Over the years, I've met quite a lot of other species hunting anglers, and many of them have helped me out enormously. As a result my fishing knowledge has improved greatly and my success as a species hunter too. I now try my best to give back to this branch of fishing whenever I can. Knowing that I'm still keen to add more species to my Scottish and UK life lists, fellow Scottish and UK species hunters often get in touch when they hear about anything unusual being caught or even seen. This is exactly what happened on Monday evening, when I received a screengrab from a Facebook group chat discussing the recent sighting of some lumpsucker in Hartlepool Marina. Checking the weather forecast, it looked very good, so I found myself some cheap accommodation, booked it for two nights and drove down there the following morning. Arriving early in the afternoon, I had a look around and paid a quick visit to the bronze statue of the infamous Hartlepool Monkey to make a wish.
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| Hartlepool Marina on a pleasant March afternoon. |
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| You can probably guess what wish I made! |
Returning to the area where I had been told the lumpsucker had been spotted, I set up two rods and fished fairly long three hook flapper rigs straight down the side of the Marina wall. With my hooklengths spread out at different depths I was hopeful that should my target swim past it would find one of my six raw prawn chunks! The water in the marina had a bit of a green tinge to it and I wondered if the nice weather had caused an algae bloom. Things were very slow for the first couple of hours, and I was beginning to think the trip might turn out to be a waste of time, when some interest was registered on one of my rods. Picking it up I felt a couple of very subtle knocks and lifting the rod I was pleasantly surprised to feel the weight of a good fish. It turned out to be a nice plaice that had taken my bottom bait. Not too long afterwards, this scenario played out again almost exactly, and with the aid of my extendable net, a second much bigger plaice was landed!
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| At 47.5cm this is the biggest plaice I've ever caught from the shore! |
Over the next few hours my rods sat pretty much motionless. I was hopeful that darkness would bring some action, but things didn't really improve much. Occasionally, I was getting strange little indications, so I wound up one of my rigs and swapped out the hooklengths for some coarse fishing #26 hooks to nylon. Baiting them with miniscule flecks of raw prawn, I dropped them down expecting the next bite to result in a tiny goby or some other micro species I'd caught before, but you never know! More time passed, with nothing happening, not even the little taps, and to be honest I was contemplating calling it a night, when my tiny hook rigged rod began twitching away. Picking it up, whatever was on the end felt bigger than a small goby and was putting up a strange fight. As it came up to the surface, I got quite a shock when I realised that it was a rather big pipefish! My first ever, it turned out to be a specimen greater pipefish.
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What a bizarre fish! Cousin of the seahorse, they have a bony armoured body, but are surprisingly flexible. While trying to get some photos it kept moving its long tail around in a circling motion!
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With a long straw like snout, they slurp up their food. I'm not sure what they normally eat to be honest, but was certainly glad this one had taken a tiny piece of raw prawn!
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A totally unexpected bonus species, I was over the moon to catch my first ever species of pipefish. It was also my 90th saltwater species in the UK, so I now only require ten more to hit my target of one hundred. I carried on fishing for a couple more hours but nothing else was biting, so I packed up and headed along the coast to my accommodation, happy in the knowledge that regardless of what happened during the rest of the trip, it most certainly had been worthwhile visiting Hartlepool Marina!
The next day, I didn't get up too early and after breakfast I decided to visit the exposed intertidal rocks on the shoreline between Pilot Pier and Heugh Breakwater. I wasn't expecting anything unusual there, but it was a lovely day, and I was still in a high spirits after the previous day's specimen plaice and greater pipefish. Carefully making my way down over the bladderwrack covered rocks, I eventually found a few rockpools that looked quite promising and spending some time dangling tiny pieces of prawn into potential hiding spots eventually produced a few fish.
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| My playground for a few hours of rockpooling fun. |
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| Slightly deeper rockpools with large rocks in them provide perfect hiding places for small ambush predators and highly territorial species. |
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| I caught a few tiny long spined sea scorpions. They're super aggressive, and if present, quickly rush out to gobble a tiny bait. |
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| Common blenny are a bit more cautious. They won't dart out and prefer the bait put inside their hiding place or at least right next to it, so they can grab it and retreat to safety. Once caught they like to bite you, which I still find very amusing. |
Walking back to the car, feeling quite relaxed and enjoying the sun, I passed a mural featuring a local angler who seemed to be struggling to catch anything.
