Mind the gap.

I've been out a couple of times this week to continue my ongoing search for a topknot. On Tuesday I headed down to Torness Power Station for a few hours at the inlet area. Once again, I opted to drop live prawns down into gaps in the rocks and kelp. I believe prawns make up a large part of the topknot’s diet along with small fish so should in theory give me the best chance to tempt one. It was a very small neap tide, and as a result, the session wasn’t the most action packed. I did catch a few fish and my mate Nick joined me for a few hours. It was good to catch up with him and we discussed our up coming fishing trip to Norway at the end of this month. 

My first fish of the session was this colourful corkwing wrasse. 

There were lots of juvenile cod around too that were happy to munch a prawn. 

From the gaps in the rocks and kelp I also pulled out a few long spined sea scorpion. 

After Nick left, the tide had come in a bit and I headed down to carefully clamber around on the large sea defence boulders. Again, dropping a prawn down into the deepest holes I could find, I patiently sat waiting for bites. 

Any second now.

Surprisingly, my efforts only produced one fish. The bite felt a little odd, and was followed by a slow steady pull down of my rod tip. Was it a topknot?

Nope! It was a very small ballan wrasse and the final fish of a pretty poor session. 

The following day I met up with my mate Ryan, who’s also going to Norway with Nick and I, and we headed west to fish for topknot at spots in Greenock and Gourock. We fished artificials at the first spot, but things were pretty slow so after a couple of hours we headed west to the second mark in Gourock. Once there, we climbed down the rocks and collected a few shellfish to use as bait. Fishing small pieces on small hooks down in deep gaps in the weed covered rocks had fairly predictable results. Lots of goldsinny wrasse! Probably Ryan’s least favourite species to catch. 

Goldsinny wrasse on a dog whelk. 

After a few dozen goldsinny wrasse, I caught a tompot blenny. My fourth in a week, but I always love catching them. 

Big, chunky and colourful with tons of character. The king of blennies in my opinion!

A lot more goldsinny wrasse later, I hooked a fish that felt very small and was delighted when a Connemarra clingfish appeared. Clingfish are such a weird group of fish. 

I’ve caught a few clingfish over the last few years, but every time I catch one I’m reminded just how bizarre they are. For a small fish they have a large mouth. They’re also incredibly slimy.

Their head is very large in proportion to their overall size and the structures on their underside produce amazingly strong suction on any surface, including your hands.  

Basically if they’re not on the move they’re stuck down. The candy striped eyes of the Connemarra clingfish are amazing and they have some colourful red and purple markings too.

Whilst not the species I was hoping for, I was nevertheless on a bit of a high after catching this fish. It’s a reasonably rarely caught species after all and a very cool one at that. Ryan meanwhile, was pretty much catching only goldsinny wrasse. Having seen me catch these other two species, he was keen to catch either a tompot blenny or a Connemarra clingfish himself, so I swapped spots with him. Sadly, he didn’t catch either, and to make matters worse I caught another two tompot blenny from the spot he had been fishing originally! Eventually, the tide began to rise up over the area we were fishing and would soon force us from the rocks we were standing on. Shortly before we left to get some cold drinks and head to a third spot, we both caught a small rock goby each. Thinking I’d already caught one this year, I didn’t take a photo of mine. Checking my records later, I realised it had been my first of 2024. I’m sure I’ll catch another one before the year is out.

Before heading home we stopped off at another spot in Greenock to try to catch a grey gurnard. Casting further out past the rocks and weed onto cleaner ground, we didn’t have any joy locating any of them, so we had a few drops down the side. A few dozen goldsinny wrasse, a few corkwing wrasse and a couple of long spined sea scorpion later, I caught a small rock cook wrasse.

So colourful and rather cute. Look at that minuscule mouth!

We were almost about to leave when Ryan pointed out a massive dense shoal of small herring congregated in a corner to the left of us. I had literally just remarked that it was probably mackerel corralling them in there, when the surface began to erupt violently in a feeding frenzy. I’m not too fussy about targeting mackerel if I’m honest, but on ultralight tackle they offer fantastic sport, so this was too good an opportunity to miss! We both quickly tied on small metal jigs and had some fun catching a few of the frantically feeding fish. 

