Packing for Norway.

Two weeks ago, when I really should have been packing my bags for a one week trip to Norway, I put doing that off until the last minute and crammed several fishing sessions in hunting for a topknot. With the summer coming to an end, I guess I figured I had better make the most of what was left of it. By the time I got back from Scandinavia it would be Autumn after all.

The weather wasn’t great when I visited Torness Power Station for my first session, but I tucked myself away down in the sea defence boulders and dropped live prawn down into the deepest holes I could find.

This nice deep hole didn’t produce a topknot,..

…only this solitary blenny.

After a few pretty fruitless hours, scrambling around the rocks and not catching much, I drove down to St Abbs to try my luck there. The fishing there was much more productive, and there were lots of ballan wrasse around that were more than happy to munch a live prawn. A few long spined sea scorpion found them tempting as well. I’m sure a topknot would eagerly eat one too. I suppose I just didn’t manage to put my bait near one.

The rocky areas surrounding the outside of St Abbs harbour held plenty of ballan wrasse.

They're home to a few long spined sea scorpions too.

A couple of days later, I headed back to St Abbs again, this time to fish Starney Bay from the rocks on its right hand side.

Only accessible at low tide, I hadn’t visited the rocks on the right of Starney Bay for a long time.

It was a beautiful day when I made my way down from the coastal path, scrambled over the rocks and finally got out onto the point, and I was soon catching a few fish. Dropping sections of ragworm and live prawns down close to the vertical rock surfaces produced a couple of ballan wrasse, which were followed by a succession of coalfish.

Coalfish give a great account of themselves on ultralight tackle.

I did intend to stay on the rocks for several hours, but a change in the weather forced me to alter my plans. Thankfully, I made it back across the gully that fills up as the tide rises just in time, otherwise I would have been stuck out on the point for a few hours in the rain. By the time I made it to St Abbs Harbour, the blue sky had been replaced by dark grey rain clouds passing overhead, and I did end up getting slightly wet a few times as rain sporadically fell. I focused my efforts on lowering live prawns down the vertical concrete surfaces, exploring as much of them as I could. I may have been slightly damp, but the fishing was pretty good, and I was also rewarded with some pretty spectacular rainbows.

Somewhere over the rainbow, topknot lie.

Live prawn has become one of my favourite baits this year. Fish love them, collecting them is easy, and best of all they are free!

One of several chunky ballan wrasse I caught.

I carried on fishing into darkness, working over the same areas I’d covered earlier in the session. Eventually, I ran out of prawns, so I switched to sections of ragworm. This produced a couple of long spined sea scorpion and a small lobster.

A bizarre creature, but sadly not the one I’ve been after for weeks!

Two days later, Lillian and I went for a walk around Butterdean Wood in East Lothian. Afterwards, we visited the inlet area at Torness Power Station where I was permitted to fish for a couple of hours to use up some ragworm I had left over from my previous session. This produced a few wrasse, and a couple of other species, but once again no funky flatfish, unfortunately.

Yet another ballan wrasse over 40cm on ultralight tackle,..

...a colourful corkwing wrasse,..

...a nicely coloured small codling,..

...and a couple of butterfish. I think those take me into double digits of butterfish caught this year!

Just as we were about to leave, another angler who was heading off offered me some cracking, freshly dug ragworm. At that point, I had no intention of fishing the following day as I still had to pack for Norway, but this generous offer was too good to turn down, so I gratefully accepted the free bait.

So, the day before I flew out to Norway, and with most of my packing still to do, I headed west to Gourock, to use my newly acquired supply of fantastic quality worms for one final pre holiday topknot session. At the first spot, rather unsurprisingly, all I caught was endless wrasse and a few tompot blenny and long spined sea scorpion.

If I never catch another goldsinny wrasse again...

Three tompot blenny made a nice change from the endless wrasse!

My mate Andrew popped down to fish with me on his lunch hour, and as we caught more of the same species I'd been pulling out all morning, we had a good chat about topknot. Just after he left to go back to work, I headed along to a try a second spot in Greenock that I know has produced several topknot this year. I only had a small amount of ragworm left, and the resident goldsinny and corkwing wrasse rapidly set about depleting that. Almost out of bait completely, a fairly gentle take resulted in all hell breaking loose when I lifted into it. A large fish started stripping line from my reel at a worrying rate. Luckily, the fish didn’t dive into the submerged rocks, instead charging off, swimming furiously away from me horizontally just above them. It made a few of these surging runs before I eventually got it up to the surface. Extending my net down, a large ballan wrasse was drawn into it and lifted up onto the venue's distinctive cobbled brick.

43cm of very chunky ballan wrasse. I didn't bother weighing it, but I'm confident it was my heaviest one of the year on ultralight gear. A real test of the tackle I was using!

