This week I 'ave been mostly huntin'...

...three bearded rockling an' Yarrell's blenny. No doubt some anglers will be horrified that anyone would deliberately try to catch a rockling and some anglers will be asking what the hell is a Yarrell's blenny!

The three bearded rockling can grow much larger than its cousin the shore rockling, that rather confusingly also has three "beards". Colouration is the key to telling them apart. The three bearded rockling is light beige/pink with dark brown almost leopard like spots whilst the shore rockling is either uniformly dark brown or dark brown with light mottling. Both are easily distinguished from their other two much less common cousins with more impressive beards.

Here's a shore rockling I caught earlier this year.

I'd be tickled pink if I caught a Yarrell's blenny!

A few short sessions at various spots along the coast have so far seen my efforts fail to produce either of these new species. I have instead caught the usual suspects. Coalfish mainly, a few mackerel, pollock, flounder, plaice, codling, common blennies and long spined sea scorpions all keeping me smiling as I try to avoid catching them!

Don't be embarrassed! It's not your fault.

Maybe I'll fluke a new species soon?

The Scottish harbour equivalent of a pouting. Apologies to Lee and Mal!

My two year long viviparous blenny saga proved, if nothing else, that I'm a persistent bugger as well as a reasonably patient species hunter and I'll be having further attempts at catching a three bearded rockling soon. No doubt I'll catch loads of other species in the process and have fun doing so but hopefully a three bearded rockling won't take two years to track down, Yarrell's blenny may be, if you'll excuse the pun, another kettle of fish all together.

Tight lines, Scott.

Most Wanted : Fries' Goby.

There are over twenty species of goby in UK waters. For an obsessed species hunter like myself that's a lot of potential targets to ignore because they are small. Besides, the challenges faced when trying to catch the smallest of species can be just as interesting and difficult to overcome as those faced when trying to catch huge ones and I enjoy doing both. I have managed to catch eight species of UK saltwater goby so far and would like to try and add a ninth. Looking at the ones I've never had I have picked out Fries' Goby. There are a few reasons for this choice. With a maximum size of only 10cm they are small but they are one of the bigger goby species too which may make catching them a little easier. They are found in a few Scottish lochs too which means I don't have to travel too far to try and catch them. Finally they are beautiful little fish. Overall a violet shade with yellow spots on their flanks and fins as well as one yellow and one electric blue stripe along the edge of some of their fins.

Quite distinctive but could perhaps be mistaken for a leopard spotted goby.

They seem to like a soft sedimentary seabed and divers often see them in burrows in the same areas as langoustines. Certainly not a fish many anglers, if any, have ever caught let alone set out to deliberately. I'm looking forward to having a go though!

Tight lines, Scott.

Three is a magic number.

Reviewing my list of potential target new species back in July I noted that I could catch a few from the waters around the Mull of Galloway so I booked the services of skipper Spike and his boat "Go West" for a trip in late August. I've been out with Spike before and I knew another day out with him would be a great way for me to enjoy a day boat fishing whilst getting the opportunity to target a few new species. When I made the booking the three species I thought I could realistically hope to catch for the first time were red gurnard, tub gurnard and tope. I caught a tope whilst over on Jersey since then so a bull huss was promoted into the top three of my new species hitlist for the day. Having gone ahead and booked the trip I had to try and get a few of my mates to come along! A text was sent out and my mates Nick and Naz replied saying they'd love to join me.

On Wednesday morning at 05:00 Nick picked Naz and I up and off the three of us went. Stopping in Stranraer on the way for breakfast I received a text from Spike to say we'd be fishing in Luce Bay due to the north westerly winds. Launching from Port Logan and fishing in the Irish Sea is probably better for species hunting but Spike reassured me we'd still be able to target a few different things and we soon arrived at Drummore where we'd be launching from. Spike was already there and after loading our gear onto the boat we were ready to launch.

A rather old and very rusty tractor is used to launch and retrieve the boats.

Soon fishing not far from shore, we made a few drifts to catch some mackerel to use as bait. A small box was soon full and we headed further out into the bay to target tope. Four baits were soon on the bottom and I was quite content to let Naz and Nick have any runs that happened on the two tope rods I had as neither of them had caught one before. I meanwhile fished a third rod with a two up rig to try and catch a few gurnards on mackerel baits. I opted to use #4 Sakuma Chinu hooks on the short 15cm snoods. I decided to try snelling these on to try and improve hook up rates. I soon caught a couple of dogfish and then Naz got a few knocks on his tope rod and caught his first bull huss. A good sign and when Nick caught one too I was confident that I would get one as well.

Naz's first bull huss.

A nice feisty bull huss for Nick too.

