A little too late to the party?

On Tuesday I headed down to Dumfries & Galloway with my mate Ryan for a couple of days to do some mixed species fishing. Ryan also wanted to try for a shore caught tope, so our first stop was the remaining old military pier in Cairnryan where amongst other species we were pretty confident that we could catch some mackerel to use as bait for our tope fishing session later in the day.  

Several sections of the pier have collapsed, rendering it an unsafe structure. Efforts have been made to keep people off of it. These don’t stop risk taking anglers though. Climbing through large holes in a couple of fences isn’t difficult. 

Enter at your own risk. One of many collapsed areas where the reinforced concrete has failed, and the deck has fallen into the sea below. 

There were lots of small baitfish around the pier, so I started off fishing with a set of tiny sabiki, jigging them vertically. This produced lots of juvenile herring. I was hoping that there might be some sprat present too, but carefully checking each fish, every one I caught was indeed a tiny herring. 

I’ve never caught a sprat. They look similar to juvenile herring but have sharp scutes on their stomach, their scales don’t come off as easily, the origin of the pelvic fins is in line with the origin of the dorsal fin, the eyes are slightly smaller and the lower jaw protrudes less than it does on a juvenile herring. 

As I wound up the juvenile herring, now and then a large sandeel would follow them up to investigate the commotion. Eventually, I caught one of them. It didn’t have an obvious dark spot on the side of its snout, so I was hopeful it might be a Corbin’s sandeel. After examining a few other features of the fish however, I positively identified it as a greater sandeel, also known as a launce. 

Fifty-six dorsal fin rays and a belly skin fold that only reached the first third of the anal fin, where it lost its continuity, made this a greater sandeel. The Corbin’s sandeel has 59-62 dorsal fin rays, and the belly skin fold is continuously unbroken all the way to its tail. 

After catching and closely examining a few dozen juvenile herring, I switched over to a drop shot rig and fished various heavily scented small lures. Lowering these flavourful baits down to the bottom produced lots of black goby. Ryan caught lots of these aggressive little fish too using similar tactics. 

Green Mini Isome with its blueberry taste proved popular. 

As did the less pleasant smelling Gulp! Hellgrammite in natural. 

I was expecting us both to catch a few wrasse as well, but incredibly neither of us caught any! Definitely a surprise as the pier's structure normally holds lots of them. After a few hours, and with our evening tope session in mind, we switched our attention to catching a few mackerel to use as bait. Once they turned up, we quickly caught what we needed and headed off to our tope mark. 

After driving an hour or so east, we made our way down onto our chosen rock mark and got setup. Big baits on long pulley rigs were cast out as far as we could at regular intervals, to hopefully create a strong enough scent trail to draw in any nearby tope. Sadly, after several hours of patiently waiting for a run, neither of us got one. A little disappointed, we drove back west to Stranraer, where we were staying for the night. 

In the morning we decided to forget about catching tope and instead headed south to Portpatrick where we clambered onto the rocks there to try and catch some wrasse on heavily scented artificial baits. 

The rocky shoreline to the north of the harbour village of Portpatrick looked like the perfect wrasse holding habitat. 

Ryan decided to fish with some Gulp! Sandworm, whilst I opted to fish with Mini Isome. I tried a couple of different presentations. 

Very simply, hooked once through the “head”.

When this produced no bites, I switched colour and tried wacky rigging it. 

This corkwing wrasse fell to the wacky rigging style. 

I expected us to catch a few more wrasse after this, but it was a real struggle to get any more bites, so we moved around and tried a few more gullies. 

Ryan clambered down to the edge to fish in close, but his efforts weren’t rewarded. 

Feeling a little frustrated, we decided to head further south to Port Logan where we could dig some small lugworm and then spend a little time fishing for small flatfish in the breaking waves on the beach there.  

Port Logan, a popular beach for relaxing, dog walking and where boat anglers launch their vessels.

Fishing a simple running ledger rig baited with a small blowlug produced a small turbot for me fairly quickly, but after that we didn’t get any more bites. With some fresh bait to use, we decided to head all the way down to the Mull of Galloway to fish from the rocks on its northern side. 

