Not a new nemesis after all.

I visited Drumtassie Coarse Fishery on Thursday to try my luck at catching a Siberian sturgeon again. I've had a few attempts now and was beginning to think it might take me a long time to eventually get one. A potential new nemesis. Having chatted to a customer in work who had caught them during a recent session, I arrived very early to ensure that I got a peg in the area he had been fishing. During my last visit, I had fished in fairly shallow water, whilst he had caught them from the deepest part of the pond. I quickly got set up, and was soon catching a few fish using a pretty straight forward approach.

Nothing fancy, just a couple of pieces of chopped worm, ledgered on the bottom using a light feeder rod.

After four hours, I’d caught several common, mirror and F1 carp, a few tench, an ide, and a perch. After a short break for a bite to eat, I started fishing again. In my head I'd imagined how a sturgeon might fight, in some strange way given it looks so different to other freshwater fish, so when I hooked a fish that didn’t fight in any way unusually, I thought nothing of it. When it came close to the surface however, and I got a brief glimpse of a shark like tail fin, my heart rate instantly increased quite dramatically! I’d hooked my target!

Don’t come off. Don’t come off. Don’t. Come. Off!

Playing the fish carefully, trying not to bully it too much in case I pulled the hook, it eventually tired, came to the surface, and was drawn into my waiting net!

A juvenile Siberian sturgeon. My first sturgeon of any kind!

A small but perfectly formed, if somewhat odd looking, freshwater fish.

Its head was hard and bony, with a quartet of barbules.

They also have a protrusible mouth, that reminded me of the mouth of a saltwater ray.

I was ecstatic, and even better, soon followed it up with a second shortly afterwards. I'm not sure how many of them have been stocked, but I think they must be swimming around the pond in groups. Anyway, it was another species mission successfully accomplished! It's very satisfying to catch what you are after, and another species had been added to my Scottish lifetime list, edging me a little closer to my goal of one hundred, leaving me with only four to go! 

For the remainder of the afternoon, I decided to move to the smaller of the two coarse ponds at the fishery. There, I wanted to try and catch one of the very colourful koi carp, that have been recently stocked into it. I changed my tactics and switched over to a method feeder, fishing a bright purple 5mm wafter on a bait band. 

Wowsers "Hi Vis" wafters in bright purple.

A nice contrast against my 2mm feeder pellets.

The move proved to be a good choice, as I enjoyed fairly steady sport for the remainder of the session. Each time I hooked something, I was hopeful that a brightly coloured koi would appear, but it wasn’t to be. I can't complain though, as I caught plenty of nice fish and the sun even came out for a while.

I caught several bream,…

…lots of F1 carp,…

…a few small tench,…

…and few carp, including this nice mirror.

So, having caught my ninety-sixth species from Scottish venues, what’s next? Well, I’ve got a few ideas around what species I can target, but I think things are really going to get very tough now. I’ll probably be doing a lot of travelling over to the west coast of Scotland over the coming months, and the weather will no doubt play a massive part in how many trips I can do. Fingers crossed the summer gives us better weather than what we've had so far in 2024.

Tight lines, Scott.

A new nemesis?

I had another session at Drumtassie Coarse Fishery on Wednesday, targeting the small Siberian sturgeon that are in their coarse pond again. Chopped worm was the bait of choice, and this was fished over a bed of 2mm halibut pellets. Fishing with two rods for ten hours, I was fairly optimistic I’d catch what I was after, my first ever sturgeon, and coincidently my 96th fish species in Scotland. Things were pretty lively to begin with, when a few small F1 carp and a common carp picked up my bait and got hooked.  

There were quite a few of these little F1 carp in my swim,…

…and this nice common carp too. 

In the afternoon, things went very quiet for a few hours. There were two other anglers fishing and they both packed up and left. Eventually a few fish started biting again, and I caught a couple of bream and a few more F1 carp. 

Mid-flip. This bream didn’t want to lay still for a photo. 

Happy to pose. Some of the F1 carp I caught had a lovely golden colouration.

Just before I used up the last of my bait, I caught another couple of fish. Both were the same species, but sadly not the one I was after. 

