I'll take the high road.

At the end of last month, I set off on a road trip up to the highlands to try and see two species of butterfly for the first time. My first stop was the Allt Mhuic Butterfly Reserve, situated on the northern shore of Loch Arkaig in Lochaber. It’s a great place to see the chequered skipper, a rare butterfly that is only found within a thirty mile radius of Fort William. After a four hour drive, it didn’t take me too long to spot one, just a short walk up into the reserve from the car park. 

My first chequered skipper!

With the possibility of seeing a few other species of butterfly, I continued walking up the hill further into the reserve, but after a while all I had seen were a few more chequered skipper, so I headed back down to the car and began the second leg of my journey, heading much further north to Balnagown Woods in the County of Ross. Once I arrived, it didn’t take me long to walk from the car to a clearing in the trees and spot my target, the dingy skipper. Much to my delight, there were also large numbers of small blue fluttering around the vegetation.

I saw quite a few of these dingy skipper.

They small blue is the UK's smallest butterfly species.

I spent an hour or so wandering around the woods and all the open areas I explored had lots of butterflies flying around. Walking back to the car, the prospect of doing another four hours of driving to get home didn’t fill me with excitement, but seeing two new species of Scottish butterfly and my first small blues of the year had made the trip well worthwhile. 

The following day Lillian and I drove north again to spend the weekend at her parent’s house in Keith. A last minute unplanned trip, I didn’t expect to drive all the way back up to the highlands quite so soon! Whilst there we visited Cullen on the Saturday and Portknockie the following day. While Lillian and her mum went for a walk, I spent an hour at both of the town's harbours fishing. Not much was biting, and I only managed to catch four fish, but all of them were different species. 

This savage shanny didn’t take too kindly to being caught and clamped its jaws onto my finger. 

It really didn’t want to let go either!

When it finally did, it had left quite an impression!

After spending some more time working my way along the inside of Cullen harbour, fishing straight down the wall, I’d only tempted two fish to bite my piece of Angleworm. The second, a very small rockling, most likely a five bearded, fell off as I lifted it out of the water. Fancying a change, I walked around to the mouth of the harbour to try fishing there. 

When your chosen area is not very productive, sometimes it’s a good idea to move.

At the end of the harbour, there was a bit more structure around the base of the breakwater, some small kelp beds and more depth. It looked promising, but despite that, nothing was biting to begin with in close, so I had a few casts further out. This produced a few odd knocks and then I caught a small sandeel. 

Given it’s relatively smsll size, it could have been one of several species. 

Small teeth on the roof of the mouth meant it was one of the two Hyperoplus genus that are found in UK waters, the greater sandeel or the Corbin’s sandeel. 

With no obvious spot on its snout and a black chin, most species hunters would declare this as a Corbin’s sandeel, but I'm not convinced these features can be relied upon to distinguish between the two.

A Corbin's sandeel would be an addition to my Scottish species tally, but I'm not going to add it at this point. For the time being I'm recording this as a greater sandeel. I feel that further investigation is required because the research that I've done online and looking through the books I own fails to provide a more concrete way to tell the two apart. Corbin's sandeel is only supposed to be found on the west coast of the UK for example and it's also described as more commonly found offshore. 

The following day visiting Portknockie, we went for a short walk along the cliffs to see Bow Fiddle Rock. As we walked along the cliff top path, I was also on the lookout for butterflies, and we did see quite a few painted lady, but that was the only butterfly we spotted.

Bow fiddle rock is an impressive natural sea arch near Portknockie.

Heading down to the town’s harbour, I fished from the small concrete pier on the outside of the harbour’s outer wall, accessed through a small tunnel. Again, not a lot was biting, but a small ballan wrasse eventually grabbed my Angleworm and tried its best to get into the kelp. Just before I left, I caught a solitary long spined sea scorpion. 

Even relatively small ballan wrasse fight dirty. 

This cheeky little fellow was the last fish of the weekend.

The following day we drove back down to the capital again, and over the two back to back highland trips I'd probably done about twenty hours of driving! It wasn’t as bad as it sounds however. Large parts were actually very pleasant. I always forget just how stunning some of the scenery is in the highlands and I really should make more of an effort to head up there more frequently! 

Tight lines, Scott.

Nine out of ten.

I made the most of some nice weather last week, heading down to St Abbs Harbour for a session with fellow species hunter Luke. We set ourselves a target of ten species just after we started fishing and ended up catching nine.

Some juvenile pollock were the first species of the day. 

Working a small piece of ragworm over the bottom produced a few long spined sea scorpion. 