Only my second fish of the day. Not exactly epic fishing, but I love mini turbot, so was happy to catch this one. They’re such perfectly formed versions of their adult counterparts. 

Arriving at the Mull of Galloway, walking down the steep grassy slope, and then carefully climbing down onto the rocks, our decision to dig some lugworms was very quickly paying off. Casting out beyond the heavy kelp bed in front of us, the resident ballan wrasse were hammering them pretty much as soon as our rigs hit the bottom. 

Small blowlug, the perfect size bait for small ballan wrasse. 

Also readily taken by bigger specimens too! This one was a real test of my Rock Rover with a heavy kelp bed directly in front of us, but I managed to bully it through. 

While we had a supply of small juicy worm baits, we caught a few other species too. Ryan caught some pouting and poor cod, whilst strangely I caught only pollock.

This small pollock came up and grabbed my bait as I wound it in. 

Eventually, we ran out of worms however, and switched over to fishing with Gulp! Sandworm. The drop-off in interest was noticeable, as you would probably expect, so Ryan suggested we collect a few limpets and use them as bait. This was a good idea, and we were soon catching a few fish again.

Ryan into one of many limpet caught fish. 

He caught a few cuckoo wrasse. 

Hidden in this lump of weed was a goldsinny wrasse Ryan also caught on a piece of limpet. 

I caught a few more ballan wrasse on limpet slivers as well.  

As the tide rose, and we retreated up the rocks, I spotted a few blenny moving around on the bottom of a newly formed rock pool and dropped a tiny piece of limpet down in their vicinity. They immediately began fighting over it, and one quickly got hooked. 

Another lover of limpet. 

A tough day’s fishing had turned into a fairly action packed session, and before we knew it, it was time to call it a day, climb back up to the car park and make the drive back to Edinburgh. It had been a trip of mixed results, but in the end a quite enjoyable one, even if we spent four fruitless hours targeting tope. The toothy shark will probably have to wait until 2025, when I think we’ll go a bit earlier in the year when there are more tope around to be caught. I’m heading back down the Solway Firth tomorrow evening with my mate Nick. I’ve enjoyed my sessions down there this year, but I’ve not caught a starry smoothhound yet. Armed with some peeler crab, my fingers are crossed that they won’t be as elusive as the late season tope!

Tight lines, Scott.

Species hunting road trip: Mull of Galloway.

Earlier in the summer, I arranged a couple of days out on Tuesday and Wednesday last week aboard Mull of Galloway charter boat "On Yer Marks" for myself and my mates, Nick and Ryan. A few weeks after this was booked however, I was offered a place on a boat out of Weymouth to target something quite unusual. Butterfly blenny! This trip was taking place the following day on the Thursday so I had a difficult decision to make as the dates caused problems travel wise. In the end, the opportunity to catch a butterfly blenny proved too tempting for me to turn down, so I broke the news to Nick and Ryan that I'd be driving south whilst they were out fishing on the second day. 

Going all the way down to Weymouth is a long way to go for just one day out on a boat, so I decided to use up the last of my holidays at work and extend my stay afterwards. This would allow me to try and catch a few species down there that I'd not yet caught this year, and also hopefully perhaps even some new ones as well. So, a two day trip to the southwest of Scotland had become an eight day long road trip to the southwest coast of the UK!

Last Monday night the three of us drove down to Stranraer, where our accommodation was booked. The next morning we drove down to East Tarbet where the boat was being launched. The conditions weren't great, it was pretty windy and a bit of a swell was running, so after catching some mackerel to use as bait, skipper Matt headed down around the Mull of Galloway to some sheltered water where we spent a large portion of the day float fishing for pollock. We all caught lots of them, but Nick seemed to consistently pull out the bigger specimens.

One of Nick’s pollock.

In the afternoon, we briefly visited a second mark, where we fished for launce over a sandbank using sabiki. There were shoals of mackerel in the area however, and as a result we only managed to catch two launce, but I got one of them, and it was my first of the year, so I was happy enough.

Look at the size of that mouth!

