Sole searching.

My mate Gordon recently “caught” a small sole whilst wading with a push net in Port Logan Bay. The photo he sent me wasn't clear enough to get a positive identification, although I suspect it was either a sand sole or a solenette. I headed down there earlier this week to see if there were any more around. I knew that the likelihood of catching one was minuscule, but I certainly wasn’t going to get lucky sitting in the house, so off I went. The tide was out in the morning when I got there, and it was a lovely day. There were a few people out strolling along the water’s edge at the beach’s southern end, so I headed up towards the Port Logan Fish Pond end and quickly set up my ultra light rod. 

A nice quiet area to fish.

A small ragworm on a simple running ledger rig was fished using my trusty Rock Rover.

Casting my rig out amongst the small breaking waves it didn’t take too long for a fish to home in on my small ragworm as I gave it the occasional twitch and a small turbot was quickly wound in, popped back into the surf and shot off out of sight along the sandy bottom. It was followed a little while later by a flounder and a second turbot. 

Small but...

...perfectly formed.

Not the flatfish I was hoping to entice, but at least I had caught something, after those three fish however the bites dried up completely. Being a stubborn sod, and having travelled all the way down there, I persisted for a few more hours, probably a lot longer than I should have. Eventually, I decided to head off, but rather than drive straight home I decided to make a slight detour to visit Greenock on my way back. I was hoping I’d get lucky there and catch my first tompot blenny of the year but rather predictably I instead caught dozens of small wrasse. I also caught a few sand smelt and some pollock that grabbed my piece of ragworm as it fell down through the water. 

I’ve caught quite a few Scottish sand smelt this year. Perhaps they are becoming more common up here?

The majority of the wrasse I caught were goldsinny wrasse. They’ve got a nasty little set of teeth on them and usually show them off for the camera!

So a fairly good day's fishing, despite not catching the two species I was after! Anyway, I’m back down the Mull of Galloway next week and might try fishing Port Logan again to do more sole searching. I think I’ll try after dark if I do, and I might also fish three hook flapper rigs on two rods as well to try and increase my chances!

Tight lines, Scott.