Tiding me over.

Well the weather continues to be fairly rotten but despite this I've been out several times over the last week. With winds forecast to gust at over 40mph last Tuesday I headed down the coast to try and find a few sheltered spots. Firstly I headed over the back of Eyemouth Golf Course where I soon spotted a nice looking platform and after a while figured out how to safely get down to it. The water in front of it was incredibly deep and I started off fishing a paddletail on a cheburashka lead to try and tempt any resident pollock. This didn't produce any fish though so I then tried Gulp! Sandworm on a drop shot rig but this didn't draw any bites either. I was quite disappointed but I think later in the year the fishing at this spot will be productive so happy to have found a new spot to return to I decided to head up the coast to St Abbs.

Once there I sought shelter on the rocks at the back of the harbour, stuck with a drop shot rig and began casting it into gaps in the kelp. Eventually this produced a few sharp taps that made me think I had located a small wrasse but when I hooked the culprit it turned out instead to be a small long spined sea scorpion. Continuing to work my way around the rocks I had no further luck so decided to try inside the harbour before leaving. The tide was almost half way in by this point, normally a good time to catch flounders as they enter the harbour to hunt. Methodically working my way around and slowly covering as much of the bottom as I could I finally caught one.

This flounder seemed to have the whole harbour to himself.

Just after popping it back the wind picked up again making fishing virtually impossible so I decided to call it a day.

Last Wednesday there was a slight break in the weather and feeling frustrated by the previous day's fishing I opted to head to the River Forth to see if there were any dace around, to relax watching a float and practice casting using my centrepin reel. I certainly got plenty of casting practice as the river was a little higher than I expected, was flowing by quite quickly and as a result meant there didn't seem to be any dace around. I did run my float a little closer in though and holding it up I caught a little brown trout and a trio of rather plump minnows which brought a smile to my face.

Minnows are really pretty little fish. Pretty greedy as well.

In the afternoon I headed up to Orchill Coarse Fishery to try my luck there. Fishing maggots on the waggler things were quite slow and I only managed a few chub. Another frustrating day's fishing really and in future I must check the Forth's water level on the SEPA website before I visit it again to target dace.

On Sunday evening I met up with my mate Nick and we headed down to Torness Power Station outflow area to try for bass. Despite a promising start with a couple of them following my lure in on my first cast we had no luck tempting them. As is customary when visiting Scotland's premier blenny mark I dangled a piece of Angleworm into a few rockpools before we left and caught a couple of them, although they weren't as obliging as they normally are.

Even the resident blenny population seemed to not be in the mood.

Yesterday I headed back down the coast and went to St Abbs Head. It was a nice sunny day although still quite windy but the swell below wasn't too bad and I decided to climb down to a new mark. I know fine well that it's not the type of place to go exploring on your own but truth be told I find it quite exciting. Anyway, when I managed to get myself down to water I noticed it was absolutely teeming with millions of small jellyfish. The arrival of jellyfish is normally a good sign as it means the water temperatures are slowly creeping up and summer species should start appearing but I've never seen so many of them. It looked like a great mark but after a couple of hours with no action I decided to climb back up to the top of the cliffs and walk back to St Abbs Harbour to try my luck there. It too was full of jellyfish but unlike the rock mark I'd fished in the morning it also had a few fish in it and I caught several dozen coalfish, a couple of flounders and a little cod before heading back up the road. I also bumped into a mate who came down to fish for an hour after his work which was nice. 

I bought myself a packet of Marukyu Isome during the week. I used to fish with it a lot but whilst it's a superb ragworm imitation and its effectiveness isn't in question, it's not the most durable lure and is also quite expensive. Not a great combination.

This little cod took an Aquawave Straight on a drop shot rig. Another excellent worm shaped product, a packet of these lures cost about the same as a packet of Isome and are almost as effective but they are super durable making them much better value.

Well quite a nice end to a frustrating week really with the persistent strong wind becoming rather annoying if I'm brutally honest. It almost feels like it has been like this all year. The fishing is still tough at times and really by the middle of May I'd expected it to be better than it is. Never mind, in just over a week I'm off on holiday to Nessebar, it can't come soon enough and surely the weather there will be better? I hope so and when I get back from the Black Sea maybe the summer will have arrived here and some better fishing with it? Fingers crossed.

Tight lines, Scott.