After a bit more pollock fishing in the afternoon, the wind had dropped off a bit, so we headed back around to the Luce Bay side of the peninsula where we spent some time live baiting joey mackerel for bass. We made several drifts over fairly shallow ground, letting out lots of line in the hope a passing bass would devour one of our baits as they swam along, but sadly this approach didn't produce any results. Before calling it a day and heading back in, we did a few final drifts fairly close to shore over a mark that Matt assured us would, and did, produce a few small tub gurnard.

The second addition to my 2023 species hunt tally.

The first day's fishing over, it was touch and go whether the second day's fishing would go ahead due to the forecast, but in the evening I got a text from the skipper saying that Nick and Ryan were to head to Port Logan for a 09:00 launch. I wouldn't be joining them as I had a long drive to make south. In the morning we parted company and I wished them luck targeting tope, bull huss and conger eel. They wished me luck targeting butterfly blenny! Not something you hear very often!

Tight lines, Scott.

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Striking gold.

So, throughout August, back to Drumtassie Trout Fishery I went repeatedly, to try to catch my first golden trout. As I've said before, it's probably my least favourite type of venue and style of fishing, so I was keen to try and get one quickly. Six visits later, I finally managed to catch two of the super spooky brightly coloured fish! The number that swim up to your fly and inspect it before turning away at the very last second is incredible. After dropping to 4lb tippet and giving it a going over with Fuller's Mud, a suspender buzzer and a white moth were the surface flies that finally tempted the two golden trout I caught.

The golden trout. A very colourful and very frustrating fish!

My 100th species from Scottish venues! I was over the moon reaching this milestone! There was one thing in the back of my mind though. Niggling away. Corbin's sandeel. I've caught a couple of large sandeel that I suspect may have been Corbin's sandeel during the last few years. They can be distinguished from the greater sandeel because they lack the dark spot on the side of the snout and instead have a dark chin.

I'm not 100% sure that this is a Corbin's sandeel.

This, I'm sure, is a greater sandeel.

I'm still not confident that I've got the identification correct though, and as the Corbin's sandeel was included in my Scottish species tally total of one hundred, I decided I wanted to catch one more Scottish species, so I could say with absolute certainty I'd reached my goal.

Tight lines, Scott.

Somewhere over the Forth.

I headed over to Fife last Sunday to mess about in a couple of the harbours there with my mate Dan. We were quite optimistic about enjoying some light game fun and I also planned on fishing mini species bait rigs too but a few showers on the drive over had us unsure about where to fish. St Monans was to be our first stop but we decided to head further east towards bluer skies and started our session in Cellardyke Harbour instead. Two anglers were already fishing for cod off the end of the outer breakwater and hadn't had any bites. Dan and I struggled to get any inside the harbour fishing Isome on drop shot rigs either. A sure sign usually that there aren't any fish around and a single tiny coalfish later we headed along to Anstruther to try out luck there. After trying a few spots that didn't produce anything other than a second tiny coalfish we ended up along at the lighthouse fishing around the harbour mouth. Dan decided to try fishing metals and I decided to switch to fishing small baits in gaps in the kelp on a mini one up one down rig. Dan soon had a bit of fun when he caught a mackerel and followed this up by catching his first ever launce after getting a few bumps from them. 

Dan didn't realise that launce are quite an aggressive species until I spotted them cruising beneath and picking off juvenile coalfish and pointed them out. They were aggressively attacking Dan's lure too. 

My mussel and raw prawn baits weren't getting any attention and Dan was having way more fun than I was so I removed my bait rig, tied on a leader and a small metal. Jigging this with short sharp lifts of my rod tip before lowering it as the metal fell keeping just in touch with it I was getting little bumps on the drop and after hooking and loosing a launce of my own I hooked and landed a couple. 

My first one was rather plump.

Even mini species deserve a trophy shot. All good light hearted fun. 

After hooking and loosing a couple more I returned to fishing baits. Some people think bait fishing is easy but anyone who thinks you just turn up, cast in some baits and pull out fish clearly hasn't done much bait fishing. I patiently waited for bites trying different areas to hopefully locate some fish. I eventually caught a couple of coalfish. Dan carried on fishing in the mouth of the harbour and caught another mackerel but as the session progressed and low water approached things went very quiet. 

Somewhere over the Forth (and rainbow), mackerel swim.

