The species hunting bug.

I’ve been species hunting for over a decade, setting myself targets, both short and long term, and having lots of fun working towards trying to achieve them. It seems to be a branch of angling that is gaining popularity, whether that be individual anglers doing their own thing like me, or people taking part in species hunting competitions, either with friends or taking part in sponsored events where there are prizes to be won. 

My mate Ryan has caught the species hunting bug this year. For a bit of fun, he’s doing a saltwater species hunt with a few of his mates, and they're now exploring new ways to fish in places they've never fished before, targeting as many different species as they can. 

Earlier this month, after spending a day with him locally during which he added lesser weever, short spined sea scorpion and three spined stickleback to his tally, we drove across the country to Stranraer, to see if we could add a few more species to his tally. I wanted to see if I could catch a new species too while we were there. Inspired by another species hunting friend of mine Mike, I planned to spend some time fishing with tiny sabiki to target juvenile herring, hoping that, like he did last year, I’d perhaps get lucky and catch my first ever sprat in amongst them. To begin with though, we targeted sand goby straight down the harbour wall using small hooks baited with tiny pieces of ragworm. We quickly caught a few of them, another addition to Ryan's 2025 species hunting tally.

This is a sand goby. There are two other closely related species that can be found in the UK, out in deeper water usually. They are the Lozano’s goby and the Norway goby. I’ve been reading up on them recently, trying to get a handle on identification methods for both, but I'm very confident I’ve ever caught either of them. I really enjoy learning about new fish species and building up my knowledge.

After initially catching dozens of them from the cleaner areas on the bottom, we started moving around, dropping our rigs closer to some structure. This produced some small wrasse and two additional goby species, but Ryan had already caught all the species we caught earlier in the year.

Fishing close to rocky patches produced a few fairly large black goby,…

…and the odd rock goby too. 

At this point in the session, we got a slight surprise when we turned around to discover we had been joined by a third fisherman, who had decided to get rather close to us. A rather friendly juvenile European shag had landed nearby and had slowly made its way over to where we were fishing. I've been doing a spot of birdwatching this year, so I took a break from fishing to take a few pictures of the bird.

Even efficient predators appreciate a free meal!

Shifting my attention back to fishing, I then switched over to a slightly heavier setup and a set of sabiki. Casting them around in different directions and working them back towards me to try to locate any herring shoals, I didn't get that many bites initially, but eventually I did manage to catch a couple of juvenile herring. They're not a species I particularly enjoy catching if I'm honest, as they don't react well to being handled, their scales being very delicate and coming off very easily. I quickly did the necessary checks to confirm that they were indeed herring and put them back. Ryan hadn't caught a herring this year, so I let him use my sabiki rod for a while, but he didn't manage to catch one, so we decided to move to a second spot. 

We were unsure if the area we wanted to get to would be accessible, but after a quick drive and a short walk, we discovered the long man-made structure was and started fishing from it. Ryan dropped tiny pieces of ragworm down the side to begin with, whilst I focused on catching a sprat again. I managed to catch another couple of juvenile herring, and as Ryan wasn't having much luck down the side, he had a go at slowly jigging the sabiki again. After a bit of patience, he eventually got a couple of juvenile herring, his first of the year.

Then as we were chatting, Ryan spotted a strange fish and pointed it out to me. I realised almost straight away that it was a pipefish! It was quite small and was swimming around slowly in an upright position just underneath the surface of the water. Sadly, it didn't hang around for long before disappearing out of sight. That's the first time I've seen a pipefish in the UK. There are six species of them found here, and I'd love to catch any of them. Next month I plan to go hunting for them!

Before we left, we moved along to the end of the pier and tried our luck there. My sabiki didn't produce anything, so I switched back to fishing down the side again. In amongst lots of black goby, rock goby and goldsinny wrasse both of us pulled out a few small pouting.    

Yet another addition to both our species tallies for this year.

It had been quite an enjoyable day trip to Stranraer and worth the long drive to get there. We'd caught some interesting species, made a feathered friend and seen a pipefish! Next month Ryan and I are hoping to head down south to fish Dorset, Devon and Cornwall. If we go, I'm confident we can both catch some new additions to this year's tally, and I might hopefully catch a new species too!

