Cliffhanger.

I met up with my mate Col on Tuesday for a day's light game fun in the crystal clear waters of St Abbs Head. It was Col's first time up there and we started out on the large rock beneath the lighthouse. Col was keen to catch his first ballan wrasse of the year so fished a large Gulp Sandworm wacky rigged on a drop shot rig at close range. I started off fishing metals and had three coalfish on my first three casts. They seemed to wise up after that and after catching a few more I switched to a Z-Man paddle tail rigged weedless on a cheburashka lead. I worked this close to the bottom but reeling it up past the kelp on the rocks below me at the end of my retrieves was what resulted in yet more coalfish.

I've been using these lures a fair bit recently. The are very durable but nice and soft with a great action even when worked slowly.

Col then caught a coalfish too before we decided to move around the rock to try another spot. I switched to a small junebug stickbait on my weedless cheburashka rig and started dead sticking it on the bottom to try and tempt any wrasse that might be down there. After a while I had a solid take but I could tell it wasn't a wrasse and after a couple of dives a nice pollock was on the surface and quickly netted by Col.

Stickbaits are a classic wrasse lure. Less is more too I find. Just give them the odd little twitch. This pollock found it irresistible and hoovered it up.

A nice fish on light game tackle. Fishing vertically into deep water always gives you an advantage in the fight though.

Shortly afterwards both Col and I had a few very distinctive bites that we were both sure were from ballans. The type of bite that to me suggests a wrasse isn't feeding but is instead pecking at what it sees as an intruder into its territory that it wants gone.

Col gets comfortable and patiently feels for more short sharp taps.

Col's persistence eventually paid off when a few bites in rapid succession resulted in a hooked fish. I grabbed the net and his first ballan wrasse of the year was soon being unhooked.

This little burgundy ballan had a mouth crambed full of crushed up food so was obviously in feeding mode. Not sure how it managed to fit Col's Gulp in there as well, the greedy swine.

I then switched to a drop shot rig to try and get myself one too but stuck with my stickbait on a weedless hook. Neither of us had any further luck though and after a quiet spell we decided to head to the other end of the cliffs to try another mark. On the way back up to the top of the cliff however we spotted an area down to our right that looked like a great wrasse holding spot.

Submerged boulders and weed. Must be full of wrasse surely?

Getting down looked a bit tricky but Col was confident we could do it so we gave it a bash.

Col leads the way. Why follow a path when you can blaze a trail?

Getting to the rocks below was quite difficult but we slowly made our way down, wedging ourselves into a crack and easing down it and then carefully making our way down a steep slopping rocky section. Sadly however our efforts weren't rewarded and after losing some end tackle to snags we decided to climb back up which turned out to be even more tricky than the climb down. Loose soil and crumbling rocks that had slowed our descent seemed to be a lot worse and Col slipped at one point. Luckily he managed the stop his fall before he reached me and I dodged the falling rocks that had given way causing him to slip. The final few meters slowly working our way back up the crevice was simply hellish. Back up on the well worn path we caught our breath and reflected on our decision to go down. A lesson learned and I don't think we'll be going down there again at least not using that particular route.

Safely back in the car we drove along to St Abbs but the rock mark that I wanted to go to can only be accessed over low water so we spent an hour or so sight fishing for flounders in the crystal clear waters of St Abbs Harbour. It didn't take us long to catch a few.

Flounders love a tasty worm. Or a lure that looks like one. Col caught this one using a Crazy Fish Cruel Leech. If I didn't have way too many lures already I might have bought myself some.

Another flounder comes to the surface. Mouths of harbours are bottlenecks that flounders must swim through when they move from one part of the harbour to another. This makes them a great place to try and tempt passing fish.

This chunky chap had a big set of juicy lips.

It also had a few "birth marks" too. These spots are caused when pigments that are meant to be on their "backs" form on their "stomachs". I have in the past caught a flounder that was entirely brown due to this.

Before long the tide had dropped enough for us to visit the second rock mark. Making our way along to the start of the clifftop path we then took the slowly slopping path down to the shingle beach of Starney Bay before making the easy scramble over the rocks to the point on the bay's eastern side.

The path down was still easily negotiable despite a recent large landslip. No where near as risky as our earlier escapades so two adrenaline junkies like us took it in our stride.

Once out on the rocks we both fished Gulp on a drop shot rig to try and tempt any wrasse that might have been around. We didn't have any joy but eventually Col was rewarded with another species.

The sea floor where we were fishing has large sandy areas that sometimes produce the odd flounder as Col discovered.