I was hopeful that as light faded some shore or five bearded rockling might start hunting but apart from a couple more coalfish the only long slimy fish I caught was a viviparous blenny which proved tricky to unhook as it slithered backwards around my hand. 

It would seem that these are present all year round. I've had a few of these from Anstruther White Pier now. 

As it got dark we saw a flounder swimming near the surface and Dan had a few casts in the general direction it headed off in but to no avail. Soon afterwards we called it a night. It hadn't really been the action packed session we had been hoping for but the launce were good fun and Dan enjoyed some sport from the mackerel too. I have mixed feelings about fishing over the Forth as it rarely fishes really well and is sometimes quite poor. Regardless I'll be back to try for the two rockling species again although waiting for the longer nights later in the year might prove a better choice to have more time to target them. 

Tight lines, Scott.

Blown away.

I went out for a few hours fishing this afternoon. I started off at Dunbar Harbour but after trying various spots, struggling to fish in the wind and not getting any bites I decided to head down the coast to the inlet area of Torness Power Station, more to get out of the wind than anything else, but I also wanted to fish in the rockpools there. A couple of years ago I caught a few leopard spotted gobies from them and was curious if they were still around. Before I hit the rockpools though I fished an Angleworm on a drop shot rig from the exposed concrete platform below the gantry at its western end into the deep water below it. Whilst I was slightly sheltered from the wind it was still difficult to feel for bites and when I finally got one I wasn't sure if I had hooked the little culprit. As I slowly reeled in it felt like it was just my drop shot lead that was putting a tiny bend in my rod tip but then I felt a little head shake and to my surprise a sandeel came into view.

I think this the second time I've caught a greater sandeel using this approach. My drop shot lead had jettisoned during the "fight" which explained why I didn't really feel the extra weight of the fish. I was quite pleased as it was other potentially hard to catch species ticked off my Scottish species hunt target list.

Note the dark mark above its upper lip. A key distinguishing feature.

I carried on fishing the area just as the tide had started to lap up over the platform and I was just about to move over to the rockpools when I heard a voice behind me. Turning to see who it was I was confronted by two uniformed officers. It was the station's Civil Nuclear Constabulary who had spotted me as they patrolled the site, were concerned I was fishing in a dangerous place and had come over to make sure I was OK. After thanking them and reassuring them that I was fine and was about to move anyway I  headed over to the rockpools to start searching for a leopard spotted goby. Slowly working my jighead mounted Angleworm around the gaps in the partially submerged sea defence boulders I was searching it soon became apparent that there weren't any leopard spotted gobies around, or any other mini species for that matter. Eventually I managed to coax a solitary long spined sea scorpion out from a crack.

I never tire of catching these little rockpool gremlins.

As the afternoon progressed the wind cranked itself up a few more notches and got so strong that even fishing in rockpools effectively became a bit of a challenge! After a while with no further reward for my efforts I decided to call it a day and headed back up the road. Despite only catching two fish I was happy to have added another species to my Scottish saltwater species hunt tally. It's fair to say that the weather so far this year has not been great with the wind in particular often making things difficult. My mate Nick tells me that the first mackerel have been caught by Dunbar's commercial boats so hopefully it won't be too much longer before they and some other summer species start showing up inshore and hopefully we get some nice weather to go with them.

Tight lines, Scott.

Unfinished business.

Last Sunday I headed down to the Isle of Whithorn with my mate Martin for a relaxing session targeting wrasse. We arrived at about 9:00 armed with a few ragworm and crabs and made our way along the coast until we found a nice looking gully to fish in. Martin started off fishing ragworm under a float and I started off with a very simple one up rig with a short snood formed by tying a blood loop. We had a great morning and by early afternoon had both caught ballan, corkwing, goldsinny and rock cook wrasse as well as a few pollock, a coalfish, a poor cod and a common blenny. Not a bad bit of species hunting and all from a relatively small area.

My first fish of the day was a corkwing wrasse.

A ballan wrasse puts a nice bend in my light rod.

A few more ballan wrasse followed.

Smaller hooks and pieces of ragworm were required to catch the resident goldsinny wrasse.

I love catching rock cook wrasse. Their facial markings are beautiful.

