My nemesis.

After returning from The Azores, and with renewed enthusiasm towards attempting to reach the target of catching one hundred Scottish species following my Connemara clingfish capture just before I went, I headed to the west coast to try yet again to catch my first ever Scottish three bearded rockling. This species has been my Scottish species nemesis of sorts for quite some time. I've tried to catch one numerous times and failed on each and every occasion.

Here's one I caught earlier. South of the border, in Ilfracombe, Devon.

My mate Ryan joined me as he wanted to try and catch his first ever conger eel, a species often found in the same rough ground as my pink and brown arch enemy. Due to the distance involved, we decided to make a full day of it. We set off reasonably early, arriving at Kelly’s Pier on the shore of Loch Etive late in the morning. We had a few hours fishing there using ultra light tackle, and it was all quite fun. Using small hooks we both caught a few small fish around the base of the pier in the shape of painted gobies, two spotted gobies, long spined sea scorpions, three spined sticklebacks, some small sea trout. After a bit of patience, and scavenging some fresh bait, I also caught a fifteen spined stickleback.

One of several three spined sticklebacks that were caught. Tanago hooks once again proving to be a great weapon in my micro species hunting arsenal. 

A small straight lure twitched slowly and gently fooled this sea trout. There were a few around, probably predating the three spined sticklebacks.

I find fifteen spined sticklebacks are quite difficult to catch, even when sight fishing for them. This is only my second ever. They are quite fussy eaters, I think. This one wasn't interested in tiny pieces of raw prawn lowered in front of it. It took a tiny piece of a ragworm that I found under a rock near the pier.

In the evening, after stopping in Oban to check into the hostel we were staying in that night and grabbing some food, we headed south to our mark for the evening on the island of Seil. After making our way around a rocky outcrop to get to our spot, we got comfortable and set up our rods. Simple running ledger tactics were employed but as Ryan was after a conger eel, his terminal tackle and mackerel bait were considerably heavier and bigger than mine! We waited patiently for darkness to fall and for our rod tips to register some interest in our fish baits.

The sun set over Mull in spectacular fashion. Red sky at night, anglers delight?

Unfortunately, the fishing was very poor. Nothing was tempted by Ryan's mackerel flapper and all I caught was a single pollock and a small spurdog. In the early hours of the morning, after a couple of hours with no further bites, we admitted defeat and scrambled back around the bottom of the cliffs to the car park before making the drive back up to Oban to get some sleep.

The next day we headed north and fished at a couple of marks that are normally very productive, particularly for catching a variety of mini species, but quite incredibly neither of us caught anything. We didn't even get any bites! Feeling rather dejected and a little perplexed as to why the fishing had been so dreadful, we called it a day and drove home. Fishing can be tough sometimes, and yet again a three bearded rockling session had seen my rough ground nemesis evade capture once again. I’ll get one from a Scottish venue eventually!

Tight lines, Scott.