In sickness and in health.

Despite not feeling great, I took a short trip over to the Isle of Bute recently. Two of Lillian’s friends were getting married in a short ceremony at the island’s registry office in Rothesay, and had asked her to attend as one of the witnesses. It was to be a quick, informal ceremony, but as I didn’t really know them, it somehow didn’t really feel quite appropriate that I attend, so I went fishing in the afternoon and met up with them in the evening for a meal. I wanted a nice easy venue to fish, so after having a look on Google Maps, I decided to head to Port Bannatyne’s marina, to fish from the outside of its breakwater. 

My spot for the day. 

Starting off fishing close in, I quickly discovered there were quite a lot of poor cod just out from the base of the breakwater’s rocks. Dropping in tight on the rocks themselves produced a few goldsinny wrasse, followed by a ballan wrasse that tried its best to get down into the rocks. 

I’m not a big fan of poor cod if I’m honest. 

Goldsinny wrasse can be a bit of a pain too. Often present in large numbers, they’re very aggressive, making catching other species more difficult. 

Even small ballan wrasse are great fun on ultra light gear. 

After a while, I decided to try fishing further out and switched to a three hook flapper equipped with very small hooks, in the hope of catching some interesting mini species, or perhaps even something new! This change of tactics produced fewer fish, but the variety was good which kept things interesting as I didn’t know what I would catch next!

I caught my first common dragonet of the year,..

…a small dab,..

..a tiny haddock, again my first of the year,… 

…and quite a few juvenile grey gurnard.  

Before the end of the session, I had a few casts with a 10g metal jig. This produced a few mackerel at distance and several pollock closer in. It had turned out to be quite a productive mark and I’d quite enjoyed fishing there. By the time I left however, fatigue had started to set in, which isn’t normal given I’d not been fishing that long. As Ive mentioned in most of my recent posts, I’ve not been feeling right for quite a while now. A load of blood tests have been done recenty and the results have all come back normal. This is good news obviously and another appointment with the doctor has been scheduled, so hopefully we can try to get to the bottom of what exactly is the matter with me!

Tight lines, Scott. 

Testing the water.

I popped down to Galloway’s Pier at the back of North Berwick Harbour at the weekend whilst Lillian and I were in the area. During the week, I’d heard that quite a lot of lesser weever had been caught there recently. 

Galloway's Pier. This was once the base of an old wooden pier. It was in a poor condition until it was extended in a few years ago. Boats use it when the tide is out and they cannot get into the harbour due to lack of water.

It was a little bit windy, so I fished about a metre out from the concrete structure’s edge. Small pieces of dried ragworm were soon being attacked and in about fifteen minutes I hooked four of the target species. The first three fell off as I was lifting them from the water. I find lesser weever sometimes just have a hold of the bait and let go when they are wound in. Fish number four was well hooked however, and was carefully unhooked and popped into my new photo tank. 

Lesser weever are actually a very pretty little fish in my opinion.

Having established that there were plenty around, mainly for an upcoming visit with my mate Ryan who wants to catch his first, and managing to not get stung in the process, we headed off to enjoy a spot of lunch on the town’s high street. 

Tight lines, Scott.

So you're telling me there's a chance!

After hearing reports of a striped red mullet being caught on Granton Breakwater, I decided to get out and try my luck. The angler who caught the striped red mullet has fished on Granton Breakwater for many years and this was his first one. One other friend also caught one there many years ago, so clearly they are a potential catch, albeit an extremely rare one. So, I was under no illusions about my chances when I visited the venue last week. I had two sessions, neither producing a striped red mullet. Fishing small baits on the bottom, I did catch a lot of pin whiting, a few juvenile grey gurnard and a couple of mackerel. The breakwater was very busy and there were lots of people fishing of various ability levels. I witnessed a few leads being cracked off and flying away towards the horizon, and several cans of lager being cracked open too. When “the mackerel are in”, I’ve got to be honest and say it’s not my favourite place to fish!