A week or so later, I met up with another convert to species hunting, welsh angler Ben Price. For years Ben was a specimen angler, targeting large fish around the Pembrokeshire coast, where he lives. A few years ago, he decided to give species hunting a go, and it's safe to say he's now addicted! A reader of this blog, he was so inspired by some of my posts about the fishing around Scotland that last year he decided to visit and had a very successful trip. Some of the fish he caught up here helped him to win the Angling Trust's 24/25 Elite Species Hunt with an incredible total of seventy six species! 

Spending a week up in Scotland again, after spending several days on his own up in the highlands, where he added butterfish, coalfish, cod, flapper skate, sea trout, tadpole fish, and two spotted goby to his tally for the 25/26 competition, he headed down to Edinburgh. It was good to meet up with Ben again, and the two of us spent a couple of days fishing around Edinburgh and East Lothian, trying to catch reticulated dragonet, short spined sea scorpion, topknot, viviparous blenny and Yarrell's blenny.

One of the venues we fished was St Abbs Harbour. Ben was blown away with the place and we caught quite a few fish. Whilst fishing with tiny hooks trying to catch a reticulated dragonet, we caught quite a lot of small flatfish.  

St Abbs Harbour has a health population of tiny plaice in it.

In amongst all the juvenile plaice and flounder, I also caught this tiny dab.

After catching several long spined sea scorpion, Ben caught a short spined sea scorpion, which was one of his target species. He then spotted a small group of dragonet in close, and we both managed to catch quite a few of them. Carefully inspecting each one, they all sadly turned out to be common dragonet. Still, this was a first time capture for me on the east coast of Scotland. Whilst targeting them, I also caught a painted goby, also a first time capture for me on the east coast of Scotland.

My painted goby with its distinctive dorsal fin markings and pale saddles.

Casting out into the middle of the harbour again, we caught a few more tiny flatfish, and then I caught another dragonet. This one turned out to be the one Ben was after, a reticulated dragonet. Sadly, like a lot of fish in the area, it was riddled with black spot disease. Its eyes in particular were badly scarred because of this.

My second Scottish reticulated dragonet. Not the most photogenic example of the species.

I was hopeful that Ben would catch one too, but after a while we threw in the towel and turned our attention to the area where I caught a topknot earlier this year. We both knew that it was a long shot and predictably, even if there was one down there, the resident wrasse had other ideas, our ragworm didn't stay down there very long before being munched by one.

A nice male corkwing wrasse. One of several wrasse we caught.

Soon it was time to head back up the road to Edinburgh, Ben had one last late evening session targeting viviparous blenny before making the drive back down to Wales the following morning. Next week I'm heading down to Pembrokeshire to meet up with him again. He's going to hopefully help me catch my first grey triggerfish in the UK, something I'm really looking forward to!

On Saturday morning, I received a message from Ryan, telling me that his mate had caught a striped red mullet. A few hours later, I received a message from Ben, telling me that someone in Scotland had caught a juvenile lumpsucker. Inspired by these captures, on Monday, I headed down to where the striped red mullet had been caught. Having caught the species a few times in the past in both the Mediterranean and also from Swanage Pier in Dorset, I'd love to add one to my Scottish species tally. Collecting some live prawns on my way to the venue, I found a tiny fish in my net with the prawns after scooping them out of a rockpool.

The tiniest corkwing wrasse I've ever seen!

Armed with my bucket of live bait, I had a pretty slow session fishing two rods and only caught a few dab and whiting. Unsurprisingly, no striped red mullet were around or if they were, they weren't tempted by the prawns. I think perhaps they'll be more partial to a nice worm bait, which is what Ryan's mate caught his on, so I'll be baiting up with them during future attempts.

I might be a dab hand at this species hunting lark, but sometimes persistence and luck are what's required!

So, I'm well aware that catching a striped red mullet in Scotland is a real long shot, but as I know about two that have been caught this year fairly locally and also that two were caught last year as well, they're clearly around, so I'm going to keep trying to catch one throughout September. Anyway, I just can't help myself. It's obvious that I too still have the species hunting bug, and I don't think there's a cure!

Tight lines, Scott.

An American species hunter in Scotland.

At the start of May I received an email from a young American species hunter by the name of Brandon. One of the things I really like about writing the blog is that it occasionally brings myself and other like minded anglers together. In his email he explained he enjoyed my blog, would be visiting Scotland at the end of May and was keen to meet up, so we could do some fishing together. I told him that I would meet up with him when he was in Edinburgh, and I'd help him catch a few new species for his life list. After I finished work last Sunday I picked him up from his Airbnb, and we visited the Water of Leith, as Brandon was keen to catch his first bullhead. Waiting for it to get dark, we targeted minnows for an hour or so. They weren't particularly active however, although I did manage to catch one. It was an opportunity to try out a small "photo tank" that I recently bought to take to Singapore with me.