Little rockets on ultralight tackle.

It was a unexpected and fun way to end a fairly long day’s fishing. It was also Ryan’s first experience of catching mackerel on ultralight tackle and I’m pretty sure it won’t be his last! Yet again no sign of a topknot, but I’m pretty determined to keep trying until I get lucky and catch one, no matter how long it takes!

Tight lines, Scott.

They're in!

It's that time of year again! When hardcore mackerel bashers dust last year's mackerel scales off of their tackle and head to the sea to pull out five at a time! What better way to spend a glorious summer evening than standing shoulder to shoulder with fellow mackerel bashers and repeatedly flinging feathers as far as you can?

The sun just about poking through the clouds. This is about as close to a glorious summer evening as we've had so far!

Having heard the rumours of their arrival, I decided to pop out for a couple of hours earlier this week, to see they were true, and hopefully catch my first mackerel of the year. Finding a relatively quiet spot, well away from the assembled masses, I opted to throw a 15g metal jig out into the Forth on a fairly light setup. It's much more fun catching them this way, and it didn't take too long to do just that!

They're in!

So, having ticked them off for the year, I don't think I'm going to bother catching any more mackerel. I'm not really a big fan of the mackerel season if I'm honest. I’d much rather be targeting other, more interesting species away from hordes of tinsel tossers! I'll only be targetting them if I need some to use as bait, and with a shark trip in the pipeline, that may mean that I may have to fling some flashy feathers about myself soon enough. Needs must!

Tight lines, Scott.

The goldsinny wrasse are in!

I spent a full day on Wednesday over on the west coast, fishing at a couple of spots, the first in Gourock and the second in Greenock. A few tompot blenny have been caught at both these marks over the last few months, so I went to see if I could get lucky and catch one myself. Fishing small sections of ragworm close in amongst the rocks and weed, I caught lots of fish on my trusty Rock Rover. Quite predictably though, it was very difficult to get through the local wrasse, the goldsinny in particular being present in very large numbers, although there were also some corkwing in amongst them.

I must have caught over fifty goldsinny wrasse throughout the session.

A few anglers along from me were catching reasonable amounts of mackerel on feathers, so I decided to catch some myself. I set up my second, longer, but still very light rod and clipped on a 15g metal jig in a “rainbow kandy” pattern. Whacking it out, jigging it up through the water column and fishing it on the drop did the trick nicely and my first mackerel of the year were soon caught and released, free to again run the gauntlet of multiple sets of feathers being ripped past them.

The three hooks on the jig were overkill for mackerel. I probably should have taken two off but unbelievably all the fish were cleanly hooked in the mouth and shaken off to minimise handling. After catching half a dozen, I returned my attention to fishing close in to target a tompot blenny again.

The biggest of the mackerel I caught. Great fun on a super light rod. The average Scottish east coast mackerel seems to be bigger than those on the west for some reason. 

Before deciding to drive through for the day, I'd been chatting with a local angler who'd caught a tompot blenny recently, and he pooped down to fish alongside me for an hour in the afternoon. Andrew, who loves light rock fishing, was using an even lighter setup than I was and as we chatted away he caught a few wrasse on Isome. Not long after play time was over and he’d went back to his work, I headed along to the second spot after a short break to have something to eat. The fishing there was pretty slow and to begin with all I caught were a few more goldsinny wrasse. After a while I moved to try a second spot at the same venue and this produced a couple of common dragonet and a dab. The first dragonet was a large male. It was very colourful but was also a bit of an old warrior with a few split fins. It had obviously lived a full life. The second dragonet was a smaller female.

My second large male dragonet this year. Coolest fish in UK waters? Definitely in the running.

The females are smaller and pretty drab by comparison.

After a few hours I ran out of ragworm just as it started to rain, so I called it a day. So, no joy tempting a “Tampot” blenny but I had still added a species to my 2023 tally with the humble mackerel. It was nice to meet and fish with Andrew if only briefly, and I think we’ll meet up again at some point. He wants to catch a butterfish and I have a spot we can try here in Edinburgh. In the meantime I think next week I'll visit Parkview Coarse Fishery again and will have yet another go at catching a Scottish barbel.

