Golden warrior.

In June, I turned my attention to catching my first Scottish crucian. After doing a bit of research, I identified two venues that I was confident had some true crucian in them. The first being Loch Dunmore situated in Faskally Forest near Pitlochry and the second Greenhill Fishery near Dalbeattie in Dumfries & Galloway. The first venue is a member's only water, so I joined Dunmore Angling Club and drove up there to have a go. Loch Dunmore is a very picturesque water, it has many large reed and lily beds and lots of pond weed in it too, which I thought might be problematic in terms of locating a swim. When I arrived the first time, I had a walk all the way around the loch to check out the various angling platforms before deciding on one at the northern end of the water opposite the old boat house. It was fairly deep, had a large fishable gap in the aquatic flora and proved to be a good choice as it produced some nice fish. I fished three separate sessions from it over the next month or so, using a very sensitive float and a small piece of corn or single maggot on the hook.

The loch's old boathouse.

The biggest roach that I caught.

The loch has a large head of perch too. Maggot didn't even get to the bottom when a shoal moved into my swim.

The venue has been stocked with tench and I caught a lot of those too over the three sessions, mainly on small corn hook baits.

I then decided to pay Greenhill Fishery a visit, so I spoke to the owner before travelling down. He told me that the crucian had been stocked in 2013, and that it had been a few years since he'd heard of anyone catching one. He also told me that most anglers fishing the coarse pond were targeting the carp and tench on mostly method feeder tactics and would be unlikely to catch any crucian still in there. I decided to go and try my luck with tackle more suited to the shy biting fish. The day ticket Lily Pad Pool turned out to be a lovely little venue, only three-quarters of an acre in size and tucked away in a valley. After a quick walk round and listening to a bit more advice from the owner, I opted to fish a peg that had a nice bed of lily pads in the margin just to the left of it. A sensitive float rig was lowered in just out past them and I soon started catching some cracking tench on small pieces of corn that were great fun on my light float rod.

All the fish were in lovely condition.

Over the next month or so I made four trips down there and also did some feeder fishing as well for the resident carp, which I caught a few of over the sessions. The biggest one however was caught on my light float rod, which resulted in quite a lengthy battle. I had to take my time playing the fish, as applying any kind of pressure would no doubt have resulted in it breaking me off. Great sport though!

Patience was key in landing this lovely double figure common carp. It took a single maggot on a #18 hook tied to 2lb nylon!

About two hours into my fourth session, my Drennan No.1 glow tip antenna float slowly slipped under, I gently lifted into the bite and hooked the culprit. It didn't fight terribly hard and came to the surface reasonably quickly. When I got sight of what it was, I started screaming to my mate Ryan, who had joined me for the session, "Get the net! Get the net!". After a brief nervous moment, when the fish thrashed on the surface as it came towards the net, my first Scottish crucian was drawn over it.

Jackpot! A bit of an old warrior, missing a few scales, but still a beautiful fish nonetheless.

I was absolutely buzzing. It's incredibly satisfying when you set out to catch and then get a tricky target species. Especially one as elusive as a Scottish crucian! By this point, I'd already formulated a plan to get me to my goal of one hundred Scottish species. Having moved one closer, I was ready to shift my focus to a small bottom feeding fish that lives in rocky streams and only comes out to feed after dark, the stone loach.

Tight lines, Scott.