My mate Ryan came down and joined me for a couple of hours during the first session and as we chatted away, he told me that a friend of his had caught a couple of dragonet in St Abbs Harbour. Quite unusual I thought. Having fished St Abbs Harbour quite a lot over the last decade, or perhaps even a little longer, I’ve never caught or heard of anyone else catching a dragonet there. I just assumed that they were common dragonet, but when I thought I better check and Ryan sent me photos of the fish in question a couple of days later, I was shocked to see that one of them was actually a reticulated dragonet! I jumped straight in the car and headed down there!

St Abbs Harbour has been very good to me over the years, most recently producing my first Scottish topknot. 

My first session was pretty productive in terms of the number of fish and species I caught, but no dragonet were in amongst them. The following morning I headed back down armed with some fresh ragworm. When I arrived, the tide was out and there wasn't much water in the harbour, so I decided to kill some time targeting three spined stickleback. It didn't take long to find a few fairly large specimens in a small rockpool. Tying on a tanago hook, baiting it up with a tiny piece of ragworm and twitching in front of them produced a couple pretty quickly.

First up was this large female.

It was followed by a very colourful male.

Heading back around to the harbour, I rigged up a running ledger and began casting it out onto the cleaner areas out in the middle of the outer harbour. I wouldn't really describe these areas of the harbour floor as sandy, it’s more like fine gravel with a few patches of rougher ground and weed. Slowly twitching the tiny bait back towards me along the bottom, the fish weren't biting as much as the previous day. Eventually I caught a long spined sea scorpion, a common blenny and a nice flounder.

St Abbs Harbour is a great venue to target flounder on ultra light tackle.

As the tide continued to fill the harbour, the fishing slowed down even further, and I went an hour or so without catching any more fish. Eventually, I cast out and just after my rig hit the bottom, my rod tip registered some interest. Leaving the bait for a few seconds to allow this to develop, I wound down and felt the weight of a small fish thrashing away. As it came to the surface, I recognised the shape almost immediately. It was my first ever dragonet from St Abbs Harbour.

A small dragonet, but which species? At first glance it looked like a common dragonet.

In my photo tank, the fish just sat on the bottom and didn’t want to flare its fins, so I had to lift it out to gently extend the second dorsal myself. 

The second dorsal fin had ten rays and a distinctive diagonal pattern to the markings on it. I'd caught my first Scottish reticulated dragonet!

I was over the moon, but couldn’t quite believe I’d caught one after spending such a short an amount of time trying. It felt a bit surreal if I’m honest. Quite a contrast to the umpteen sessions I’d put in to catch the topknot! I continued fishing for a bit longer, but it remained pretty slow, so after catching another two long spined sea scorpion and a second flounder, I called it a day, heading back up to Edinburgh happy enough! I really didn’t expect to catch another new Scottish species so soon after my first Scottish topknot. Chasing fish, particularly rarer species, when you hear about them being caught often leads to disappointment in my experience, but on this occasion, racing to the scene of an unusual capture had really paid off! The reticulated dragonet that Ryan’s friend had caught was a male, much more colourful than my fish, with much taller dorsal fins too, so there are at least two of them in there! I’ll leave them for other anglers to target for the time being, I’m going to get some sabiki out and try to catch a sprat next! Who knows how long that will take!

Tight ines, Scott.

Persevered.

I’d not seen my mate Ryan for quite a while, mainly due to poor weather conditions repeatedly ruining our plans, so at the beginning of July, when the latest heatwave began, we headed down to St Abbs Harbour to wet a line together. Still not feeling great, I had no expectations for the fishing, and really just wanted to catch up with my mate and enjoy the nice weather. Any fish caught would be a bonus really. Ryan was keen to catch a sand goby, so we fished tiny pieces of ragworm on the bottom over a sandy area I’d caught them from in the past. Sadly, this didn’t produce any, but we did catch a lot of small flounder instead. 

Small but perfectly formed. My first flounder of the year. 

Heading around to the mouth of the harbour, we caught a few small coalfish and pollock. Dropping a live prawn down close in amongst the kelp straight down the harbour wall, I caught a chunky corkwing wrasse. 

