Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

After last Tuesday's sucessful boat trip I was pretty tired but with conditions looking great the next day I decided to head back up to Scotstown Beach for another attempt at catching a turbot. My mate Ad joined me again, I met him in Aberdeen and off we went. Parking his car up near the Pirate's Graveyard I spotted a bookmark tucked into his driver's side sun visor just before we got out. It had a picture of the Irish writer Samuel Beckett on it and the quote I've used for this post's title. I thought it summed up the trip really and with conditions being a bit better down on the beach we found a few nice looking depressions in the sand to fish as the tide flooded over them and I had "failed better" in no time at all.

Definately a better fail than my last turbot session. Note my lucky fishing cap with Pirate's Graveyard symbols on it.

My 57th saltwater species from scottish venues this year.

Shortly afterwards Ad hooked a small turbot too but unfortunately it managed to thrash in the breaking surf a few metres in front of him, threw the hook and swam off. A few casts later he landed a nice flounder though after it made a little spirited run parallel to the beach.

Ad's first fish of the session was a nice plump flounder.

As the tide picked up so did the weed however which soon became a pain so we headed off to try and find a fifteen spined stickleback. We visited Boddam Harbour and then Port Erroll Harbour but with a slight swell running outside both the water inside was moving around too which I find seems to result in fewer fifteen spined sticklebacks being around. If they are present they seem to hide themselves away. I was by this point rather tired and Ad wanted to go and get his cod fishing gear ready for his evening session that night so we called it a day. After returning to Aberdeen I said goodbye to Ad but he suggested that on my way back to the capital Stonehaven Harbour might be worth a look, in particular its innermost area which would be full and probably well sheltered. I popped down and the weedy areas looked like a perfect habitat for my target but I didn't manage to locate any of them before jumping back in the car and heading home. I guess I'll just have to keep trying and perhaps eventually I'll fail a little better when it comes to catching fifteen spined sticklebacks too.

Tight lines, Scott.