Not many people have seen the gudgeon fish

The gudgeon is a fairly widespread Irish freshwater fish but not many people have seen one. 

They’re quite pretty with a silvery, streamlined body, large spots on the flanks and an odd-shaped head with two whiskers, properly called barbels, hanging down from the mouth. They’re adapted to living on the gravel at the bottom of fast streams, though they’re occasionally found in slow-flowing or still water. They pass unnoticed because they’re small — too small to eat.

Apparently this wasn’t always the case. Izaak Walton, writing in the 1600s, is enthusiastic about their taste and in Victorian and Edwardian times there was a fashion for gudgeon parties where young ladies and gentlemen gathered on the river bank and fried up their catch. In fact, the word ‘goujon’ is the French for a gudgeon. But nowadays in Ireland the gudgeon is an unfashionable quarry.