Tight lines, Scott.

Trying a new spot for a new two spot.

I think it's fair to say that over the last couple of months I've rediscovered my love for fishing. Obviously lockdown meant fishing wasn't even possible for a long time and this combined with being furloughed for a few months gave me a complete break from fishing altogether. I love my job in the Edinburgh Angling Centre but perhaps working in a tackle shop full time and fishing in my free time had eventually taken its toll and the enforced interruption has definitely been a positive thing. As they say never combine business with pleasure! Anyway, my recent gilthead hunting trips and late night scad sessions down at Torness Power Station as well as other sessions further afield have rekindled my passion and last Wednesday it was a nice day so Lillian and I went for a leisurely drive to the west coast. I got permission to try fishing at a new spot on the shore of Loch Creran, inspired by an underwater photo of a fish with two spots I've never caught before I found online that was taken there.

This is a two spotted clingfish, so named due to having, you've guessed it, two spots. These are located one on either side, to the rear of the fish's pectoral fins. A very small species, its maximum length of 6 cm will obviously make catching one tough but if you don't try...

Fishing into deep water from the end of a small pontoon using #14 hooks baited with tiny pieces of raw prawn, I quickly added a few species to my 2020 tally in the shape of dozens of pin whiting and a few small dabs.

I got comfortable for a couple of hour's fishing while Lillian read a book and took the odd photo of me.

These pin whiting made up the bulk of my catch from the deeper water out in front of the pontoon.

After a while I decided to switch from casting out as far as I could and tried dropping my rig straight down off the end of the pontoon. It's always worth remembering that a lot of the time there are usual fish right at your feet! As soon as my rig touched down on the bottom my rod tip started twitching away to rattling type bites, so I swapped to an even smaller hook to see if I could find out what the culprits were. This worked a treat and I now have a new favourite mark for targetting painted goby. Their size averaged about 4cm long and with mouths perhaps smaller than the two spotted clingfish I was hoping to catch this gave me confidence that my tactics were spot on and might work should I happen to get lucky and put my rig in the vicinity of my target species.

There were plenty of them down there and my little observation tank soon had a few in it.

After a while I decided to ignore my own advice on fishing at my feet and began firing my rig out into deeper water again, trying different distances and directions. A few more whiting, a solitary cod and a lone sand goby were all caught and released. The sand goby again a vindication that small fish at distance in deep water can be successfully caught. Before we left I tied on a small HTO shore jig fitted with a single hook at the rear and had a go for mackerel as I'd had one or two of them follow my lead in when I had been retrieving my bait rig earlier in the session. It didn't take long to catch a few and whilst most were released by shaking them off the hook a couple of slightly bigger ones were kept for my tea the following day. 

It's easy to forget how beautiful the humble mackerel is with its colourful markings and iridescent sheen. They're great sport on very light tackle as well and grilled with a generous splash of Frank's red hot original cayenne pepper sauce they're very tasty into the bargain.

So, yet again a my first ever clingfish had eluded capture but if nothing else I'm persistent, so I might return to the west coast sea lochs to try my luck again if the weather is suitable during the coming weeks. With summer well and truly over now my thoughts are also beginning to turn to my old Scottish pink,red and brown nemesis, the three bearded rockling, so a trip or two down to the Southwest of Scotland for an after dark session targetting those is on the cards too.

Tight lines, Scott.

Finally!

Over the last few years I've been down to the Mull of Galloway several times and have never had any luck whatsoever when targeting tope in either Luce Bay or the Irish Sea. On Sunday the 24th last month I went down there again with two of my mates to have another go. The forecast looked terrible right up until the day before the trip but luckily it changed in our favour. Heading out of East Tarbet the weather was still pretty poor for the time of year being cloudy and it also rained a few times too but there was hardly any wind and more importantly the fishing was great with several periods of intense action.

Nick was first to catch a tope. His first ever. 

Stewart was next to catch one. Also his first ever. 

Some of them were rather grumpy. Can't blame them I suppose.