This meant I had completed my grand slam attempt that I began five days earlier albeit in a much slower time than my sub three hour one I managed up at Lochaline last year. Martin by this point had switched to a rig similar to mine and had tried using small hardback crabs as bait to see if he could tempt a large ballan but smaller fish did a good job of quickly attacking and eating them without in the main getting themselves hooked.

In the afternoon I decided to throw some small metals about into the tidal flow and see what else was around. There were literally hundreds of sandeels swimming past against the tidal flow and after a while I spotted what I thought was a bass swimming past underneath them. Casting my metal in the general direction where it had been heading I had no luck tempting it. I was however getting the odd tiny tap which I suspected was the sandeels so I tied on the smallest metal I had in an attempt to catch one. As most of them were under 20cm it took a while to get one but eventually my persistence paid off and I finally hooked one.

Which type of Sandeel was it though? No dark spot on its nose which is a distinguishing feature on a launce. A lesser sandeel perhaps? Looking back at photos of last years sandeel captures has planted a seed of doubt in my mind about some of their identities too. Further research into UK Sandeel species is certainly required.

Shortly afterwards I saw a bass take a sandeel from the surface and shouted over to Martin who came over and started fishing a Savage Gear Sandeel. He had no luck catching a bass from the tidal flow but dropping down closer in he soon caught a small pollock at close range that gave a good account of itself in the current.

A feisty little pollock.

It went a bit quiet after that, although I did manage a second sandeel, so we went back to where we had started fishing and switched back to worm baits. Martin told me that he'd read reports of tompot blennies being caught in the vicinity so we were both hopeful that one of those or some other unusual mini species might beat the hordes of small wrasse to our ragworm chunks. Mid afternoon Martin hooked yet another small fish and as he reeled it in he was saying out loud "It's a tompot, it's a tompot." over and over. Amazingly when it came into view it was! Quickly swung up to hand, Martin was very pleased to get himself a new species and I was quite jealous having never caught one from Scottish waters. We carried on fishing and after a while my envious feelings were taken care of when I hooked a small fish that felt a little different and it turned out to be another tompot blenny.

My first Scottish tompot blenny. A "tampot blenny".

Like the stereotypical Scot, "Tam" had shaggy ginger hair.

Fishing on we both caught another tompot blenny each and a few more small wrasse before we both switched to fishing float tactics for the last hour or so. This produced one or two more small wrasse and we packed up at 18:00 and headed up the road. Ten species between the two of us wasn't a bad result and it was another thoroughly enjoyable and relaxing days fishing. The coast around Isle of Whithorn certainly deserves further exploration and I might have to return on smaller tides and have a go after dark for a three bearded rockling. Martin has also been reminded about my desire to target smoothhounds down the south west coast and hopefully we can arrange that so I'll probably be back down there soon targeting something new.

Tight lines, Scott.

South Coast and Channel Island Fishathon Part 1 : Dorset.

When my mate Ross, a species hunting addict like myself, told me that he had booked the charter boat "Bite Adventures" out of Penzance for three days I immediately reserved myself a place on it. Ross is currently living on the channel island of Alderney and would be flying over for the boat trips so I thought it would be good to go back over with him after our three days afloat for a few days on Alderney. With the makings of a  bit of a "fishathon" shaping up I decided to head down a couple of days before the boat trips making my little jolly eleven days long so I set myself a species hunting target of twenty five including five new ones.

On Sunday the 22nd of June I set off at 6:00 and headed to Weymouth. I was supposed to be picking up Ross and his boss Mark from Southampton Airport late on Monday afternoon but as it turned out Mark shipped his car over so I would just meet them and the other four lads who were going out on the boat along in Cornwall. Anyway, I arrived early in the afternoon and after parking the car walked through town to the promenade and checked into my hotel, passing the charter boat "Flamer IV" and a few large thick lipped mullet on the way.

I have fond memories of my time aboard Colin Penny's excellent charter boat last year.

Mullet are great fighters. If you can hook one!

Not wasting any time I got my ultra light gear out of my suitcase and headed straight down to the pleasure pier. As it was Armed Forces Day the promenade and beach was very busy, with a brass band playing and a variety of old American military vehicles on display, their owners dressed in period costumes.

A packed seafront.