I had a last few drops after catching the large ballan wrasse and caught a few more goldsinny wrasse, but it was soon time to head back to Edinburgh to do what I had been putting off all week, pack my suitcase full of fishing tackle! Sadly, a fishing session packed week in the lead up to my Norwegian adventure had not produced a topknot. I’m back from Norway now, and I’ll keep trying to catch a topknot in the coming weeks. The days will be gettting shorter soon, so I’ll be out after dark more often too I think. The wrasse should be less of an obstacle once the sun has vanished below the horizon and topknot are supposed to be more active at night as well.

Tight lines, Scott.

Dodgy dolos and a historic harbour.

I had another couple of short sessions at the weekend targeting topknot, visiting two new spots. A very strong westerly wind posed a problem, so I visited a couple of sheltered venues. On Saturday at Torness Power Station, I spend a few hours in the afternoon fishing down through the concrete dolos blocks, lowering live prawns down into the gaps between them into the water below. This produced a few small ballan wrasse to begin with, but then for some reason the bites dried up. Carefully moving about on the blocks was making me slightly nervous, one false move on those things and you could have a very nasty accident. No fish is worth that and the fact I had stopped catching any fish made my decision to climb back up out off of the huge tetrapods and call it a day a pretty easy one. I’m not sure I’d risk fishing on them again in a hurry. 

One of the small ballan wrasse I caught from down in the blocks.

On Sunday, I spent the afternoon down in the Scottish Borders with my girlfriend Lillian. We visited a few places, including the picturesque Cove Harbour, which lies tucked away at the bottom of huge sandstone cliffs. It’s been there for hundreds of years and to this day it’s still a working harbour. At the top of the cliff, next to the beginning of the path that takes you down to the harbour, there is a sculpture that offers a reminder of how dangerous the occupation of a commercial fisherman is. 

"Commemorating the widows and children left by the fishing disaster of 14th October 1881 when 189 fishermen were lost off this coast. Cove lost 11 out of 21 fishermen."

After making our way down the slowly sloping path to the harbour, I spend some time fishing Mini Isome down the inside of its walls, hoping a topknot that was stuck to the wall or sat in a crack would grab my little pink worm imitation as I twitched it around. 

I patiently worked my way along, hoping to catch a weird looking, rocky surface loving flatfish. 

My endeavours had fairly predictable results. So predictable in fact that Lillian successfully guessed which species would be first to take my brightly coloured, peach scented lure. A couple of long spined sea scorpion were first to scoff it, followed by three common blenny. 

Peach flavoured Mini Isome, one of your five a day!

After about an hour, I’d caught a few more small fish but my allotted fishing time was up and permission to extend it wasn’t granted. During the short window of opportunity, I also caught a couple of juvenile cod, but unsurprisingly, no topknot. I’m still confident that eventually my persistence will pay off and each time I visit an old harbour or some likely looking boulders I’ll keep trying. Sooner or later I may get lucky. 

Tight lines, Scott.

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.

Finding the right hole.

On Sunday, I visited a rocky shore mark in Gourock to spend a few hours targeting topknot. I was given detailed information by my friend and fellow species hunter Andrew on exactly where he caught one himself recently.

Here's one I didn't catch earlier. Such a cool little fish. I particularly love the banding that runs from their eyes. Makes them look like a little bandit!

Andrew, for the time being anyway, fishes mainly ultra light tackle and does so exclusively using lures. Although, he's told me in the future he wants to broaden his horizons into the smelly world of bait fishing, mainly so that he can catch a few different shark species. Years ago, I went through a similar phase, so I decided to spend the session fishing only with artificial baits. Knowing that topknot sit flush on rocky surfaces, I decided to use a 3g cheburashka weight to present these.

A Gulp! Hellgrammite rigged up, ready to get eaten...

...which it soon was by this tompot blenny.

This combination was getting hammered by what I suspect were goldsinny wrasse, but the hook I had on was a little too big for them to get into their mouths, so I decided to try a few unscented lures in an attempt to actually catch my target. Unsurprisingly, these got less attention, but eventually a long spined sea scorpion took a liking to a bright pink straight tail as I twitched it down inside a gap in the boulders.

Greedy little swine!

After a while, a seal arrived and hung around just out in front of me. Obviously expecting the opportunity to steal mackerel from a set of feathers, it sat up in the water staring at me for a short period. Eventually, it realised that my fishing activity didn't involve mackerel and swam off again.

Looking for an easy meal.

Getting back to my topknot hunting, I switched back to Gulp! again and after missing quite a lot of bites I caught a small corkwing wrasse that did a decent job of getting down into the rocks, but with a little gentle pressure and also by giving it some slack line I managed to coax it out.

Yummy! Hellgrammite.

The non-stop little taps kept coming though, tugging my hellgrammite around the bend of my hook, ruining the nice straight presentation, so eventually I gave in and rigged up a small hook on a stinger. Tying this onto my cheburashka weight and threading a Mini Isome up onto it so that the hook was placed near the bottom, soon had a few of the culprits caught.

Peck, peck, pecking away. Got you!