A fantastic day's fishing was had and when the time came to head back to dry land we'd had over twenty tope between us and a few more had dropped baits too. I also had a few whiting, grey gurnard and dogfish during quiet spells on a second rod and lost a nice bull Huss at the side of the boat when it spat my bait as they often do. The early start and the seven hour round trip makes it a long day but it's always well worth it and it was great to finally catch some tope down there and bust the hoodoo. 

Tight lines, Scott.

The mackerel are in...

...well at least these fish pillows are in the Edinburgh Angling Centre! Truth is I've been too busy working at my new job there to find out if the mackerel are actually around yet or do any fishing recently.

I've been doing lots of hours since starting, getting the shop stocked up ready for opening day. Before that arrives though I have a two week holiday to Croatia to enjoy. As usual my light game gear will be going and I'm looking forward to fishing in the Adriatic Sea for the first time. Before flying out though I have one day off and I'll be heading down to the Mull of Galloway to spend it fishing for tope with two of my mates.

A kraken day afloat.

On Tuesday I headed down to Port Logan with two of my mates, Nick and Stewart, for a day out with skipper Spike aboard his boat Go West. I was hopeful that I could add some species to my Scottish saltwater species hunt tally with bull huss, herring, tub gurnard and red gurnard being the most likely captures that would see me do that. In the end I only managed to add one but we all caught a few fish, had a laugh and to top it all off the sun even managed to appear in the afternoon.

Once upon a time herring were plentiful around Scotland, sadly this is no longer the case due to overfishing. They can still be caught in the Irish Sea at certain times of the year and I was happy to catch two of them on a set of sabiki.

Nick caught a couple of tub gurnard after his first one spat the hook at the side of the boat. I had no luck catching one despite us spending a bit of time repeatedly drifting over the area where Nick caught his.

In the afternoon I caught a couple of nice colourful male cuckoo wrasse while scratching around on the bottom. They are one of my favourite UK fish. 

I also hooked and boated a couple of these amazing creatures. The first octopus was friendly enough, crawling around on my arm after I removed my hook from its tentacle, but the second one decided to bite me with it's rather sharp little beak whilst clinging onto my hand. Putting my arm in the water it let go, spurted its ink and swam off.

Later in the day we headed a bit further offshore to try for a ling over some rougher ground but instead we caught a few ballan wrasse and some dogfish before I caught this small haddock.

Before we knew it was time to wind up for the last time and head back to port. It had been an enjoyable day out and the herring had left me with only five saltwater species remaining to catch to reach my goal for the year. There are quite a few species I can catch out of Port Logan that I haven't caught yet this year so I will be back down there again as soon as I can. My mate Martin is trying to organise a day out for us with one of the guys from his angling club, also named Scott. I might also book another day out with one of the charter boats down there too with Stewart and some other guys from my work who are keen to go fishing. Hopefully the weather will be kind. 

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.

Each to their own.

Looking at my list of possible remaining saltwater target species last Monday night I decided to head west again last Tuesday. With last Wednesday off work as well however I opted to have an evening session at Greenock, fishing the Victoria Marina, followed by an overnight stay in Glasgow before heading up to Loch Fyne early on Wednesday morning. I knew my mate Dimitrios who lives in Glasgow was free on the Wednesday and is still without a car so I sent him a message to see if he wanted to ride shotgun which he did. My plans complete I put them into motion early in Tuesday afternoon. Really I choose Victoria Marina with shore rocking and common eels in mind as I have read reports online of them both being caught there recently. Common dragonets are also known to turn up there too from time to time. Given these facts I felt there was a good chance of adding a species to this year's tally.  There were a few other angler fishing when I arrived but one leaving as I got organised to start my own session told me that not many fish were being caught but looking along the marina I could see most anglers were fishing heavier gear and no doubt large baits for larger fish. Fishing a scaled down three hook flapper and various small baits on #10 hooks I quickly caught a couple of small cod at fairly close range and when I cast out a bit further I caught a few tiny haddock.

A pleasant little surprise and my first of the year. Even juveniles bear the "devil's thumbprint".

As the session carried on I caught a few more fish and when the tide turned and began to flood, submerging the weed covered rocks at the bottom of the marina wall, I caught a few goldsinny wrasse.

