Most Wanted : Nessebar.

As I said in my last post the fishing at the moment is pretty tough going. I've had a few evening bait sessions to try and catch some shore rockling for my Scottish species hunt and I did loose what I'm sure was a decent cod down at North Berwick whilst trying but apart from that I have drawn a blank each time. Matters have been made worse by the unexpected cost of a replacement boiler as well as new tyres and breaks for my car so I am staying local until my finances recover a bit. Frozen canals and course fisheries have also added to my woes. If I said my trip to Madeira at the end of the month could not come soon enough it would be a massive understatement to say the least.

Not getting out as much as I'd like I've also been thinking about my next holiday as well. I'm off to Bulgaria for the first time in June for a relaxing holiday with my partner Lillian. I chose Nessebar to the south of the main Sunny Beach resort as I think it will be a bit quieter there, it looks very nice and the small peninsula where the old town is located looks quite fishy.

The old town of Nessebar looks like it has lots of species hunting potential.

The Black Sea has quite a poor reputation as an angling destination mainly due to overfishing by the commercial fishing fleets of the various nations that surround it leading to a collapse in fish stocks. As I'll mainly just be squeezing in early morning sessions and will happily target mini species I'm not overly fussed by this and I've picked out two species I'd like to catch. I believe both are quite abundant around the breakwaters and rocks so hopefully locating some to target should not be too difficult.

Ocellated Wrasse.

I like wrasse so it makes perfect sense to try and catch a new one while there. The ocellated wrasse is a cousin of our corkwing wrasse and is also a very nice looking little fish with very colourful and distinctive markings on its gill plates and a dark spot on its tail root.

Round Goby.

After doing a bit of research on the goby species found in the Black Sea recently to try and help a friend identify some gobies he'd caught there I've decided to include one. I may well encounter other goby species but the round goby is easy to identify due to the dark spot at the back edge of its first dorsal fin.

At the end of the day my trip to Nessebar is a week away to enjoy Lillian's company but as she's a very tolerant girlfriend I'll no doubt get to fish a few times during the day too. As always I like to set a little species hunting goal and I've decided to try for fifteen species including three new ones. Another trip to look forward to and it's always nice to visit a new place and hopefully do some fun fishing while I'm there plus when I return the fishing here should be a whole lot better!

Tight lines, Scott.