I then caught a double shot of grey gurnard, my first of the year. I handed them to Naz so I could get my camera and whilst I did that he put them both back. Just as well they weren't the red or tub variety! Luckily I caught a few more grey gurnard before it was my turn to catch a bull huss.

My third grey gurnard of 2013.

Busy catching gurnards, hoping that a red or tub would show up, I wasn't really paying attention to my other two rods and didn't spot one of them gently nodding away. As it was obviously not a tope Spike handed me the rod, the fish was already on and I wound it in. It didn't fight very much but I was still pleased to get my first new species of the trip.

I'm talkin' about sharkin'! Again.

We carried on fishing for tope, periodically changing our baits and increasing the amount of lead we had on as the tide started to pick up. I caught a few more grey gurnards and Nick had a second bull huss. After seven or eight more grey gurnard I caught a red gurnard, my second new species of the trip which I was very pleased about as they are the least common of the gurnard species in the area.

My second new species of the day, a red gurnard.

After about four hours with no tope runs we decided to head off to fish over a reef. The target there was pollock and we switched over to fishing soft plastics using light lure rods. There were plenty around and over the next couple of hours we caught and released about sixty between the three of us. Nick caught the biggest one and it really tested his light gear but he was able to bully it out of the kelp below the boat after some sustained pressure.

Naz's took this pollock on a Savage Gear Sandeel.

The biggest pollock boated.

The skipper then told us that despite fishing there for almost fifteen years he wasn't sure if the mark we were over held any wrasse so he dropped down my two up rig baited with small pieces of rag worm. Two ballan wrasse in quick succession soon cleared the matter up. Nick and I switched over to the same rig and caught a few wrasse too before we headed to our final mark where Spike told us we had a good chance of catching tub gurnards and also smoothhounds.

Once there Nick decided to ledger some crab to try and tempt a smoothhound and I focused on trying to catch a tub gurnard. Naz decided to lob out a small mackerel flapper to try and tempt any passing bass despite Spike warning him he'd more than likely catch dogfish on it. Having caught thirteen gurnards throughout the day on my two up rig, for some reason that looking back I can't quite explain, I decided to try a different approach and switched to mackerel strips fished on a two down running ledger setup. Spike meanwhile fished with one of my two up rigs baited with ragworm and when he caught the first tub gurnard of the day using it I quickly switched back and did the same! Time was running out though but when I got a decent bite I connected with the fish and it was the one I was hoping for.

My first tub gurnard was in lovely condition. A quite beautiful fish I'm sure you'd agree.

With only ten minutes to go I wanted to catch more of them but a shoal of mackerel arrived which made it hard for me, Naz as predicted by Spike had caught a couple of dogfish, Nick's crab hadn't attracted the smoothhounds and soon we wound our lines up for the last time to head back to port. Making a start to breaking down gear and tidying up the deck of the boat whilst Spike lifted the anchor he showed us some odd crustaceans that had been hanging on to it.

Woof woof. Who put the dog baits out?

How bizarre! Is it a juvenile spider crab perhaps?

"Go West" anchored just off shore waiting to be put back on her trailer.

Soon back on shore we packed our gear into Nick's car and thanked Spike before making the drive back up the road. It had been a long day and we were all quite tired although Naz, who had been up quite late the night before, was clearly more tired than Nick and I and slept most of the way home.

Naz does a good impression of a pollock whilst making sounds like a gurnard.

The three of us really enjoyed our day out in Lace bay. It was a great day's fishing in good company and whilst it was slightly disappointing not to get any tope runs all three of us caught some nice fish and I got three new species in one day. Snelling my hooks certainly seemed to improve my hook up ratios and used in combination with the Chinu hooks I can't recall any fish that weren't nicely hooked in the mouth either so that's another little positive from the trip and I'll carry on snelling my hooks from now on. Spike is a top skipper and the three of us are already talking about booking his services again next year although we may go earlier in the tope season when there are more around. 

Tight lines, Scott.

I caught ninety nine fishes and a viviparous blenny was one.

I thought I was going to get away from work yesterday but when a colleague went home early due to feeling ill that was knocked on the head. I had planned to head down to the borders last night to target three bearded rockling but finishing at 17:00 I decided to make the shorter journey to Dunbar and try in the harbour for a viviparous blenny instead. I knew that getting through the resident coalfish would be tough and it was made even tougher when I arrived and realised that I'd thrown my reel in the bag minus its handle! Oops. Despite this I rigged up a running ledger rig, snelled on a #6 Sabpolo Wormer hook, baited it with a chunk of raw prawn and still managed to catch a coalfish on my first drop and pretty much every drop after it. Spinning the bail arm round by hand to retrieve line was a royal pain in the backside and it was really slowing me down. In amongst twenty one coalfish I caught a common blenny and a long spined sea scorpion.