My new photo tank works quite well I think.

Once it got dark we headed to my favourite bullhead spot and began searching the shallows with our head torches. The bullheads were out in numbers, and as usual, couldn't resist a maggot on a small hook dropped right in front of their relatively large mouths. Before long we’d lost count of how many we'd caught. Whilst Brandon took lots of photos of bullheads I began scouring the bottom for bigger specimens. A monster bullhead soon appeared, out from underneath an overhanging section of the bank. A new personal best bullhead was soon in my photo tank!

Brandon photographs the latest addition to his life list.

My new PB bullhead. Possibly. I didn't weigh it.

Our mission accomplished, we headed back to the car. After dropping Brandon off, I headed home, satisfied with a successful guiding effort. I was working in the morning, but we arranged to meet up the following evening again.

Whilst I was working on Monday, Brandon was out fishing on Granton Breakwater. He wanted to catch some wrasse and I told him that this was a good spot to try. The wind had a made it a pretty tough session, but he caught his first ever ballan wrasse, so he was happy with that. I managed to get away from work thirty minutes early and headed down there to pick him up. Off we went to Dunbar Harbour for a session targeting, to begin with, flounder and plaice. We arrived a little too early but as the tide flooded and the depth of water over the sandy corner we were fishing in increased, we eventually spotted some flat fish chasing our ragworm sections as we slowly twitched them along the bottom. My first fish of the evening was a small plaice, which was my first of the year. Plaice make up a small percentage of the flatfish I've caught in Dunbar Harbour of the years. so it was a slice of luck to catch one straight away. It was followed fairly quickly by a small flounder.

A small plaice. Another species added to my 2023 tally.

A flounder soon followed.

Soon afterwards Brandon also got lucky and caught his first ever plaice. After the sun had set and light begun to fade I hooked a big flounder that unfortunately came off just as it was coming to the surface. A short time later, Brandon hooked a big one too. Perhaps it was the fish I'd lost. It was certainly too big to swing up, so I grabbed my 5.9m landing net from the car and netted it for him.

A tiny plaice. Size doesn't matter to species hunters. They all count.

Brandon uses a Tupperware tub full of water to photograph his fish. This is a great tool for identification purposes and shows most of the fishes features very well.

A big flounder. Size doesn't matter to species hunters. They all count.

Once it was dark we spent a couple of hours fishing into some mixed ground at the back of the harbour. We were hoping that shore rockling, five bearded rockling or viviparous blenny might take our worm baits, but it wasn't to be and at midnight we packed up and headed back up the A1. The following day I was off work and Brandon had to be back in Edinburgh by 19:00, so we decided to make an early start to a day of species hunting.

After getting about three and a half hours sleep, I jumped in the car and picked Brandon up at 06:00. We drove west to East India Harbour in Greenock where we had a small list of species that I thought Brandon and I could catch around there. A common dragonet was our first target. Rigging up running ledger rigs and baiting small hooks with a little section of ragworm, we cast out as far as we could and slowly wound in. On my second cast I felt a bite and stopped winding. Waiting a second or two before lifting, I felt the weight of a fish and reeled it in. When a stunning male common dragonet appeared on the surface I was absolutely delighted!

I’ve wanted to catch one of these for years! Absolutely stunning! Just look at those colours.

Brandon caught his first common dragonet shortly afterwards too, so our session had got off to the perfect start. After a few more common dragonet and some dab from further out we began fishing over the rocky, weedy ground closer in, but surprisingly this didn't produce anything, so Brandon suggested we try fishing inside the harbour instead.

Dab are another species you can catch at range from East India Harbour.

This suggestion proved to be a great one. In the past I've never had much joy fishing inside the harbour but as soon as we took a look we spotted lots of wrasse moving around over the rocky bottom, including some pretty big rock cook wrasse. One hook paternoster rigs were dropped down and quite a few wrasse were soon being caught. Mainly rock cook wrasse and corkwing wrasse, but we also had some goldsinny wrasse and a ballan wrasse too. The rock cook wrasse and goldsinny wrasse were firsts for Brandon. He'd caught corkwing wrasse in the Mediterranean before but one of his was the most turquise coloured example I've ever seen!

