Mind the gap.

I've been out a couple of times this week to continue my ongoing search for a topknot. On Tuesday I headed down to Torness Power Station for a few hours at the inlet area. Once again, I opted to drop live prawns down into gaps in the rocks and kelp. I believe prawns make up a large part of the topknot’s diet along with small fish so should in theory give me the best chance to tempt one. It was a very small neap tide, and as a result, the session wasn’t the most action packed. I did catch a few fish and my mate Nick joined me for a few hours. It was good to catch up with him and we discussed our up coming fishing trip to Norway at the end of this month. 

My first fish of the session was this colourful corkwing wrasse. 

There were lots of juvenile cod around too that were happy to munch a prawn. 

From the gaps in the rocks and kelp I also pulled out a few long spined sea scorpion. 

After Nick left, the tide had come in a bit and I headed down to carefully clamber around on the large sea defence boulders. Again, dropping a prawn down into the deepest holes I could find, I patiently sat waiting for bites. 

Any second now.

Surprisingly, my efforts only produced one fish. The bite felt a little odd, and was followed by a slow steady pull down of my rod tip. Was it a topknot?

Nope! It was a very small ballan wrasse and the final fish of a pretty poor session. 

The following day I met up with my mate Ryan, who’s also going to Norway with Nick and I, and we headed west to fish for topknot at spots in Greenock and Gourock. We fished artificials at the first spot, but things were pretty slow so after a couple of hours we headed west to the second mark in Gourock. Once there, we climbed down the rocks and collected a few shellfish to use as bait. Fishing small pieces on small hooks down in deep gaps in the weed covered rocks had fairly predictable results. Lots of goldsinny wrasse! Probably Ryan’s least favourite species to catch. 

Goldsinny wrasse on a dog whelk. 

After a few dozen goldsinny wrasse, I caught a tompot blenny. My fourth in a week, but I always love catching them. 

Big, chunky and colourful with tons of character. The king of blennies in my opinion!

A lot more goldsinny wrasse later, I hooked a fish that felt very small and was delighted when a Connemarra clingfish appeared. Clingfish are such a weird group of fish. 

I’ve caught a few clingfish over the last few years, but every time I catch one I’m reminded just how bizarre they are. For a small fish they have a large mouth. They’re also incredibly slimy.

Their head is very large in proportion to their overall size and the structures on their underside produce amazingly strong suction on any surface, including your hands.  

Basically if they’re not on the move they’re stuck down. The candy striped eyes of the Connemarra clingfish are amazing and they have some colourful red and purple markings too.

Whilst not the species I was hoping for, I was nevertheless on a bit of a high after catching this fish. It’s a reasonably rarely caught species after all and a very cool one at that. Ryan meanwhile, was pretty much catching only goldsinny wrasse. Having seen me catch these other two species, he was keen to catch either a tompot blenny or a Connemarra clingfish himself, so I swapped spots with him. Sadly, he didn’t catch either, and to make matters worse I caught another two tompot blenny from the spot he had been fishing originally! Eventually, the tide began to rise up over the area we were fishing and would soon force us from the rocks we were standing on. Shortly before we left to get some cold drinks and head to a third spot, we both caught a small rock goby each. Thinking I’d already caught one this year, I didn’t take a photo of mine. Checking my records later, I realised it had been my first of 2024. I’m sure I’ll catch another one before the year is out.

Before heading home we stopped off at another spot in Greenock to try to catch a grey gurnard. Casting further out past the rocks and weed onto cleaner ground, we didn’t have any joy locating any of them, so we had a few drops down the side. A few dozen goldsinny wrasse, a few corkwing wrasse and a couple of long spined sea scorpion later, I caught a small rock cook wrasse.

So colourful and rather cute. Look at that minuscule mouth!

We were almost about to leave when Ryan pointed out a massive dense shoal of small herring congregated in a corner to the left of us. I had literally just remarked that it was probably mackerel corralling them in there, when the surface began to erupt violently in a feeding frenzy. I’m not too fussy about targeting mackerel if I’m honest, but on ultralight tackle they offer fantastic sport, so this was too good an opportunity to miss! We both quickly tied on small metal jigs and had some fun catching a few of the frantically feeding fish. 

Little rockets on ultralight tackle.

It was a unexpected and fun way to end a fairly long day’s fishing. It was also Ryan’s first experience of catching mackerel on ultralight tackle and I’m pretty sure it won’t be his last! Yet again no sign of a topknot, but I’m pretty determined to keep trying until I get lucky and catch one, no matter how long it takes!

Tight lines, Scott.