In the right plaice, at the right time.

I was supposed to drive down to Pembrokeshire at the beginning of September to spend a few days targeting grey triggerfish with fellow species hunter Ben Price, but conditions were terrible, so we took the decision to postpone the trip for two weeks. In the meantime, I’ve had a few sessions down at the inlet area of Torness Power Station, fishing at the spot where the striped red mullet was caught recently. For the first session, I headed down there with my mate Ryan to have a go at catching my one hundred and third Scottish species. Fishing three hook flappers baited with ragworm on two rods didn’t produce that many fish sadly. After several hours, I’d only caught three in fact!

A tiny dab,..

…a nice chunky flounder,..

…and a solitary coalfish.

Despite the lack of fish, it was still an enjoyable session and we were rewarded with a nice sunset before calling it a day and heading back up the road. 

Barns Ness Lighthouse and the Bass Rock off in the distance. 

Over the following week I returned three more times for another three attempts. I couldn’t get my hands on any ragworm, so I grabbed a bag of frozen raw prawns from the supermarket and dug some small blow lug to use as bait. Sadly, all three sessions turned out to be just as slow as the first one. Over twelve hours in total, fishing two rods, only produced a few tiny whiting and some flatfish. Mainly small dab, but in amongst them I was rewarded with a nice plaice. 

At 30cm, this is by far the biggest plaice I've caught on the east coast. Their numbers here seem to be increasing. 

So, some pretty tough sessions that didn’t produce a first Scottish striped red mullet for me. I’ve subsequently been told about more of them being caught in the area by other anglers though, so I’ll just keep trying. Hopefully there’ll be some more around for a little bit longer before the water temperature starts to drop and I think it’s just a simple case of being in the right place at the right time. I was supposed to be heading down south again soon, but Mother Nature seems determined to sabotage that  again, which will allow me to have a few more cracks at adding another species to my Scottish tally. 

Tight lines, Scott.