There are hundreds if not thousands of these ravenous little coalfish in Dunbar harbour.

Reassuring to know that other species could occasionally muscle through the coalfish to get to my bait.

At this point I was getting slightly annoyed with my disfunctional setup and if I wanted to speed up and get through the coalfish I had to get a reel with a handle so I sent a text to my mate Nick who lives in Dunbar close to the harbour to see if I could borrow one from him. He told me I could have his son's Shimano Nexave 1000 loaded with 8lb braid. Perfect I told him. What a life saver! I quickly went off to meet him and picked it up. When I got back down to my spot a boat had returned to the harbour and a large seal was being fed a few mackerel. I hoped its presence would get rid of some of the coalfish and make targeting the bottom feeders easier but it didn't have the desired effect.

Sammy the seal isn't shy and is a big lazy bugger too. He's clearly used to being hand fed and doesn't waste his time chasing down coalfish anymore it would seem!

I set up my gear again and was soon ledgering raw prawn on the bottom once more, if it got down that far that is! After coalfish number sixty nine I caught a second long spined sea scorpion followed by a tiny pollock. Then after three more coalfish I hooked a slightly larger fish that tried to tear off into the weed on the harbour wall. I managed to stop it getting stuck in there though and swung it up the harbour wall to discover it was a nice short spined sea scorpion. A very nice bonus reward for my efforts.

A bit bigger than the last two I caught and easily identified this time.

Thinking that I may not get my target blenny yet again despite catching over seventy fish I decided that I would leave once I had caught ninety nine fish as I thought it would make for an amusing post title. After a few more coalfish I felt a bite that definitely wasn't a coalfish and I let it develop for a few seconds before lifting into it. Like the short spined sea scorpion I knew I had hooked something slightly larger and more powerful than the coalfish I had been catching and when the long eel like fish appeared from the depths I got rather excited, carefully brought it to the surface and quickly swung it up the harbour wall into my hand.

At long last a viviparous blenny! My 50th saltwater species of the year.

A slippery customer indeed and quite hard to handle.

I did a little celebration jig, admired the fish for a bit before giving it a kiss and returning it. It was quite a buzz and moments like that are what I enjoy most about species hunting. Over the moon I sent a text to some of my angling mates to let them know my good news. I carried on fishing for another thirty minutes or so until I had caught a total of ninety three coalfish giving me my total of ninety nine fish so I could still have my Jay-Z-esque post title, even if I had to change it slightly, which I obviously was very happy about! I packed up with a huge smile on my face and Nick popped down to get his son's reel back, congratulated me and asked me what was next. Hmmmm. Good question!

Tight lines, Scott.

I wanna rock! (A few sand gobies and a fifteen spined stickleback too).

Since getting back from Jersey last week, where my mate Ross managed to catch a fifteen spined stickleback and I didn't, I've been having nightmares about them. I'm not even kidding! I can't stop thinking about them, so on Sunday I decided to go and try and catch one after being told that there were a couple of spots on the shore of Loch Etive where they can usually be found. Armed with my ultra light gear I set off at 5:00 so I could get through there for 8:00. Before heading to Loch Etive I wanted to pop down to Ganavan Sands near Oban over high water to catch a few sand gobies and then head along to the rocks to the north of Ganavan Bay to try and catch a rock cook wrasse.

The small pier at Ganavan Bay. Sand Goby lovers Mecca.

Catching sand gobies didn't take long. The clean sandy bottom next to the small pier there is covered with hundreds of them along with a few tiny plaice and the water is crystal clear so you can watch them attacking your bait. Sight fishing like this is a good way to learn about fish behaviour and twitching the bait seemed to attract more fish and incite more bites than fishing it in a static manner.

Small hooks are required to catch sand gobies. Today I fished a #18 Kamasan Animal hook baited with a piece of squid tentacle on a running ledger rig. 

This plaice is only a few centimetres long. You can't really tell that from the photo and it always amazes me how such tiny specimens are perfectly formed miniature versions of adult fish. 

Having caught a couple of each very quickly I briskly walked along the coastal path to the place where I caught my only rock cook last year hopeful that I'd quickly get one so I could spend more time hunting my new nemesis.

The rocks to the north of Ganavan Bay where I went hunting rock cook wrasse.

Fishing a single Sabpolo Wormer hook baited with a small piece of raw prawn on a simple paternoster rig with a single short snood I was soon getting the distinctive wrasse bites and as the tide started ebbing these bites became a bit more positive and I started catching a few ballan wrasse.

First of many and great fun on ultra light gear. 

Another nice ballan. Brown with turquoise spots...

...beautiful eyes and big juicy lips. 