Another very colourful UK wrasse species, the rock cook is probably my favourite.

Brandon caught this bright turquoise corkwing wrasse.

The Tupperware tub put to good use again. Look at those colours!

We didn't catch as many goldsinny wrasse as I was expecting. They normally make up the bulk of catches over the rough ground close in.

As the sun got a little higher in the sky, things really slowed down. We watched as all the wrasse that had been cruising around headed down into the gaps in between the boulders to seek shade. A few shoals of sand smelt turned up at this point, and we caught a few of those, another new species for Brandon. Before we began fishing on the outside again, Brandon caught a rock goby, a black goby and a two spotted goby. The last two being new to him.

The Tupperware tub is great for capturing the detail of fish's fins like those of this sand smelt.

Switching back to fishing the outside of the harbour the bites dried up almost completely, and I only caught three fish in a couple of hours, a common dragonet, a goldsinny wrasse and a black goby.

I'd have preferred to catch a rock goby as I'd already caught a few black goby this year.

It was the early afternoon by this point, and as the fishing had slowed to a crawl, we decided to switch to freshwater targets and headed back east to Magiscroft Coarse Fishery. Brandon wanted to catch his first gudgeon and it's probably the best place to catch them that I know. On the way we hit heavy traffic as we approached the middle of Glasgow. Brandon took the opportunity to have a nap.

A tired species hunter.

Before long the traffic started moving again and we soon arrived at Magiscroft. It didn't take us too long to set up some puddle chucker floats and catch a few gudgeon from a shallow peg on the venue's main loch. All mine were pretty average in size, but Brandon managed to catch a couple that were pretty chunky!

An average gudgeon. Size doesn't matter to species hunters. They all count.

A large gudgeon. Size doesn't matter to species hunters. They all count.

Having caught what we came for, as well as a few roach and perch, we then jumped back in the car and headed to the River Forth so we could spend an hour or so trying to catch dace. I thought it might be tough as the water levels were very low due to the lack of rain recently and this proved to be the case. We trotted maggots down the faster flowing water but all we caught were lots of minnow and the odd salmon parr.

An Atlantic salmon parr in my photo tank. Another species towards this year's challenge.

Soon it was time to go, so we packed up and headed back to the capital where I dropped Brandon off at his Airbnb. It was great to meet him and I really enjoyed both our fishing and our conversations about fish, fishing and species hunting. I hope our paths cross again in the future, and we'll hopefully keep in touch in the meantime.  I enjoyed helping him add ten species to his life list whilst we were together and also gave him advice that helped him add two more in the shape of the ballan wrasse he caught from Granton Breakwater and I also gave him information that led to him catching his first bitterling a couple of days after he left Edinburgh on his way to Manchester. Furthermore, whilst playing at being a guide, I'd also added another two species to my 2023 species hunting challenge, catching my first plaice and Atlantic salmon of the year. The large male common dragonet was probably my own highlight of our time together and is a capture I won't forget.

Tight lines, Scott.

In before the lock?

I popped down the A1 a couple of times a fortnight ago with two of my workmates. The first trip to St Abbs Head with Callum was all about catching some ballan wrasse and Callum had his heart set on catching "A big one." having already caught a few smaller ballan wrasse on previous outings he'd had. After walking up to the cliffs from the village we started the session by trying a new mark that proved to be a little tricky to access due to the slightly damp underfoot conditions. Clambering about on damp rocks isn't a great idea down there and the new spot turned out to be fairly shallow and hellishly snaggy, so we headed back up to the path and I took Callum to another mark where I've caught a few decent ballan wrasse in the past. After making our way down a grassy slope and hopping down a few rocks, we found a fairly flat ledge, got comfortable and set up our gear. Fishing light tackle was the approach taken with plan A being dropping blow lug down the side at close range on one hook paternoster rigs. I had my bait in the water first and before Callum had even finished getting setting up I was asking him to net the first ballan wrasse of the day, a nice fish just over a couple of pounds.

As well as their colourful markings and eyes, I love their big juicy lips.

I've never really fished for ballan wrasse on the east coast so late in the year so catching one straight away was a most welcome and pleasant surprise, and made me reasonably confident that we'd catch more. About twenty minutes later Callum got an aggressive bite and hooked the culprit. A big fish quickly had his rod bent over, his drag clicker screaming and his heart pounding. After a few spirited runs towards the kelp the fish was beaten and when it came to the surface I was in position with the net to help Callum land a new personal best ballan wrasse. 