Wrasse don’t mess about when a live prawn appears in their vicinity!

Next up, we headed around to fish straight down the wall of the harbour’s large outer section. This produced several long spined sea scorpions, a few leopard spotted goby, a butterfish, a coalfish and several ballan wrasse. 

I had three chunky ballan wrasse in fairly quick succession. Live prawn presented close to the bottom doing the business again. 

To finish the session, we headed out onto the wall connecting the harbour to some of the rocks outside of it. I fished into an area I knew had produced a topknot in the past. After catching a couple of wrasse and a long spined sea scorpion on live prawn, I rigged up another, dropping my rig again, I felt a fish take my bait almost straight away. Lifting into it, it felt like my lead had got stuck, but I could also occasionally feel a small fish on my line too, occasionally shaking its head. After a while, trying to free my rig from the bottom, I was about to pull for a break when suddenly it came free. Winding up, it wasn’t fighting too much and felt a little odd. I couldn’t believe my eyes when the unmistakable shape of a small topknot came into view. I've seen a few people lose topknot lifting them out of the water, but without thinking, I quickly swung it up the wall and into my waiting net. Luckily it was well hooked! I’ve been after one of these rarely caught rock dwelling flatfish from a Scottish venue for quite some time, visiting three particular venues dozens of times over the last couple of years, so I was over the moon to finally get one!

I caught one over a decade ago on the Channel Island of Jersey, but this was my first ever Scottish topknot. 

What a cool fish! I love the way their markings make them look like a little masked bandit!

What a great way to end what had been a very enjoyable session. It was great to catch up with Ryan again as well. Since we started fishing together, he’s been by my side as I’ve caught quite a few species in Scotland for the first time.  Often wearing a very faded baseball cap, celebrating Hibernian’s 2016 Scottish Cup win. “Persevered” is embroidered on it, a reference to the 114 years since they last won the trophy, way back in 1902! I had certainly persevered too with my Scottish topknot hunt! I may not have been feeling great, but catching my one hundred and first Scottish species certainly gave me a much needed lift!

Tight lines, Scott.

Stuck in a rut.

Since returning from the Isle of Lewis at the end of May, I haven't been feeling very good. In fact, my symptoms have probably gotten worse: Constantly feeling fatigued, and having aching arms and legs isn’t much fun. As a result, I’ve been out fishing less than I normally would over the start of the summer months, usually choosing to stay fairly local when I have ventured out. A trip down to Torness Power Station midway through June didn’t produce that many fish, but a few leopard spotted goby and a butterfish were in amongst those I managed to catch, bringing a smile to my face. 

If pushed, I’d probably say that the leopard spotted goby is the coolest of all the UK goby species.

Butterfish are cool, and it's always fun to catch them!

Before heading back up the road, I quickly visited the sea defence boulders around at the station’s hot water outlet. My objective there, was to catch my first common blenny of the year. It didn't take long at all!

This shanny eagerly munched a small piece of prawn. 

Later in June, I also met up with a young American species hunter named Dominik, who was in Edinburgh for a few days before he and his family headed north on a Scottish road trip. We spent a few hours fishing beneath the lighthouse at Newhaven Harbour. It was a very productive session, during which, Dominik added a few new species to his lifelist, including butterfish, which we caught lots of. In amongst the more common species found there, all of which were new to Dominik, we also caught about a dozen grey gurnard, and towards the end of the session, I caught my first viviparous blenny of the year.

Dominik’s first ever butterfish. One of seven we caught between the two of us!

We also caught lots of juvenile grey gurnard.

My first viviparous blenny of the year. Another mini species I really enjoy catching!

So, I only went fishing a couple of times in June, but on both occasions, whilst the sessions may have been fairly short, they were very enjoyable! I might not have been feeling great, but getting out had cheered me a bit. I really enjoyed meeting up with Dominik and helping another species hunter successfully catch a few new species is always very satisfying.

Tight lines, Scott.