Dropping my rig close to the edge of a kelp bed by the harbour mouth produced my first ballan wrasse of the year. 

Heading around the harbour, I caught this flounder. 

Whilst trying to catch a corkwing from a gully this chunky blenny appeared and munched my bait. 

We spent a bit of time fishing over a clean sandy patch, sight fishing for this nice plaice which we both ended up catching!

Tying on tanago hooks, we both caught some painted goby from a shallow sandy patch.

Back at the mouth of the harbour, Luke caught a few corkwing wrasse before I finally caught this nice colourful male.

Not long before we called it a day, we both caught some codling.  

During the session, we spotted quite a lot of fifteen spined stickleback and tried to catch them, but only one briefly showed any interest in a tiny piece of ragworm. I also spent some time sight fishing for a solitary dragonet, but despite repeatedly twitching a bait past it, it just couldn’t be tempted. Two sea trout also swam into the harbour just before we left, so whilst we didn’t reach our little goal, it was achievable. Regardless, it had still been an enjoyable day down in the sun-kissed Scottish Borders. 

Tight lines, Scott.

Scottish butterfly species hunting side quest: Early season update.

As catching new species of fish in Scotland has now become very difficult, last year I decided to feed my addiction with a butterfly hunting side quest. I've been out and about on sunny days this year and I've managed to find sixteen species so far around Scotland, including my first green hairsteak and pearl-bordered fritillary. This takes my overall tally to twenty four. Last year I posted collage of a dozen of the ones I'd photographed, so here are the second twelve...

Top row: Grayling. Green Hairsteak. Holly Blue. Meadow Brown.
Middle row: Northern Brown Argus. Pearl-bordered Fritillary. Ringlet. Small Orange.
Bottom Row: Small Heath. Small Skipper. Small White. Wall Brown.

There are thirty five species in total in Scotland, plus a few others that have been spotted here over the last few years that do not breed here. I'm going to try to find as many of them as I can this year! Next week I'm heading to the highlands to hunt chequered skipper and dingy skipper. I might also do some fishing while I'm there!

Scott.

Approaching fifty.

The weather so far in May has been pretty poor, and as a result, a couple of planned trips to East Lothian to target wrasse have been cancelled. Earlier this week, I did manage to get out for a few hours between rain showers to fish on the Water of Leith with Luca and Luke again. 

We spent a few hours targeting various species using several different methods. I had caught forty eight species this year at the start of the session, and was hopeful that I’d hit fifty by the end of it. After catching some three spined stickleback, I caught my first minnow of the year and shortly afterwards, my first brown trout of 2026.

Mission accomplished. A reasonably big brown trout into the bargain too!

The weather is forecast to improve next week, with the temperature supposedly getting up into the twenties, so hopefully I’ll be hitting St Abbs for a day’s wrasse fishing in the sun with my mate Ryan.

Tight lines, Scott.

There’s a first time for everything.

I’ve not been out much recently, but last week I had a very enjoyable session with two local lads who have caught the species hunting bug, Luca and Luke. They were both keen to visit a couple of my favourite spots to target two freshwater micro species. Meeting up about an hour before sunset, we headed to the pond in Inverleith Park to kick things of by catching a load of three spined stickleback. There were enormous numbers of them present and fishing tiny pieces of maggot on tanago hooks we spent an while catching one after another. Between the three of us we must have caught over a hundred by the time we headed to my favourite bullhead spot on the Water of Leith. It was also the first time Luca and Luke had caught the species, so it was nice to witness that. Nothing beats the feeling of catching a new species!

The humble three spined stickleback. As far as I’m aware, it’s the only species of fish in Inverleith Pond and it’s thriving in there!

There were plenty of males in breeding colouration amongst the ravenous shoals. 

After a short walk, we were at the shallow rocky edge of the Water of Leith. Turning on our head torches, we began scanning the bottom for our target. Almost immediately, we spotted a few bullhead sitting motionless in gaps between the rocks and dangling a piece of maggot in front of them, we all quickly caught a few. Again, they were Luca and Luke’s first ever. After catching a few small specimens, I spotted a much larger individual and focused my attention on catching that. It was quite stubborn initially, refusing to move at first, but eventually it got fed up of the maggot being twitched around in front of it and ate it. 

At just shy of 10cm, this bullhead was a bit of a beast!

After a while, it started raining and having caught what we were after, we called it a night. Catching these two species is very easy, but it still was nice to help Luca and Luke catch their first three spined stickleback and bullhead. They’re both keen to catch a few more new species over the summer, so I dare say more opportunities to help them do so will come along over the coming months. 

Tight lines, Scott.