Something to look forward to.

I had a short session on Sunday evening with my mate Ryan, scratching about at Newhaven Harbour. Rockling were the target species again, but for the majority of the night the resident whiting had other ideas. They were straight onto our black lug baits as soon as they hit the bottom, sometimes before they got there!

We caught plenty of small whiting, but it wasn't exactly exciting.

There was very little wind, but it was quite cold, and it rained lightly constantly, making things a little unpleasant. Casting our rigs in towards slightly rougher ground, I caught something that I knew wasn't a whiting as I wound it in. It turned out to be a beaten up long spined sea scorpion that was a little bit tatty around the edges and had a damaged tail.

A bit of an old warrior. Life is tough sometimes.

Over low tide, things went very quiet, and we didn't get many bites until it began to flood. Not long before we called it a night, Ryan struck into a decent bite and pulled in a rockling. Having caught a shore rockling during our last after dark session down in the Scottish Borders, he was hoping it was a five bearded rockling, but was disappointed when he lifted it up over the railings and realised it was a shore rockling.

Ryan's shore rockling was a nice deep reddish brown colour.

After catching a few more whiting, it was getting quite late, so we decided to call it a night after having a few "last casts". Rockling are probably my favourite target species in winter, but I've got to be honest, I'm not really a massive fan of venturing out at this time of year. Most of the time the conditions are, at best, pretty miserable, and at worst, downright rotten. Strong easterly winds the remainder of this week, mean I probably won't get out targeting rockling. Perfect winter cod conditions, but fishing for them just isn’t my thing! Luckily, I'll be getting a break from the cold Scottish winter next month when Ryan and I head down to Tenerife with our mate Nick. Should hopefully be a bit warmer down there, and whiting definitely won't be a problem! Not sure that I'll catch any rockling either mind you,although there is a spotted rockling found there so you never know!

Tight lines, Scott.

Starting again from scratch.

Another year has begun, and for us species hunters, it's time to reset our annual species tallies. Last year, I caught one hundred and ninety one different species of fish, including forty three new ones. Not too shabby, all things considered! On Saturday evening, I headed back down to Cove Harbour with my mate Ryan to spend a few hours in the freezing cold targeting rockling. A bit of a swell was still running following the latest storm, which made fishing with light tackle fairly testing, but before too long I had pulled out my first fish of 2026.

The five bearded rockling was also my last species of 2025.

As the night progressed, we caught a few coalfish and the odd small cod on our small black lug baits. Despite the conditions, the fishing was enjoyable, and in between bites we chatted away. We mainly talked about our recent trip to Japan and all the things we were missing about it. We also discussed some potential destinations for trips this coming year.     

There were plenty of these reasonably sized coalfish around...

...as well as some small cod.

Towards the end of the session, we both caught a shore rockling each. These are easily distinguished from their five bearded cousin as they possess two fewer "beards". They also grow a bit bigger too.

The shore rockling has three beards. So does the three bearded rockling, but in my opinion the two species look nothing alike due to their very different colourations!

Before we knew it, the time had come to head back up the path to the car and drive back up the A1 to Edinburgh. It had been another enjoyable winter session and I think Ryan and I will be out again for more of the same over the next few weeks, although we may fish more locally.

Tight lines, Scott.

I needed perking up.

Last month I was still suffering from post Japan trip depression, and I hadn’t been fishing for a while. Between Christmas and Hogmanay, I headed down to East Lothian to meet up with wildlife cameraman, author and fellow fishing fanatic Jack Perks. We only had a few hours together and Jack was keen to catch a flounder and a shore rockling, so we started the session off at Belhaven Bay. Crossing the Bridge to Nowhere, we were soon at the water’s edge, fishing into the breaking waves at close range. The conditions looked pretty good, but the timing of the session meant we were fishing the last couple of hours of the ebb on a neap tide, a combination I’ve found in the past to be hard going. The flood on a spring tide is usually a much better time in my opinion. We gave it a go anyway, and it was nice to catch up with Jack. As I suspected, we struggled to find any fish that were biting, although eventually I did catch a solitary small flounder. We stuck it out for a few hours, but when light started to fade, we decided to head to Cove Harbour and turn our attention to fishing for shore rockling. The fishing there was much better, and it didn’t take us too long to catch a few rockling, dropping small sections of black lug down the walls at the mouth of the harbour. 

My first five bearded rockling of 2025 and also the last species I caught in the calendar year. Not the one we were after, but I was happy enough catching them. I have a bit of a soft spot for rockling!

After catching about half a dozen five bearded rockling between the two of us, and also a few juvenile codling and some coalfish, Jack switched to a piece of prawn on his hook and subsequently lost a bigger rockling on the surface that he was sure was our target species. Shortly afterwards, he landed a smaller rockling, that on inspection turned out to be the first shore rockling of the night. Mission accomplished! It started raining shortly afterwards, so we called it a night and made the walk back up to our cars. It was nice to get out fishing with Jack again and hopefully we can do it again this year at some point. A UK wels catfish is on my to do list this year and there’s a fishery down south near Jack that we might visit, or we might meet up on the south coast. The second half of our session was also a reminder of how much I really enjoy catching rockling, and will be out again soon hopefully to catch some more. 

Tight lines, Scott.