One of several old military vehicles on display.

Heading through the crowds I found a quiet spot and got my fishing off to a nice start by catching a small pollock on drop shotted Gulp! Angleworm.

My first fish of the trip.

After a few more pollock I decided to head to another spot and was pleased I had as this quickly produced a small black seabream and a corkwing wrasse. Some kids arrived however and started jumping from the pier into the water though so I moved again to another spot further away from them.

My first black seabream from the UK mainland.

My first corkwing wrasse of 2014.

Working my way to the end of the pier I was surprised to find no other anglers there and after ten minutes or so without a bite I spotted a few over on the Stone Pier. I headed back into town and crossed over Town Bridge before making my way along to it.

The Stone Pier had a few anglers on it. Usually a good sign.

On the outside of the pier there were a few weedy areas and boulders. A few casts into the gaps produced another corkwing wrasse and then I made my way along to the end of the pier. Dropping my Angleworm down the side I was surprised when it was taken by a rather big launce. I continued exploring down the wall and this produced a couple more small pollock and a corkwing wrasse.

I normally catch these using small metals or sabikis. Good old Gulp! Angleworm on a drop shot rig tempted this one.

A female corkwing. Note the abscess. More on that later.

I then decided to change methods and tried a small paddletail on a jighead. Casting this out and slowly retrieving it resulted in lots of missed bites so I switched to a small metal jig. The tail nipping culprits were soon hooked and turned out to be sand smelt. After catching half a dozen of them I switched back to the drop shot rig. A small shoal of juvenile black seabream arrived and I quickly caught a few before they moved off again. It went fairly quiet after that with the odd pollock taking my lure before local angler Andy Mytton, who I'd arranged to meet up with, arrived and we headed back into town to try for some gobies. Andy was using a simple split shot rig, something that I've not used for quite some time. I'm not sure why really but Andy gave my some shot, I set myself up a split shot rig too and off we went. Twitching Isome on his rig along the bottom slowly Andy soon caught a few black gobies and then I caught a rock goby. Keen to add a black goby to my tally we kept exploring and then I caught a leopard spotted goby.

A shade of pink with brown spots, the leopard spotted goby is a very pretty goby indeed.

I was having no luck tempting a black goby and a try at one last spot produced a few more gobies for Andy and two more leopard spotted gobies for me. By now it was getting dark however and it had been quite a long day so I thanked Andy for meeting up with me and headed back to my hotel. It was good to meet up with Andy and I was grateful that he had reminded me that sometimes keeping things simple is best especially for very small species like gobies.

On Monday morning I got up, had breakfast and checked out of the hotel. With the whole day free to fish I headed along the coast to Swanage Pier, one of my favourite places to wet a line. I've been there a few times now and it never fails to deliver tons of mini species.

Swanage Pier. I love it!

Armed with my ultra light gear, half a pound of ragworm and a scaled down two up one down rig tied with #10 wormer hooks I had a fantastic fun days' fishing. If you get your tackle right you can catch a lot of fish and in that respect I'd liken it to fishing at a freshwater commercial fishery. The usual suspects were all caught.

Colourful corkwing wrasse.

Cheeky tompot blennies.

Little ballan wrasse.

Weird common dragonets.

Ragworm munching rock gobies.

I also usually catch a few Baillon's wrasse but sadly none seemed to be present. They are a very pretty wrasse. Black faced blennies are another unusual species that have been spotted under the pier by divers but as with my previous visits to the pier none were caught. Not one to give up I hope to go back there with my mate Lee at some point later this year to try again to catch one of those. Quite satisfied nevertheless with catching over a hundred fish by the time the pier closed I made the drive along to our accommodation near Hayle in Cornwall and met the rest of the lads who were going out in the boat. I'd met Ed before when he came up to Scotland and caught a 208lb skate. I was introduced to Carl, Craig, Andy and Mark for the first time and I told them about the very enjoyable sessions that I'd had to start my trip with which had resulted in ten species being caught. We chatted about our hopes for the boat trips too and with the first day out on "Bite Adventures" the following day being a species hunting trip the prospect of racking up a few more species and possibly catching some new ones was a very exciting one that we were all looking forward too.

Tight lines, Scott.

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