of the Baltic Sea basin. The messenger is found in certain river arteries of Georgia and Bulgaria. He is a long-time resident of the Taganrog Bay of the Azov Sea, and also lives in the Don, Northern Donets, Aksai. It feeds on small fish, mollusks, crustaceans, and worms.

Bull - tsutsik or marbled blunt-nosed- a small fish does not exceed 7 cm -12 cm and weighs 30 g. In Russia, it inhabits the waters of the Caspian and Azov basins. Numerous in the lower reaches of the Volga, it is found as a migrant in its upper and central reaches, as well as in reservoirs. In the same capacity it is seen in the Moscow River, the middle Don and many of its tributaries.

A distinctive feature of this species is the nasal openings, rolled into small tubes and hanging over the upper lip in the form of antennae. The head is high, the forehead is narrow, the diameter of one eye is greater than the width of the forehead.

The mouth is semi-lower, the jaws are almost identical, the snout is blunt with dark spots on the sides. The scales on the body are brown in color with a gray tint; across the body there are indistinct, sometimes abrupt dark stripes - 5-6 pieces. During spawning, the coloring of males becomes darker, and an orange edging appears on the edges of the pectoral and dorsal fins.

Leads a bottom lifestyle, prefers coastal areas with thickets. It feeds on benthos - small organisms living on the bottom. In addition, in the stomach, among undigested food, there are remains of small fish, aquatic plants and detritus.

Round goby - body length from 15 cm to 27 cm, weighs up to 270 g. It has an external resemblance to previous species. It is distinguished by the small size of its final mouth and a clear dark spot on the edge of the dorsal fin. The color ranges from grayish-beige to dark brown and even black.

The habitat is considered to be the Black Sea - Azov and Caspian basins. It can live in non-salty water and enter the upper reaches of rivers. I even managed to get to the Moscow River and the Baltic. Together with water used as ballast, it was accidentally transported from Eurasia to North America, becoming an inhabitant of the Great Lakes.

The remaining species of gobies either do not enter fresh waters at all: bighead, herbal goby, Surman, lynx, etc., or are rare - endangered species listed in the Red Book: goby Paganel, goby Bukchicha, etc.

Goby fishing is a very exciting activity.

Goby fishing It is as simple as fishing for perches and ruffs; many fishermen do not consider it serious, but despite this it gives everyone great pleasure, especially after a long time without biting large fish. So, since gobies live in the coastal zone, they are searched for and caught not far from the shore, on a rocky bottom or on soil covered with shell rock.

Although the goby fish is small, it bites quite strongly and confidently, which makes anglers very happy. In addition, the meat of this large-headed fish is exceptionally tasty in any form. The fish soup and its dried carcasses are especially good.

Goby is caught from the shore and from the water using floating devices, both float and bottom fishing rods. There are no special requirements for gear. As bait, use worms, leeches, bloodworms, small pieces of: ox heart, mussel meat, snails, frozen or caught fish; insects and their larvae. The bait is lowered to the very bottom and the tackle is periodically twitched or pulled up so that the bait does not lie in one place and looks mobile.

To catch bullheads with a bottom fishing rod, you can use almost any rod with guides and a reel holder. It is better to take a spinning reel, the simplest one, medium size - “3000”, with any gear ratio.

Tackle usual - bottom: fixed 15-20 g weight (in marine conditions it can be weighted down to -30-40 g) at the end of the main line, a little higher from it - at a distance of 40-50 cm, a branch leash 18-20 cm long with hook No. 6 RN with a long shank, followed by the next one at a distance of 30 cm, or you can leave one hook, it’s more interesting. You shouldn’t put more than two hooks, this is no longer fishing, but fishing. Leashes can be tied directly to the fishing line using a special knot or through triple swivels.

To signal a bite, you can use a bell or an electronic alarm or any other devices; in any case, if a relict horror bites, then there is no escape from the hook. The mouth of the big-headed hermit is large and it pecks very greedily, for fear of losing the bait, it does not stand on ceremony with it for a long time, so it almost never comes off the hook, and this “beast” swallows a small hook in such a way that it is impossible to remove it without surgical intervention.

Very interesting and exciting catching a goby on a micro jig with an ultra-light spinning rod with the appropriate equipment: 0.12 mm braid or 0.18 mm monofilament line, miniature silicone baits - 2.5 cm -3 cm and light small ones - 2 g - 6 g jig heads.

Have questions? Feel free to ask in the comments, the form of which is located under the article. All the best, good luck with your fishing.