The species hunting bug.

I’ve been species hunting for over a decade, setting myself targets, both short and long term, and having lots of fun working towards trying to achieve them. It seems to be a branch of angling that is gaining popularity, whether that be individual anglers doing their own thing like me, or people taking part in species hunting competitions, either with friends or taking part in sponsored events where there are prizes to be won. 

My mate Ryan has caught the species hunting bug this year. For a bit of fun, he’s doing a saltwater species hunt with a few of his mates, and they're now exploring new ways to fish in places they've never fished before, targeting as many different species as they can. 

Earlier this month, after spending a day with him locally during which he added lesser weever, short spined sea scorpion and three spined stickleback to his tally, we drove across the country to Stranraer, to see if we could add a few more species to his tally. I wanted to see if I could catch a new species too while we were there. Inspired by another species hunting friend of mine Mike, I planned to spend some time fishing with tiny sabiki to target juvenile herring, hoping that, like he did last year, I’d perhaps get lucky and catch my first ever sprat in amongst them. To begin with though, we targeted sand goby straight down the harbour wall using small hooks baited with tiny pieces of ragworm. We quickly caught a few of them, another addition to Ryan's 2025 species hunting tally.

This is a sand goby. There are two other closely related species that can be found in the UK, out in deeper water usually. They are the Lozano’s goby and the Norway goby. I’ve been reading up on them recently, trying to get a handle on identification methods for both, but I'm very confident I’ve ever caught either of them. I really enjoy learning about new fish species and building up my knowledge.

After initially catching dozens of them from the cleaner areas on the bottom, we started moving around, dropping our rigs closer to some structure. This produced some small wrasse and two additional goby species, but Ryan had already caught all the species we caught earlier in the year.

Fishing close to rocky patches produced a few fairly large black goby,…

…and the odd rock goby too. 

At this point in the session, we got a slight surprise when we turned around to discover we had been joined by a third fisherman, who had decided to get rather close to us. A rather friendly juvenile European shag had landed nearby and had slowly made its way over to where we were fishing. I've been doing a spot of birdwatching this year, so I took a break from fishing to take a few pictures of the bird.

Even efficient predators appreciate a free meal!

Shifting my attention back to fishing, I then switched over to a slightly heavier setup and a set of sabiki. Casting them around in different directions and working them back towards me to try to locate any herring shoals, I didn't get that many bites initially, but eventually I did manage to catch a couple of juvenile herring. They're not a species I particularly enjoy catching if I'm honest, as they don't react well to being handled, their scales being very delicate and coming off very easily. I quickly did the necessary checks to confirm that they were indeed herring and put them back. Ryan hadn't caught a herring this year, so I let him use my sabiki rod for a while, but he didn't manage to catch one, so we decided to move to a second spot. 

We were unsure if the area we wanted to get to would be accessible, but after a quick drive and a short walk, we discovered the long man-made structure was and started fishing from it. Ryan dropped tiny pieces of ragworm down the side to begin with, whilst I focused on catching a sprat again. I managed to catch another couple of juvenile herring, and as Ryan wasn't having much luck down the side, he had a go at slowly jigging the sabiki again. After a bit of patience, he eventually got a couple of juvenile herring, his first of the year.

Then as we were chatting, Ryan spotted a strange fish and pointed it out to me. I realised almost straight away that it was a pipefish! It was quite small and was swimming around slowly in an upright position just underneath the surface of the water. Sadly, it didn't hang around for long before disappearing out of sight. That's the first time I've seen a pipefish in the UK. There are six species of them found here, and I'd love to catch any of them. Next month I plan to go hunting for them!

Before we left, we moved along to the end of the pier and tried our luck there. My sabiki didn't produce anything, so I switched back to fishing down the side again. In amongst lots of black goby, rock goby and goldsinny wrasse both of us pulled out a few small pouting.    

Yet another addition to both our species tallies for this year.

It had been quite an enjoyable day trip to Stranraer and worth the long drive to get there. We'd caught some interesting species, made a feathered friend and seen a pipefish! Next month Ryan and I are hoping to head down south to fish Dorset, Devon and Cornwall. If we go, I'm confident we can both catch some new additions to this year's tally, and I might hopefully catch a new species too!