"A big one!" We didn't have scales with us but at 46.5 cm Callum's new PB ballan wrasse was probably just over 4lb.

A cracking fish with some beautiful markings. A fantastic capture on a light rod rated 3-18g as well!

Having accomplished my guiding objective for the day I left Callum to target wrasse and turned my attention to scratching around on the bottom using small hooks baited with chunks of raw prawn to see if I could pick up something unusual. All I managed were about a dozen small coalfish however before a pod of dolphins swam by and after that all action, unsurprisingly, ground to a halt. After a couple of hours with nothing further being caught we headed back to the car. On our way back up the road we decided to pop into Torness Power Station's outflow to target bass and mullet, species Callum had never caught before. The water was pretty coloured up however, and sadly we didn't have any joy ledgering lug worm for bass or free lining bread flake for mullet.

The following day I headed to Coldingham Bay, St Abbs Harbour and then Torness Power Station's outflow with another workmate, Ruaridh. To begin with we scratched around using light gear and small hooks baited with raw prawn but at the first two venues things were pretty slow. At Coldingham Bay we didn't catch anything at all but when we visited St Abbs Harbour we did eventually manage to catch a few fish in the shape of some coalfish, a small cod and also Ruaridh's first ever blenny.

Ruaridh patiently fishing away.

Ruaridh's first ever blenny! I remember catching mine and whilst I've caught hundreds since it still seems like it was yesterday.

After trying a few different areas around the various parts of the harbour we switched to working lures along the bottom in an attempt to catch some flounders but this didn't produce any bites. I then decided to scale down and catch some sand gobies using tanago hooks and after catching a few I also caught a couple of tiny plaice as well on the tiny baits I was slowly twitching along the harbour's sandy floor.

The distinctive orange markings of an adult were absent on this tiny juvenile plaice but the bony nodules running along the head were not.

To finish the day we visited Torness Power Station's outflow. The water clarity had improved a lot over the previous twenty-four hours, and we decided to focus our efforts on catching mullet on freelined bread flake. This method was new to Ruaridh along with the frustrations of using it to try to catch our target. Things were made more difficult by the fact that neither of us had a pair of polarized sunglasses with us but eventually I managed to catch two thick lipped mullet that took my bread and pulled my rod tip over as they felt my hook and swam off into the current.

Frustrating and full of fight. Mullet are great fun.

Sadly, despite his perseverance Ruaridh didn't manage to catch one before it started to get dark, so we called it a day. To his credit he took the constant baiting up only for the fish to steal his bread pretty well and is keen to go back again for another attempt at catching his first mullet so a return trip will be made. Last week the weather wasn’t great for that but the mullet are there all year round so hopefully we'll get back down there at some point. That being said I'm not sure what fishing I'll be doing in the weeks ahead. I’ll have to do any fishing "locally" until the end of October due to the recent travel restrictions introduced in Scotland’s central belt but I have a horrible feeling that before too long some stricter travel restrictions may be put in place that will really  limit my opportunities. I really, really hope I’m wrong.

Tight lines, Scott.

Missing the boat?

After Sunday's superb skate trip aboard "Reel Deal" with Willie and Gordon I headed out locally on Tuesday to try and add yet more, but much smaller species to this year's tally. I had two targets in mind and arranged to fish a few marks around East Lothian with my mate Mikey. First stop was Eyemouth Harbour where I was hoping to locate a fifteen spined stickleback. The water in the harbour was the clearest I've ever seen it but alas there was a distinct lack of fish. I had to resort to fishing in an isolated pool of water trapped amongst some boulders to open my account. The fish had spines but it wasn't a stickleback. 

This little brute charged out of a crack to wolf my piece of Angleworm.

Next on our little tour of East Lothian was Dunbar Harbour, again I did a spot of stickleback hunting whilst Mikey focused on flatfish. The tide was about half way in and whilst the bladderwrack on the walls was partially covered I couldn't see any of my target species to lower my rig in front of. There were dozens of two spotted gobies though so I amused myself trying to catch them using a micro fishing float rig. They were being quite fussy though and my tiny pieces of mackerel and squid had to be twitched by lifting the float ever so slightly to get them biting. 

Not quite small enough but the closest fish yet to fitting on my one yen coin.

