Something squidy going on!

On day five of my trip I headed back to Cornwall. Following up on the information about pilchards given to me by the angler at Mevagissey Harbour I had booked myself a place on Anglo Dawn, a charter boat running out of Falmouth. To cut a long story short the fishing was pretty poor and no pilchards were caught but on the way back in we stopped to do some jigging for squid. This was the most productive part of the day, a few were caught and it was quite good fun.

I caught this fairly large one. Beginner's luck.

As a catch and release angler I don't normally eat my catch but I do love eating squid. Sadly because I was staying in a B&B taking it wasn't really an option so one of the other anglers on the trip took mine. It was slightly dissapointing that we didn't hit a shoal of pilchards as the skipper confirmed he'd been catching plenty of them recently but that's fishing for you. During the trip there was talk of red seabream, bluefin tuna and porbeagle being caught in the area so I think I might be returning to Falmouth in the future.

Tight lines, Scott.

Species hunting in Sutton Marina.

On day four of my trip I headed south to Plymouth to fish Sutton Marina. I'd arranged to fish with an angler named Rich, who is a regular poster on one of the fishing forums I frequent, for the first time and was looking forward to some company. After meeting up we started of fishing with lures and caught a few rock gobies, goldsinny wrasse and ballan wrasse. I then spotted what I was confident were some two spotted gobies and pointed them out to Rich before catching one just to confirm I was right.

Two spotted goby are fairly common and are easy to spot if you know what to look for. They're the only goby I know that swims around up off the bottom preferring instead to hang around close to the weed on harbour walls.

After a while we started heading around to the top end of the marina where it was a lot deeper. We changed to fishing split shot and Carolina rigs hard on the bottom in an attempt to catch some flounder but didn't have any luck. Instead this produced lots of rock gobies, a couple of sand gobies and a couple of small mackerel that hit our rigs as they fell to the bottom. Carrying on around to the eastern side of the marina we started fishing an area where the lower wall was made up of small rocks inside wire that we thought might hold some tompot blennies in the cracks. At this point in the session I decided to switch to fishing with small pieces of Dynabait ragworm. This saw my catch rate increase with wrasse making up the bulk of the fish and before too long my species tally for the day had entered double figures.

In between lots of corkwing and ballan wrasse I caught this almost purple pouting,...

...my first tompot blenny of the year...

...and a couple of rock cook wrasse.

It was a fun session but time had flown and sadly it was soon time to for Rich to head off. Before we said goodbye we headed back around the marina to Cap'n Jaspers snack shack for something to eat. Species hunting sure can make a man hungry.

The legendary "Jasperizer" double quarter pounder with bacon, cheese, loads of onions, a few pickles and some chilli sauce!

It was good to meet up with Rich and fish Sutton Marina again. It had been a relaxing session and I'd enjoyed my most productive day's species hunting there into the bargain which I was pleasantly surprised by given how late in the year it was. I guess being closed off most of the time means that a lot of the fish inside it are permanent residents and can be caught all year round, especially if you're prepared to fish lures and bait like I did. This venue is well worth a visit if you're in the area whether it be for a spot of species hunting, to fill an empty stomach with a large tasty burger or even both!

Tight lines, Scott.

Double dragonet.

On day three of my trip I headed to Mevagissey in Cornwall to try and escape the rampaging children that had taken over Ilfracombe. When I arrived just late in the morning it was a nice day and more importantly it was very quiet. Settling down to fish on the outside of the harbour's southern breakwater I was curious to see if the multitude of species that can be caught in the summer were still around. In short the answer was a resounding no! However, it was nice to enjoy some peace and quiet as I sat fishing a scaled down three hook flapper with #14 hooks baited up with small pieces of Dynabait ragworm on ultra light tackle waiting for bites. The fishing was incredibly slow and I was starting to think that in fishing terms the drive had been a complete waste of time when I finally had a bit of interest and caught something. It was a small dragonet that for some reason looked a little funny. Upon further inspection I got a pleasant surprise.

Looking at it casually it would have been easy just to assume it was a common dragonet but something about told me it was different. I think it was the slight red tinge to its head that made me take a closer look at the little chap.

Extending the first dorsal fin revealed a nice pattern and also that the fish was a male.

Extending the tall second dorsal fin revealed another set of striking markings and confirmed my suspicions. I had caught my first ever reticulated dragonet.

I was delighted and probably wouldn't have been bothered if I hadn't caught anything else but over the next few hours I caught a few common dragonets. Another angler then turned up and we had a chat about species hunting. I showed him the photographs of my reticulated dragonet so he could identify one should he catch one and he told me that he'd caught some pilchards whilst out on a charter boat a few days previously. He didn't stay long and didn't catch a reticulated dragonet but managed to catch a few common dragonets too. After he left I caught a second reticulated dragonet and then a few more common dragonets.