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| Andy Capp wasn't having much luck with the lumpsucker either. |
After some lunch, I headed back to Hartlepool Marina for another session. Hoping that lightning would strike twice, and I'd somehow catch my second new species of the trip in the shape of a lumpsucker, it was very slow. Towards the end of the session, Bill, the local angler who had spotted the lumpsucker last week, came down to say hello, so at least I had someone to talk to for the last hour or two. It was great chatting to him and the info he shared on the lumpsucker and their behaviour was very interesting. A few have been seen and some of those caught over the last few years in Hartlepool Marina, in fact only one person that he knew of had caught one fishing blind. As we chatted away, my rods sat still, and by the time I threw in the towel the only thing that I'd landed was a solitary large common prawn.
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| Crustaceans do not count! I'd suffered my first blank of 2026. |
The following morning, I met up with Bill and another local angler named Kev. Meeting up near the marina, we walked out across Middleton Beach to fish in some rockpools next to Middleton Pier that were about to be exposed over low tide. They were both fairly confident that we'd be able to catch viviparous blenny, a species I normally target in the open sea, so the prospect of catching them from rockpools was a fairly novel concept to me.
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| Bill & Kev patiently searching for our target species. |
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| One of several long spined sea scorpion I kicked the session off with. |
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| Eventually I caught a common blenny from a deeper hole. |
The rockpool that Bill had caught nine viviparous blenny from during one session a previous year, sadly didn't produce any, and left us wondering if there were any around. The lads explained that recent storms had moved a lot of the boulders around and sand had also filled in some of the cracks underneath some of the larger rocks too, limiting likely spots somewhat. Working our way along the base of the pier, Kev found a dark recess and dropping a piece of isome in, pulled out the first viviparous blenny of the session.
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| I think this is the first viviparous blenny time I've seen caught from a rockpool. |
As we carried on exploring all the nooks and crannies we could find, a few more long spined sea scorpion were caught. The deeper and darker the hole, the bigger they got. Some also had some beautiful spots on the back sides of their pectoral fins.
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| The colour variations in long spined sea scorpions are diverse, but these marking are pretty awesome too. |
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| The biggest long spined sea scorpion I caught. |
As the tide turned and began to flood, we doubled back and made our way back towards the shore. When we reached the spot where Kev had caught the viviparous blenny, I dropped my bait into the same spot. It wasn't in there long before a fish was pulling my rod tip down and the second viviparous blenny of the session was quickly pulled out.
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| My first viviparous blenny from a rockpool. A new way to target them that I might try locally. |
Bill then encouraged me to drop my split shot rig down into a small but particularly deep hole. Rather than a gap in rocks in a rockpool, it was part of the foundations of the pier and the hole went down a few feet. Again, it didn't take too long for a fish to take my bait and pull my rod tip down. Pulling it out, I could tell it was a bigger fish and was quite surprised when a shore rockling appeared!
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| My first shore rockling from a rockpool too! |
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| Three beards does not always make it a three bearded rockling! |
By that point, the tide was about to cut us off, so we made our way back up onto the sea coal covered sands of Middleton Beach. It had been great fishing with Bill and Kev, I'd really enjoyed their company and had learned a new approach for targeting viviparous blenny that may prove to be useful in the future at similar venues.
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| Middleton beach is covered in a layer of sea coal giving it a jet black appearance. |
Heading back to our cars, I thanked Bill and Kev for inviting me to join them, sharing their knowledge, and then we said our goodbyes. After some lunch, I decided to make the three hour drive back up the road. It had turned out to be a very enjoyable trip. The specimen plaice and the unexpected bonus capture of the greater pipefish made the tough fishing in the marina well worth the effort and the time spent rockpooling had also been very enjoyable too. I'd gone to try to catch a lumpsucker, but despite having failed to do that, it felt like I'd gained a lot more out of the trip. A new PB plaice, a new species, and I'd also met two local anglers who had given me valuable information and shown me a new way to target viviparous blenny. All that being said, the draw of catching a lumpsucker might see me returning to Hartlepool again very soon!
Tight lines, Scott.