Towards the end of the session we both switched to other methods. Col went with a small pink curly tail grub on a jighead and I jigged a light game metal fitted with an assist hook close to the bottom. Casting around I caught a few coalfish before Col hooked a nice fish at range. It turned out to be a cod but unfortunately while we were getting ready to land it the fish thrashed on the surface and threw the hook before slowly swimming back down through the kelp to freedom. After that I had a few more small coalfish and then a couple of nice pollock smashed my metal on the drop as it was just about to hit the bottom. Both fish gave a great account of themselves but the fight the second one in particular put up was awesome. Because the water was not as deep here the fish made a few charges to the left and right instead of the usual dives down. Col and I both watched the fish making these surges at an incredible speed. The final run to my right almost saw the fish go round the rocks into a gully where I don't doubt my braid would have stood no chance against the barnacles but luckily for me the fish ran out of steam, I turned it and once I got its head up out of the water it was beaten.

A truely awesome adversary. Having a bent rod and a screaming drag is one thing but seeing the fish charging around underwater made the battle even more epic.

I'm really enjoying fishing light game metals at the moment I must say.

I was buzzing after that fight but we left soon after as Col had a train to catch. It had been a great day out with some nice fish being caught and Col and I had learnt a valuable lesson about foolishly taking our lives into our own hands for the sake of a few fish. I'd also kind of forgotten how strong pollock can be too and my third one has renewed my respect for them and their pure raw power. They are an underrated species in my mind as are ballan wrasse. Both offer fantastic sport on the right tackle and I'm looking forward to catching them over the next few months. Before that though I have sharks in my sights and I'm off to Dumfries tomorrow for a session out in local skipper Spike's boat with my mate Martin to hopefully catch a few of them. I also have Monday and Tuesday off as well so if the weather is reasonable I might stay down there to target some other species from the shore as well.

Tight lines, Scott.

Put on ice.

I met up with my mate Nick on Wednesday and we headed down to the rocks at the back of Eyemouth golf course to try for pollock and wrasse. Arriving at the sea however we were both surprised given how calm a day it was by the slow rolling swell that was running and the slightly coloured state of the water. Undeterred but knowing that realistically this would make fishing tricky and drastically reduce our chances of catching our targets we climbed down and gave it a bash anyway. We decided to give the Savage Gear Sandeels a day off and started off with some classic pollock lures.

Still looks fishy. 

Firetail jellyworms and rhubarb and custard shads. Classic pollock catchers.

Unfortunately after an hour or so our fears were confirmed so I decided to tie on a metal to cover a bit more water. Jigging this back towards me I soon caught a couple of coalfish before moving to join Nick who was fishing in a slightly calmer small rocky gully. Changing to a drop shot rig with a 15g lead and a #6 Sakuma Chinu hook baited with a whole Gulp! Sandworm my first cast resulted in another small and greedy coalfish.

Still a fair bit of water movement as Nick seeks fish in this nice deep gully.

Gulp! Aptly named.

After another coalfish the bites dried up completely though and we decided to have an amble further along the cliff and try another spot. It didn't take long for us to find one and figure out how to get down.

No doubt this whole stretch of coast will produce fish in the right conditions. It's just a matter of finding a way down.

Climbing down was fairly easy but the uneven surfaces created by the areas warped rock layers meant a twisted ankle was a distinct possibility so we took our time.

Once down I started drop shotting again and Nick went with a firetail jellyworm fished on a jighead. I quickly caught another coalfish and was just about to work my way along the rocks to our left when Nick's rod arched over. A pollock had taken his lure at close range and had got into the kelp beneath him but applying some pressure he soon freed it and hand lined it up.

Nick proves that pollock love firetail jellyworms. 

Nick gets off the mark with a nice fish. 

We carried on working our way around the area but didn't tempt anything else so after a while we decided to head off east to explore the cliffs to the east of Eyemouth Caravan Park. We both thought the open sea there might be a little less coloured and perhaps casting a metal might give us the chance of some mackerel too. Parking at the caravan site and walking around the cliffs past the old cannons that sit on them we soon found a nice easily accessible mark and climbed down. The water was a bit cleared but there was still a long rolling swell to contend and ever so often a wave would break and water would race up the rocks forcing us to make a hasty retreat up them to safety. Starting with metals to try and catch our dinner Nick soon hooked a surprise fish on a mackerel patterned TronixPro casting jig.

This very greedy launce took a lure almost half its length!