After I caught a couple I joined Mikey pestering the flatfish and we caught a few small flounder and plaice. By early evening I still hadn't spotted any sticklebacks moving around in the weed and the flatfish were being less aggressive with their bites. With the sun getting fairly low in the sky it was time to head to our final mark, Ravenshuegh Beach. My target there was the lesser weever and the conditions once we walked down to it looked great, the sea being flat calm with small waves gently rolling in. I went with half a set of herring hooks, four small hooks with small blobs of fluorescent paint at the top of their shanks and baited two of them with tiny strips of mackerel and the other two with slithers of squid. Mikey meanwhile decided to fish Angleworm on a split shot rig. Twitching our rigs back towards us bites were few and far between to begin with as we wandered along the beach but once it got dark we finally got a few. When I  connected with one it was a small fish and reeling it in I had high hopes but it wasn't my target species and instead I beached a palm sized flat fish. Shining my head torch on it I did get a little surprise though when I discovered it was a plaice, quite an unusual capture for the area. 

The first plaice I've caught from East Lothian outwith the little corner that produces them in Dunbar Harbour.

After a while the few bites we were getting petered out again so we ended the session. I haven't seen a fifteen spined stickleback for a few weeks now and I'm wondering if I perhaps have missed the opportunity to catch one? I've also had about half a dozen attempts at catching a lesser weever on marks I know hold them. I don't think they are present in great numbers but I'm also not sure if they are resident all year round or only move inshore when the water temperature rises in the summer? I have a pair of waders on order that I plan to use in my efforts to catch both these species so I'll have a few more attempts but my thoughts are beginning to turn to switching my focus to conger eels and three bearded rocklings, two species that I can definitely expect to catch over the coming colder months. 

Tight lines, Scott.

Far's a' the fish?

On Sunday I headed North to spend the day fishing with my mate Ad who lives in the granite city. Turbot was our target so we headed to one of the beaches to the north of Peterhead that is well known for producing them. Ad had caught a few small turbot there recently so we knew  they were around and were fairly optimistic. Arriving on the beach conditions looked fairly good despite a fairly strong wind blowing across the shoreline.

A lovely deserted beach.

It soon became obvious however that suspended weed would be a problem as we picked it from our rigs after each retrieval. Fishing mackerel baits I soon caught a few flounders and then after an hour or so Ad caught a tiny palm sized turbot.

The average size of the flounders was good and they were all in prime condition.

Ad's tiny little turbot was very cool. Their camouflage is stunning and I was hopeful I'd get one too.

As we fished away the wind picked up and the weed soon became too problematic with out rigs gathering it an unmanageable rate so we decided to head up north to try another beach there. Before leaving however we visited the old graveyard nearby.

This old graveyard near St Fergus is known as the Pirate's Graveyard.

Some of the gravestones are very old indeed and have various symbols carved on them. It's easy to see why you could come to the conclusion that the people buried there might have been pirates. 

Almost 300 years and no doubt the odd battering from the wind and rain have worn them away slightly but a skull and crossed bones feature on many of the old gravestones. The people buried in the graveyard weren't really pirates I was disappointed to discover and these symbols were incorporated into the stonework as a reminder to the living of their own mortality.

Back in the car we headed to the Moray coastline. After a pleasant drive we soon arrived at Cullen and hit the beach there, another place that produces turbot. With the wind now at our backs fishing was a much more pleasurable, almost weed free experience and we caught about a dozen flounders between us.

Another lovely sandy beach offering excellent flatfish opportunities although it's also popular with dog owners and people out enjoying a stroll. We headed along to the far end where there was a bit less footfall.

After a while no turbot had taken our baits though so we decided to go and target something else. To finish up our session we popped along the coast to Portknockie Harbour. While it was still light I spent a bit of time staring at the weed on the harbour walls trying to spot a fifteen spined stickleback. Ad fished on the harbour's sandy bottom and caught a plaice and a common dragonet. I couldn't spot any fifteen spined sticklebacks but did spot an amusing piece of Doric graffiti.

Where's all the fish? Finding them is usually the hard part. 

As light faded we fished switched our focus one final time and dropped some big baits down around the harbour mouth to try and tempt a conger eel. These were quickly attacked by crabs though which rapidly set to work destroying them. With a long drive back down the road to make we packed up just before 20:00 and set off. It was good to catch up with Ad again and fish a couple beaches together. With a few potential targets up there that would add to my Scottish saltwater species tally I'll be back up there again before the end of the year to fish with him again. 

Tight lines, Scott.