A week or so later, I met up with another convert to species hunting, welsh angler Ben Price. For years Ben was a specimen angler, targeting large fish around the Pembrokeshire coast, where he lives. A few years ago, he decided to give species hunting a go, and it's safe to say he's now addicted! A reader of this blog, he was so inspired by some of my posts about the fishing around Scotland that last year he decided to visit and had a very successful trip. Some of the fish he caught up here helped him to win the Angling Trust's 24/25 Elite Species Hunt with an incredible total of seventy six species! 

Spending a week up in Scotland again, after spending several days on his own up in the highlands, where he added butterfish, coalfish, cod, flapper skate, sea trout, tadpole fish, and two spotted goby to his tally for the 25/26 competition, he headed down to Edinburgh. It was good to meet up with Ben again, and the two of us spent a couple of days fishing around Edinburgh and East Lothian, trying to catch reticulated dragonet, short spined sea scorpion, topknot, viviparous blenny and Yarrell's blenny.

One of the venues we fished was St Abbs Harbour. Ben was blown away with the place and we caught quite a few fish. Whilst fishing with tiny hooks trying to catch a reticulated dragonet, we caught quite a lot of small flatfish.  

St Abbs Harbour has a health population of tiny plaice in it.

In amongst all the juvenile plaice and flounder, I also caught this tiny dab.

After catching several long spined sea scorpion, Ben caught a short spined sea scorpion, which was one of his target species. He then spotted a small group of dragonet in close, and we both managed to catch quite a few of them. Carefully inspecting each one, they all sadly turned out to be common dragonet. Still, this was a first time capture for me on the east coast of Scotland. Whilst targeting them, I also caught a painted goby, also a first time capture for me on the east coast of Scotland.

My painted goby with its distinctive dorsal fin markings and pale saddles.

Casting out into the middle of the harbour again, we caught a few more tiny flatfish, and then I caught another dragonet. This one turned out to be the one Ben was after, a reticulated dragonet. Sadly, like a lot of fish in the area, it was riddled with black spot disease. Its eyes in particular were badly scarred because of this.

My second Scottish reticulated dragonet. Not the most photogenic example of the species.

I was hopeful that Ben would catch one too, but after a while we threw in the towel and turned our attention to the area where I caught a topknot earlier this year. We both knew that it was a long shot and predictably, even if there was one down there, the resident wrasse had other ideas, our ragworm didn't stay down there very long before being munched by one.

A nice male corkwing wrasse. One of several wrasse we caught.

Soon it was time to head back up the road to Edinburgh, Ben had one last late evening session targeting viviparous blenny before making the drive back down to Wales the following morning. Next week I'm heading down to Pembrokeshire to meet up with him again. He's going to hopefully help me catch my first grey triggerfish in the UK, something I'm really looking forward to!

On Saturday morning, I received a message from Ryan, telling me that his mate had caught a striped red mullet. A few hours later, I received a message from Ben, telling me that someone in Scotland had caught a juvenile lumpsucker. Inspired by these captures, on Monday, I headed down to where the striped red mullet had been caught. Having caught the species a few times in the past in both the Mediterranean and also from Swanage Pier in Dorset, I'd love to add one to my Scottish species tally. Collecting some live prawns on my way to the venue, I found a tiny fish in my net with the prawns after scooping them out of a rockpool.

The tiniest corkwing wrasse I've ever seen!

Armed with my bucket of live bait, I had a pretty slow session fishing two rods and only caught a few dab and whiting. Unsurprisingly, no striped red mullet were around or if they were, they weren't tempted by the prawns. I think perhaps they'll be more partial to a nice worm bait, which is what Ryan's mate caught his on, so I'll be baiting up with them during future attempts.

I might be a dab hand at this species hunting lark, but sometimes persistence and luck are what's required!

So, I'm well aware that catching a striped red mullet in Scotland is a real long shot, but as I know about two that have been caught this year fairly locally and also that two were caught last year as well, they're clearly around, so I'm going to keep trying to catch one throughout September. Anyway, I just can't help myself. It's obvious that I too still have the species hunting bug, and I don't think there's a cure!

Tight lines, Scott.