There are a few of these little chaps who feed in the weedy rocks at close range.

I fished away quite happily catching mainly juvenile haddock, dab and cod. As the evening progressed the other anglers, who still didn't seem to be catching much, slowly started to pack up and head off and before too long I had the place all to myself. 

A nice little early evening codling.

It was quite a nice night and as the sun set I changed end gear and was hopefully that maybe a shore rockling or common eel would become active and take my ledgered fish bait and my #6 hook with it.

Red sky at night. Lines will be tight?

As darkness fell however all activity ceased apart from the resident shore crabs which had my rod tip rhythmically nodding ever so slightly, a few of them holding on for dear life, munching away, as I reeled in to rebait periodically. At about 01:00 I called it a night and drove east to Glasgow where I stayed the night in a budget hostel. 

In the morning it was a lovely day. I picked up Dimitrios and after making the nice drive through some lovely scenery we were soon on the bladderwrack covered shore of Loch Fyne. I was hoping for a common dragonet again and fished small chunks of raw prawn on a three hook flapper using very light tackle. Dimitrios fished small metals and before I had finished setting up my gear he had caught a launce and a tiny whiting. The area I planned to fish was fairly weedy and quite shallow until it reached a drop off though so he soon headed south to fish some deeper water. 

Dimitrios heads off to do his own thing.

I was soon fishing and catching the usual suspects. A black goby was first to be caught and was followed by a few tiny cod, a mackerel and a string of dabs. 

Even at range holding my rod meant I could feel the fish attacking my little baits. 

I've been catching a lot of dab recently. 

I have a strange fixation with the big eyes of the dab. They are just plain weird and freak me out a bit if I'm honest.

Rather than swimming off this one just went straight to the bottom and with a quick shake buried itself. I held my cheap sunglasses close in front of my phone to take this photo without the surface glare. Who needs an expensive camera and a polarising lens filter? 

After a while Dimitrios came back along to get his ultra light rod. He had with him a few mackerel which he'd had fun catching but he wanted to up the ante and catch a few more on even lighter gear. After a while doing just that he returned again and decided to have a bit of a nap in the sun. I carried on fishing away and as the tide dropped away revealing more of the shoreline I was able to get my three hook flapper out further and further. After catching a few more black gobies I was getting a few bites that I couldn't connect with so I switched from #10 to #14 hooks. I was hoping the culprits were common dragonets but after missing a few more of the tiny little knocks I was beginning to wonder if it was crabs when I eventually hooked something and landing it added another species to this year's tally. 

Feeling the bite of this tiny sand goby at a fair distance in deep water is testament to the incredible sensitivity of the tackle I was using. Still very lucky to hook it on a #14 hook though.

Quite pleased I carried on fishing hopeful that the receding tide would allow me to reach an area that held my target. Dimitrios feeling refreshed from his afternoon snooze headed back along to enjoy some more sport with the mackerel. Most of them had moved off but he did have some fun when he hooked a sea trout. As they often do however it eventually managed to throw his hook. I didn't manage to locate any common dragonets in the end but I caught a few more dabs, cod, mackerel, a solitary juvenile haddock and a couple of short spined sea scorpions before it was time to pack up and head home. 

These are much more prevalent in sea lochs than their long spined cousins.

It had been an enjoyable little two day trip and with the addition of another two species taking my 2015 saltwater tally to thirty four it had been worth putting a few more miles on the car's clock again too. It was good to meet up with Dimitrios again even if we both spent most of the day doing our own thing. Nothing wrong with anglers enjoying different styles of fishing but as Dimitrios fishes exclusively with lures I think next time we meet up I'll join him fishing with them too, if not for the entire session then for the majority of it at least. Personally I think Dimitrios is one of the most talented light game anglers in the country and I think I could learn a lot from him, particularly when it comes to fishing metals. We're thinking about a trip to fish Loch Linnhe with ling and cuckoo wrasse being the main target species. I think between now and the end of the year I'll be spending a lot of my time fishing over on the western half of the country so no doubt Loch Linnhe won't be the only venue that Dimitrios and I visit.

Tight lines, Scott.