Smoothhound

For a few glorious weeks each summer, British shore and small-boat anglers get to tangle with a proper shark - in miniature. The starry smoothhound is a sleek, grey, crab-crunching member of the shark family that hunts in packs over shallow banks, and on balanced tackle it is arguably the hardest-running fish in our inshore seas.

Smoothhounds have no real teeth - their jaws are paved with crushing plates for crabs and shellfish - so there is no wire needed and no menace about them. What they have instead is pace: a hooked hound tears line off in long, flat runs that have anglers whooping from Essex to the Bristol Channel.

Fresh peeler crab is everything; hermit crab a close second. June and July are peak months as packs run the banks on big spring tides. Virtually every smoothhound caught is released - they are a sport fish, pure and simple, and a brilliant one.