For the last couple of hours, I stuck with this presentation and caught dozens of goldsinny wrasse. If there was a topknot lurking down there, getting through the goldsinny wrasse was going to be a huge problem. I also caught a few long spined sea scorpion and another two tompot blenny as well though, so I guess it's a numbers game. A huge slice of good fortune will be required also, being lucky enough to drop your rig down into the right hole, at the right time, with a topknot in the rig's vicinity when it hits the bottom.

I'd forgotten how good Isome is for close quarter mini species fishing. I've got loads of it too, so will probably make an effort to use it more often going forward.

Another fun session had soon came to an end, even if a topknot had remained elusive. I enjoyed messing about with artificial for a change. Being honest, I'd almost always choose to fish with top quality bait as it will always give you the best chance to catch fish, but as a backup Gulp! and Isome are great to have available. The highlight of the day was catching a few tompot blenny, not a species I've caught that many of up here in Scotland, and now thanks to Andrew sharing his topknot holding spot with me, it seems that I have another place here to go catch them!

Tight lines, Scott.

Searching high and low.

Last Friday afternoon I resumed my search for a topknot, splitting a fairly long session over two venues. This first I visited was the gantry over the inlet area at Torness Power Station. Armed with some live prawns, I fished over a steeply sloping concrete surface, trying to drop my bait in underneath the weed line where I believe there’s a very slim possibility that my target could be located. It was a very windy day, which made bite detection difficult from my elevated position, with the strong gusts picking up my line and pulling my rod around a bit too. Things were pretty slow to begin with, but after a while the wind dropped off ever so slightly and this coincided with some wrasse beginning to bite. 

Even with its relatively small mouth, this goldsinny wrasse made short work of a prawn. 

After catching a few smaller fish, something much bigger grabbed my bait and did its best to get into the kelp. After a short battle, that tested my fish fighting abilities on ultralight tackle as well as my knot tying, a chunky ballan was brought to the surface and my 5.9m extending net handle was put to very good use. 

A bit of a lump! Would have struggled to land this without my net.

At over 40cm, this was the biggest ballan I’ve caught in a while.

I carried on fishing away until my bait was all used up, catching a few more ballan wrasse in the process. A couple of small coalfish and cod also took my prawn, but no funky flatfish sadly. After collecting a few more prawns, I drove south to St Abbs Harbour for the second half of my session, arriving just as the sun was beginning to get fairly low in the sky. 

St Abbs Harbour/Campervan Park as light just begins to fade. 

Waiting for it to get dark, I headed to the mouth and then worked my way around the inside of the largest section of the harbour. Just outside the entrance, I fished with prawns to begin with, but my supply was being depleted rapidly by large shoals of juvenile pollock and coalfish. To conserve my bait for my target species, I switched over to a soft plastic. 

My bait for the evening. Too good to quickly waste on juvenile pollock and coalfish.

Quite a few of the greedy little fish aggressively attacked my HTO Knight Worm. 

Moving around to fish down the walls inside the largest section of the harbour, I switched back to prawns again. Dropping my rig down and keeping it in close to the vertical surfaces, hoping that it would land near a bug-eyed flatfish, they instead were swallowed whole by a few long spined sea scorpion.

You've got something stuck in your teeth mate.

Once it got dark, I put my headtorch on and began searching down the walls and in the exposed rockpolls outside the harbour. Scanning slowly, hoping to suddenly spot the reflection of a topknot's beady eyes, the strong light from my narrow beam was not returned, so I began speculatively dropping a live prawn into likely looking holding places. After a while, I climbed down onto some rocks and started shining my light around. I spotted some small fish, but wasn't too sure what they were. Luckily I had my tango rod in my backpack and put it to good use catching some of them. They turned out to be fairly large three spined stickleback.

Three spined stickleback are anadromous, meaning they can live in saltwater, returning to freshwater to spawn. 

I then spotted a fifteen spined stickleback, a much trickier target, but I love a little micro species challenge so decided to turn my attention to catching it. Lowering my tanago hook baited with a miniscule piece of raw prawn down, I was expecting a frustrating time trying to catch it. In my experience, they are usually quite fussy eaters and take a bit of patience to get them to bite, but much to my delight on this occasion it quickly ate my offering.

God, I love tango hooks! They make the impossible, possible! This is only my third ever fifteen spined stickleback!

Quite pleased with my unexpected stickleback species interlude, I turned my attention back to hunting for a topknot. Exploring different areas over the next couple of hours, things were very slow, and eventually I'd gone a couple of hours without catching anything at all. When I started taking photographers of the large sea slaters that were crawling about all around the top of the harbour wall where I had ended up, I knew it was probably time to call it a night! 

Creatures of the night. I might be joining them again soon.

So my search for a topknot continues. For the foreseeable future, I think they'll remain my main target species to take my lifetime Scottish tally to Ninety-eight. I think some of the rocky venues around Greenock and Gourock may hold more topknots, so I think I may charge my headtorch up and head through there for after dark sessions once the days get a little shorter. I'll also be trying through there during the daytime as well in the meantime!

Tight lines, Scott.