Here is one of the common dragonets. Note the completely different fin shape and colouration. They group of spines on the rear edge of the gill plate common dragonet is also slightly larger and stands out more prominently.

Towards the end of the session I tried fishing straight down the wall through gaps in the kelp along at the end of the pier. Using this tactic I had clingfish in mind but instead caught a few of goldsinny wrasse and a long spined sea scorpion. Before heading back to Ilfracombe I decided to get something to eat and ended up trying something new. I can now heartily recommend huss which was very tasty indeed served with some chunky chips. So my trip was going well, whilst the fishing certainly hadn't been frantic at the two venues I'd fished, it had been most productive in terms of catching new species and with three days left I was keen to try and catch some more.

Tight lines, Scott.

...three bearded by nature.

I headed down North Devon at the end of last month to spend six days fishing from Ilfracombe Pier. That was the plan anyway but upon arrival early in the afternoon I discovered that the town was really busy. I hadn't realised that it was the English schools' half term holidays. I spent a few hours dodging crabbing net wielding children trying to catch a clingfish down the side of the lower section of the pier but had no luck. I did catch a few fish the majority being juvenile pollock and sand smelt. After checking into my accommodation I headed back down to the pier to fish into darkness for three bearded rockling. The ground close in that I decided to fish was pretty rough so I fished a one hook paternoster rig with a rotten bottom to try and minimise tackle losses. A strip of mackerel was the bait of choice and I tossed a few small pieces down the side of the pier to help attract my target. Having spoken to a few local anglers before arriving and a few more on the pier earlier in the day who all told me there were plenty three bearded rockling around I was confident about catching one but I didn't expect to catch one after only half an hour.

Success! My first ever three bearded rockling.

As the lower deck of the pier where I was fishing was soon to be covered by the rising tide, having caught my target and feeling pretty tired having left Edinburgh at 04:00 to make the drive down, I headed back to my accommodation to get some well earned sleep. The next day I headed back down to the pier and waited on the tide to drop so I could get onto the lower section again to try for clingfish once more. Whilst I waited I fished straight down the walls of the upper platform and caught loads of blennies. The pier is home to a huge bronze sculpture by artist Damien Hirst so I took some time out to have a look at it.

"Verity". A rather large and equally strange piece of art.

As soon as the tide dropped far enough I started fishing on the lower section for clingfish but before too long the hordes of noisy kids had arrived and started throwing their crab nets in. Later in the day the navy also arrived and started training divers around the pier too forcing all the anglers who were there to move over to where I was, making it a little cramped. The fishing over the next few hours was pretty dire and eventually I decided to retreat to the B&B to rethink my plans for the next few days' fishing.

Tight lines, Scott.

Three bearded by name...

I drove down the A1 to Cove last night for a session targeting three bearded rockling. Quite often in the past fellow anglers have told me they've caught them on the east coast only for them to show me photos of shore rockling. Despite having never caught a three bearded rockling, to my mind the two species cannot really be mistaken for each other. Having seen a photo of an actual three bearded rockling that was caught from the mouth of Cove's harbour, I was hopeful that I might get lucky and catch one myself. Ledgering strips of mackerel things were very slow, and I spent six hours basically feeding the crabs and winding in to put a fresh piece of bait on every twenty minutes. I only caught one fish all night just after the tide began to ebb and whilst it was a rockling with three beards it was sadly not a three bearded rockling!

The fish I caught last night was a shore rockling. It is a pretty drab looking fish, not pink with brown spots like its three bearded cousin.

As well as having a lovely purple ring around the eyes, it also has three "beards" which I think is why some anglers who aren't really interested in rockling misidentify them.

For the avoidance of doubt, the fish above is a three bearded rockling. Pretty hard to confuse the two, given the three bearded rockling's much more colourful appearance.

I've been doing more research recently into potential hotspots for targeting three bearded rockling. They seem to be much more prolific on the west coast of the country, so that's where I'm going to try next. I'm off to the north coast of Devon next week to try my luck at Ilfracombe Pier for six days. As well as holding plenty of three bearded rockling, it seems that this venue is also known to produce clingfish, so I'll be fishing tiny baits straight down the side of the pier to try and get lucky during the day.

The Connemarra clingfish has banded eyes and orange markings on its cheeks.

The shore clingfish has two bright blue spots on the top of its head.

I'm really looking forward to this trip. It's always exciting fishing somewhere new. It's a long way to drive, and it's also been a while since I was down there, so depending on how I get on catching my three main new species targets I might try and visit some other more familiar venues while I'm down there.

Tight lines, Scott.