Just to prove that this wasn't a fluke Nick promptly caught a second! Keen to catch one too for this years' species tally and to hopefully increase my chances I tied on a 12g Dennet Super Sprat in a sandeel colour. Casting this around and working it back using a slow steady retrieve it was soon taken by a mackerel. Nick then caught one too.

Dinner in hand I run back up the rocks with it away from another wave. 

Canniballistic. Nick's dinner sorted too and on a mackerel patterned metal.

I then caught a second mackerel shortly afterwards but then things went quiet again so I tied on a rhubarb and custard shad to try for pollock but sadly had no joy. With the tide now making its way up the rocks at an ever increasing pace we headed back up to the cliff top and decided to head up the coast to St Abbs Harbour to try for flounders for an hour. Before leaving Eyemouth we grabbed a bite to eat, a bag of ice to keep our mackerel fresh and Nick grabbed four bottles of Corona to quench his thirst.

St Abbs Harbour. Known to throw up some nice fish on a fairly regular basis. 

Tying up another drop shot rig and fishing a whole Gulp! Sandworm my first cast produced another small coalfish. Nick had a few casts but then settled down in the shade to enjoy a couple of his beers whilst they were still cold. I carried on casting around the harbour and was rewarded with another coalfish and a couple of nice pollock.

The harbour is normally full of coalfish. The odd pollock does turn up though. 

Probably the biggest I've had from inside the harbour. 

No flounders were biting but I was fairly happy. After an hour or so we headed back to Dunbar and I dropped Nick off before heading home to enjoy my grilled mackerel fillets with Lillian who had prepared a nice beetroot, celery and potato salad to have with it.

One of my goals this year is to fish locally more often and to be honest I'm failing miserably on that front but I'm keen to fish around Eyemouth again with Nick when the conditions are better so that'll be a small step towards my target. That being said I'm off to begin a eleven day fishing trip tomorrow starting in Dorset, then heading to Cornwall for a few days fishing aboard Bite Adventures out of Penzance before flying over to Alderney next Friday with my mate Ross. Oh well, fishing locally will just have to be put on ice too I suppose!

Tight lines, Scott.

South Coast Fishathon Part 1 : Devon.

Back in January when I thought about what I wanted to achieve this year it quickly became apparent that many of the fish I wanted to catch can only be found around the south coast of England. I decided that a week long trip down there would be a great way to go and try and catch them. Planning my trip around the Cornish Lure Festival in July I also booked Colin Penny's boat, Flamer IV out of Weymouth for a couple of days and a few weeks before the trip and with my mate Jake still undecided about going down I started firming up my plans. In the end I decided to extend my trip to ten days and not to take part in the Cornish Lure Festival species hunt, the main reason being that I wanted to meet up with someone in Dorset on the last day of the competition and this meant I had to leave Cornwall and be in Dorset on the Saturday night. The week before going down Jake finally decided that he would be heading down for the competition and would be meeting up with his mate Dan Sales and fishing it with him so I told him I'd meet up with them at some point.

So with all my gear sorted, my B&B accommodation booked and a fairly well organised itinerary that would take me to Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and finally East Sussex, on Tuesday 1st July I was up at 4:30 and packed my stuff into the car. The drive down was not to bad but I was glad to arrive in Plymouth just after 14:00, where I'd be for 24 hours. The weather was not very nice and the last time I was there it was pretty similar but I headed down to Sutton Harbour Marina anyway to target the mini species that reside there. Fishing Power Isome and Gulp! Sandworm on a dropshot rig and also on jigheads I was soon into some fish and quickly added three species to my 2013 tally.

Sutton Harbour Marina on a grey miserable day.

I soon forgot about the weather when a chunky tompot blenny became my first fish of the trip.

Followed by a couple of small goldsinny wrasse.
Addition #1 to my 2013 species tally.

Rock gobies rock.
Addition #2 to my 2013 species tally.

Black gobies are cool too.
Addition #3 to my 2013 species tally.

Quite happy with a couple of hours messing around I decided to head to nearby Wembury to explore the rockpools. Local angler Malcolm Ruff, who would be joining me on Flamer IV the following week and was meeting up with in the morning, had been down there the night before and had caught a few mini species including a Montagu's blenny and a giant goby, two species I was keen to catch, the first in particular. Driving along the small single track roads the visibility was terrible due to the mist and for some reason it reminded me of the moors scene from An American Werewolf in London. Anyway, when I finally got to the National Trust car park I was quite surprised to see a few folk surfing but my eyes were quickly drawn to the rockpools, they looked great!

Good evening Wembury!

