Dab will do nicely.

I continued my hunt for an elusive viviparous blenny at Granton Breakwater over the weekend with three very short sessions fitting them in before or after work. I popped down on Saturday for a few hours before work and started at the end of the breakwater again. I quickly caught twelve coalfish and a single ballan wrasse before the harbour pilot boat came in at high speed and the wake it created smashed into the breakwater churning up the bottom clouding up the water in the process. No bites after this so I moved along the breakwater, quickly tied up a two down running ledger rig and began fishing close in just past the weed. I soon had a few very shy bites. Crabs and small coalfish I thought and I couldn't seem to connect with any of them. When I finally got a good bite though I quickly struck and hooked a fish. It was a small fish and fought rather oddly. Could it be the fish I was after? No, it was a small flatfish. At the time I was slightly disappointed to catch it, thought it was a flounder and took a photo before quickly putting it back.

Examining this photo whilst writing this post I realised however it was in fact a small dab, my first of 2013. A nice reward for my species hunting efforts at the breakwater I think.

I had a few more casts and whilst reeling in my final one before leaving, a mackerel grabbed my bait. It was quickly landed and dispatched as my stash of raw prawns was beginning to run low and perhaps the viviparous blennies would prefer a portion of Omega 3 on my next visit.

The following day after work I headed back down again. Using the same approach as the day before but with the tide ebbing from high I got very few bites. I bumped into my mate Naz as he was leaving having caught a few mackerel at the end of the breakwater. One small flounder was hooked, landed and quickly released although in hindsight it may have been another dab. I fished for about three hours until last light. Just before I left the sky opened and I got thoroughly soaked.

Granton Breakwater. Slippery when wet!

On Monday before work I popped down for two hours. Despite it being rather sunny when I arrived it soon started raining rather heavily and I got soaked again but fished on through the downpour. Fishing at the end of the breakwater for the first hour I caught a few coalfish and a small pollock before I hooked something much bigger that felt like a ballan wrasse. It charged towards the wooden remains of the end of the pier. I put on some pressure to try and stop it getting into the snag but this bent out my fine wire hook. The second hour was spent trying to fish into the rocks and kelp at the bottom of the breakwater. Working my way along looking for gaps to fish into I found a blenny hiding in a gap in the breakwater itself that was full of water. With my fingers crossed I managed to tempt it to grab my bait and began lifting it up only to find out it was just a common blenny which was just as well as it was not hooked, was only holding onto the mackerel strip which it promptly spat out before doing an acrobatic dive back into the crack I had hoisted it from before I could grab it. Had it been my target I would have been most annoyed! I continued searching but my efforts only resulted in several lost rigs and leads. Session soon over I headed off thinking that I may have to rethink my strategy if I'm going to catch my quarry. Telling my girlfriend Lillian, who caught two viviparous blennies about two years ago, at the end of each session that I haven't caught one is pretty hard and she has even suggested that she should come down and show me how to do it so the pressure is well and truely mounting. I think I'll take a little break and target other species and come back to viviparous blennies later in the year.

Tight lines, Scott.