Last year when I fished this spot I didn't catch any ballans and was able to see lots of goldsinny and a few rock cooks feeding on the rocks so I was slightly puzzled as to why all these ballans had moved in and the smaller wrasse species were nowhere to be seen. Next up was a pollock that grabbed my bait before it hit the bottom and tore off seaward before being tamed, turned around and landed.

This particularly grumpy looking pollock grabbed my bait as it fell through the water. It would seem it's not only lures they like to take "on the drop".

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As the sun appeared over the cliffs behind me and illuminated the water I was fishing into, I started getting smaller bites that I knew were smaller wrasse and got quite excited. One was soon hooked and with my fingers crossed on my reel seat I reeled it in, but I knew it wasn't a rock cook and if it was it was a huge one! At first glance my instincts were proven correct and I thought the darkly coloured fish was a small ballan but closer inspection revealed it to be a female corkwing instead.

A good example of a female corkwing. Weird how the overwhelming vast majority I catch are males. Maybe the females are on nest guarding duties most of the time or are less aggressive?

I carried on fishing and the tiny bites kept coming. I had to keep rebaiting as the culprits were stealing the tiny raw prawn chunks from my hook rather quickly. I was beginning to contemplate switching to a smaller hook when I hooked one of the little thieves responsible. Again with fingers crossed I reeled my catch up, this time it was certainly small enough to be my target species and as it came into view the brilliant blue colours told me I had got the wrasse I had come for.

Mission accomplished! My sixth wrasse species from UK waters in 2013. The bright blue markings and golden hues of the rock cook wrasse are stunning.

Vivid blues and violet facial stripes are rather nice too. Also known as the small mouthed wrasse for obvious reasons.

I carried on fishing and quickly caught a second, then switched bait to a piece of squid tentacle to keep my bait on the hook longer which worked quite well and saw me catch a third rock cook followed by a lovely ballan with my "last cast" before heading off to try and locate some fifteen spined sticklebacks. 

One final "last cast" produced this lovely ballan. This one had some lovely mint green spotted markings on it.

I headed back to the car and a short drive later I was at a rocky outcrop next to the Connel Bridge. The bridge crosses the narrowest point of Loch Etive and the currents flowing under it, known as the Falls of Lora, can be incredibly strong indeed although when I was there they weren't too violent. I planned on fishing an eddy forming as the tide ebbed.  Armed with a rig made up using one of my goby bashing #26 Kamansan hooks to 1lb nylon baited with a tiny sliver of mackerel fished underneath a 0.4g pole float I began searching the area looking for my very distinctive yet quite hard to spot target.

Connel Bridge. The tide racing out of Loch Etive into the open sea is quite a spectacular sight.

After a while it became apparent that either my fifteen spined stickleback spotting skills weren't up to scratch or there weren't any around so I decided to try fishing a 7g Daiwa Prisoner II metal for a while before heading to a second spot. Casting it across the powerful current and letting it swing around soon saw me catching small pollock and coalfish which was good fun.

My new ultra light metal is aptly named. 

After catching quite a few small pollock and coalfish on my new metal I decided to try the second spot where I've been told fifteen spined sticklebacks can be found and headed further up the Loch's southern shore to the Taynuilt Ferry Jetty. The water here was also crystal clear and whilst I couldn't see any fifteen spined sticklebacks I could see several small gobies and little flatfish moving around on the bottom between weeds and what was left of parts of the pier.

The rotting remnants of the end of Taynuilt Jetty. Home to lots of gobies, flatfish and well hidden fifteen spined sticklebacks.

Resigned to not locating any fifteen spined sticklebacks and with time running out I switched over to a running ledger rig and soon caught a few of the gobies. Two of them were black gobies, a third was a sand goby and a forth goby may have been a painted goby, which would have been an addition to my 2013 species tally, but it was very small and whilst I was inspecting it and getting my camera ready to take some photos it flipped out of my hand, landed back into the water and escaped! 

A Loch Etive black goby.

It was now getting fairly late in the afternoon and the fifteen spined stickleback had eluded me. I had to leave because I wanted to pop into the Glasgow Angling Centre on the way home to pick up a few bits of end tackle for a species hunting boat trip I'm doing on Wednesday this week. Not overly disappointed not to catch a new species as I had caught some lovely fish and rock cook wrasse are perhaps my favourite UK wrasse species. Besides, I have seen fifteen spined sticklebacks locally, just not on a regular basis at any one spot and maybe that's the case generally speaking and therefore going out to find them isn't such a good idea. Perhaps it'll just be a case of having my tiny hooks and pole float rig with me the next time I happen to spot one whilst fishing for other species so I don't think I'll travel 200 miles to try and catch one again! That being said, a return visit to Taynuilt Jetty may not be out of the question. There were lots of gobies there and one may turn up that I haven't caught before. I'll definitely take the goby inspection tank with me next time! 

Tight lines, Scott.