Rockpooling heaven. The search for Montagu's blenny and giant gobies begins.

To start with I couldn't seem to locate any fish but moving out over the rocks I soon found some deeper rockpools and rockpools that had some nice looking cover in them that I was soon working my lure in front of that began producing common blennies. Rather than put them back into their rockpools straight away I kept them beside me in a small shallow pool so I wouldn't keep catching the same ones over again just in case there was a Montagu's blenny in there.

Not the blenny I was looking for.

After catching quite a few of them I came across a rather large and quite deep rockpool that looked amazing. Even better than that though I spotted a rather large giant goby just sitting on the bottom! Casting my jighead mounted Isome past him I dropped it down right in front of his face. The reaction was instantaneous, jighead and Isome guzzled in a flash and I had a giant goby thrashing about trying to get into the weeds around the edge of the pool. Quickly tamed and hoisted up though he was a fine specimen indeed.

A bit of a brute even for a giant goby.
Addition #4 to my 2013 species tally.

Giant goby. Giant lips.

I continued my search hoping that a Montagu's blenny would appear but alas it did not. I wasn't too disappointed though as I had a couple of marks to try in Cornwall for them and had been told they were relatively common on them. Besides an exploration of the western side of the beach turned up a further three giant gobies and I love catching them. They can sometimes be found in what looks like quite small gaps too so if you ever go looking for them don't walk past smaller shallower rockpools. Potential hiding places is what to look for.

The gap under the front edge of the smaller rock held a giant goby.

So I was very pleased to add a forth species to my 2013 tally but rather tired I headed back to the B&B and got there at about 21:00 and went straight to bed.

On Wednesday morning after a hearty breakfast I met up with Malcolm for more mini species bashing at Sutton Harbour Marina. First off we went to a spot that I fished last year that was very comfortable to fish and had produced lots of fish. Upon arrival however we found that the pontoon that I had fished from was no longer there! Undeterred we fished from the wall above flipping our end gear into the recess in the harbour wall where the fish were located. Malcolm was fishing more traditional gear and ragworm for bait on a one hook flapper rig whilst I went for Isome on a drop shot rig using my ultra light gear. I had a few fish on the board before Malcolm got going but we were soon both catching plenty of fish and I switched to ragworm after a while to see if it would produce more bites. It didn't really which just goes to show just how effective Isome is!

A black goby from the hole in the wall.

My first ballan wrasse of the trip. Small but perfectly formed.

We then headed to another spot and were soon catching lots of blennies and goldsinny wrasse. Malcolm is taking part in a few species hunting competitions and a goldsinny was a new addition to his tally so he was quite pleased to catch one. I then caught a tiny plaice that somehow managed to get a #12 hook in its tiny mouth.

Another burly tompot blenny.

Malcolm adds a species to his tally for a shore based species hunting competition he is taking part in.

A tiny plaice. I jokingly said to Malcolm that hopeful I'd catch a slightly bigger one when out on Colin's boat in a weeks time.

Next we headed around to a different spot, another comfortable place to fish from and Malcolm told me that usually at this time of year small black bream were a common catch from there so I was keen to have a go for them as I've never caught one before. On the way there we passed the Mayflower Steps.

This archway marks the spot close to the site on the Barbican from which it is believed the Pilgrim Fathers set sail for North America in 1620.

Fishing for the black bream about thirty yards out from the wall didn't see us catching any or even register any bites at all so after a while we tried straight down the wall close in which straight away saw us both catching a few fish.

Fishing close in saw us catch a few mini species. First for me was a long spined sea scorpion.

Ballan wrasse too including this nice little olive green specimen.

Some lovely corkwing wrasse as well.

Suddenly we heard a loud noise and looked up to see a large navy chopper fly over our heads and land inside the Royal Citadel, a dramatic 17th century fortress built to defend the coastline from the Dutch that is still used by the military today. 

A large navy chopper flies overhead and lands inside the Royal Citadel.

Time was getting on and Malcolm had to go to work so we packed up and began walking back to the cars. On the way Malcolm pointed out a few other spots he had fished and told me what he had caught there. It was great meeting up with a fellow species hunter and I think Malcolm was pleasantly surprised by the number of mini species that can be caught from inside the Marina. I've no doubt that he may have a quick session or two there in the future. Back at our cars I said goodbye and told Malcom I was looking forward to fishing together again on our boat trip in a weeks time. Malcolm headed off to work and I made the fairly short drive west to Cornwall for the next part of my south coast fishathon.

Tight lines, Scott.