The last two fish of the day were both ide. 

The second ide ate my last section of lob worm about thirty minutes before the fishery closed. So, I didn’t end up catching a Siberian sturgeon, and will just have to keep trying until I do. They have been getting caught recently, so I’m sure eventually I’ll get lucky and get one myself. There’s also a solitary large Siberian sturgeon, called Maisie, up in the fishery’s specimen pond that I might have a go at catching. Either way, I won’t be giving up until I catch one!

Tight lines, Scott.

Winter woes.

Well, the weather over the past couple of months has pretty much brought my species hunting for the year to a shuddering halt. I have made a couple of attempts at catching grayling on the River Clyde, but sadly I blanked on both occasions. Despite trying various stretches of the water, I just couldn't locate a shoal of fish. In addition, I have visited Drumtassie Coarse Fishery for a couple of sessions, hoping to pick up either my first Scottish barbel or my first every sturgeon. The fishing there was also very hard going. One solitary roach was all I caught on my first outing! I did slightly better during my second trip, catching a few small carp and a perch using both float ledger and method feeder tactics.

One of three common carp I caught. Not the fish I was hoping would munch my maggots and dendrobaena worms!

In amongst the common carp I also caught this little mirror carp. 

I'm not sure if I'm going to manage to add any more species to this years tally given yet another storm system is on its way. I might have another go at catching a grayling if the weather allows it, and I did also fancy a trip down south to target zander. I’m not sure if I’ll manage to squeeze that in before the end of 2023 if I'm honest. We shall see.

Tight lines, Scott.

Nothing's gonna stop me now?

Having hit my 2023 species hunting target of two hundred species whilst on holiday on Crete, and by the end of the holiday having reached two hundred and twenty one species this year, I’ve been in two minds about what I should do between now and the end of the year. Maybe I should think about taking a well-earned break? I have been fishing a lot this year and do feel ever so slightly "burnt out"! Maybe I should take my foot off the gas, just relax a bit and enjoy some fishing without focussing on adding further species to my tally. Maybe I should make a serious effort to keep trying to add more?

Last Tuesday, I decided to head to Drumtassie Trout Fishery, with a couple of mates, Brian and Ryan, to hopefully catch my first rainbow trout of 2023. Perhaps catching another species this year would give me some indication of how motivated I was to keep species hunting. Lazily fishing a nugget buzzer three feet under an indicator, and letting the surface ripples do most of the work, it didn't take me long at all to achieve that goal. I hooked five and landed three after a couple of hours.

Not a bad looking fish for a stocked rainbow trout.

I then turned my attention to catching a brook trout, another species I've not caught this year. Switching to a sinking line, I tied on my favourite Ally McCoist lure, and spent some time fishing this close to the bottom. This didn’t produce any fish, so early in the afternoon I left the lads to continue fly fishing, and headed over to Drumtassie Coarse Fishery to try and tempt a barbel or a small Siberian sturgeon from their large coarse pond. Both would have been new Scottish species for me and also additions to my 2023 species tally. By this point the cold easterly wind had started to pick up a fair bit, and it soon got very cold. The fishing was tough. Float ledgering a whole dendrobaena worm over some feed pellets for three hours only produced two small ide.    

Greedy little swine!

Before I knew it, the sun had started to set, and it was time to call it a day and head back to pick up Brian and Ryan. I'd added one species to my 2023 tally. Being honest I’m still not sure what I’m going to do between now and the end of 2023. Had I somehow managed to catch a brook trout, a barbel, a Siberian sturgeon or two or even all three of them, I may have taken that as some kind of sign to push on with a determined effort to catch a lot more species this year. There are still quite a few species that I could target that I’ve not already caught this year in both freshwater and saltwater. As it gets colder catching some of them may become more difficult. If it warms up slightly again I might revisit the two Drumtassie fisheries again. I also intend to target grayling and zander over the coming months, two species I've not caught for a few years. I think I will keep trying to catch more species this year, I can't help myself! I'll just do it in a much more relaxed, pressure free, manner, with no target number in mind!

Tight lines, Scott.