Beauty and the beast.

Two weeks ago on my days off I organised a couple of trips with some of my fellow fishing addict friends. The first trip saw me heading to Bonawe Quarry with Col and Nick to target spurdogs. The first mark we fished was very hard going and tackle losses were high. We did manage a few fish but after a while we decided to move to another spot.

This dogfsh was as rough as the ground we were fishing. Not the shark I was after either.

At the second spot the ground was much more forgiving so as well as fishing our bait rods we also had a bit of light game fun which saw us catching a few small cod, poor cod, coalfish and pollock. One of my smaller pollock was a particularly nice looking little fish. 

A lovely little bar of copper.

We also caught dozens of grey gurnard, a species Col had never caught before so it was nice to see him catching a few. On the heavier gear a few cod were caught and I also managed a few more sharks but again the spurdogs failed to put in an appearance.

As well a second dogfish I also caught a couple of thornback rays. Their eyes are quite beautiful.

I love watching rays swim off, effortlessly using their wings as they slowly glide away out of sight.

Before we left we put the bait gear away and had half an hour or so fishing right up inside the quarry with our light game gear. This saw us catching more pollock, cod, poor cod and grey gurnards. Arriving back just before midnight I could have done with a lie in the following day but instead I headed out again with my lure maniac mate Dimitrios.

After picking him up at Waverley train station I drove us down to St Abbs Head so we could spend the day fishing for pollock and wrasse with lures. At the first mark things were fairly slow apart from a few small pollock and coalfish. There were quite a lot of boats out either taking divers out or collecting lobsters from the many pots that are dropped in the deep water around the rocks. After a while a pod of dolphins appeared, something that I've never seen before down there.

It was nice to see them but their arrival seemed to kill the action off for a while.

Waiting for things to hopefully pick up again I began losing a few rigs to snags which was starting to get a bit frustrating. Dimitrios then thought he was snagged too. He quickly managed to get his paddletail lure free and moving again although with a bit of extra weight attached. At first he wasn't entirely sure if he had a fish on or perhaps some kelp but a fish soon slowly appeared from the depths and what a beast it was! 

Easily the biggest short spined sea scorpion I've ever seen being caught.

Dimitrios was quite rightly over the moon with this capture. I found witnessing it quite surreal and pretty hilarious. The size of the mouth on the fish was utterly obscene. After we stopped laughing we decided to try a second mark. Accessing it was quite tricky but we took our time and were soon at the end of a long rock skeer. Fishing away we both soon caught a ballan wrasse each.

My first East Coast ballan of the year.

Things then went a bit quiet again so Dimitrios started exploring the area a little more and soon found some fish again, catching a succession of nice pollock that put a good bend in his rod.

His elevated position gave him an advantage in the ensuing fights.

Soon it was time to make the climb back up, head back to the car and drive back up the A1. I hadn't enjoyed as much action as Dimitrios had but then he's a much more accomplished lure angler than I am and is much more patient when it comes to fishing certain methods at times when the fishing isn't very productive which usually sees him rewarded eventually. It had been a nice day out and seeing the dolphins and witnessing Dimitrios catch the big short spined sea scorpion had made climbing up and down the cliffs well worth the effort.

Tight lines, scott.