Hunting new UK species whilst on "staycation" in England and Wales.

At the beginning of September, Lillian packed a case, I packed some fishing tackle and we jumped in the car and headed south on a two week long "staycation", a tour of various locations around England and Wales. While we were away, as well as doing a lot of sightseeing, I took the opportunity to try and catch a few new UK species and also meet up with some of my fishing mates along the way to wet a line.

After visiting Whitby, York, Leamington Spa and Warwick we made our way further south to Nottingham where I made my first attempt at catching a new species from the River Trent, a water that has a healthy population of spined loach, cousin of the stone loach.

The spined loach, a tiny fish that many anglers have probably never heard of, let alone caught. It is only found in five river systems in the east of England.

Armed with my tanago setup, my approach was quite simple, fishing in the margins ledgering small chunks of pinky maggot on the bottom in silty areas fairly close to the edge. Loach are normally nocturnal, but as I discovered recently, when I caught my first stone loach, they can be tempted to feed during daylight hours. The problem with that tactic however, is that most other species in the river also feed during the day. Quite predictably, my bait didn't stay on the bottom very long before being eaten by other small fish instead of my target.

Minimalist tackle means you can be very mobile, so we wandered along the river, enjoying the scenery and I tried numerous spots with my tiny tanago rod.

As well as lots of roach and perch, I caught a few dace...

...and some nice rudd too, but as I pretty much expected, no spined loach.

After a few hours, we walked back to the car and headed further southeast, so I could have another go at catching a spined loach from the Nene washes. They are a system of large ditches that act as a flood storage reservoir for the River Nene. They also supposedly have high concentrations of spined loach in them. Sadly, I had no luck there either, instead catching lots of roach and a couple of small perch. Having enjoyed catching a fair amount of fish at both venues I wasn't too disappointed, besides, I knew that catching a spined loach was a long shot, especially during the day. I might have to revisit these venues on my own for some nighttime sessions next year during the summer.

The next destination on our itinerary was the market town of Sudbury, where we'd pay my mate Lee a visit. It was nice to see him again and also to meet his new girlfriend for the first time. We had dinner in the evening and the next day we headed out for a few hours to target chub on the River Stour. Lee has caught some cracking chub on various small lures on very light tackle over the last few years since he moved back to Sudbury, and he was confident we would catch some.

Lee with a nice lure caught chub.

As it turned out the fishing was quite tough, but I was happy enough when I eventually caught my first chub from a river, having only ever caught them from coarse fishery ponds.

My first River Stour chub. Not a new species for me, but still a first, so I was chuffed to catch it on a freelined carp pellet. Much smaller than some of the fish we spooked and failed to tempt, but I didn't care.

In the evening, after another tasty meal, we headed out again to Ely, where we spent a few hours trying to catch zander on lures from the River Ouse at a well known spot that's popular with lure anglers. Again, Lee had caught a few nice ones there, so hopes were high, and again whilst I've caught them before it had been a while, so I was keen to catch one again.

They only come out at night.

The session got off to a good start when I caught a nice pike and then we both caught a few perch as the sun began to set. After dark we were sure the zeds would come out to play, but unfortunately we failed to get any interest at all from them. Still, it was an enjoyable session in good company. 

Leaving Lee early the following morning, we drove southwest to our next English city, Portsmouth. On the way we stopped for an hour or so and joined the crowds to have a walk around Stonehenge, and then we stopped in Romsey, so I could try to catch another new species, the topmouth gudgeon. An ornamental fish farm near Romsey is believed to have been the entry point into the UK for this invasive species in the early 80s. From there it spread around England and Wales in the mouths of other coarse fish. The Environment Agency has been trying to eradicate them for years and have been quite successful in achieving this I believe, although a few isolated populations still remain.

It was very busy when we visited the ancient stones. Very difficult to get a photo with no other tourists in it.

Perched on a tree stump watching a tiny pole float I was quite content.

This is what a topmouth gudgeon looks like. A small, but extremely naughty little fish.

Fishing with my tanago setup again, this time armed with some squat maggots, I had lots of fun catching endless roach, perch, rudd, dace, minnows and gudgeon but failed to get "lucky" with the destructive invasive species, so I didn't have to contact the Environment Agency to let them know I had found a population.

We continued on to Portsmouth, which was only on our tour because my mate Adam had promised me he would take me out on his boat there to his secret brill mark. He also caught a few butterfly blennies earlier this year and if I'm honest that was the inspiration for the entire trip!

Adam with a chunky ballan wrasse.

A brill Adam caught with its dorsal frill on show.

The totally awesome butterfly blenny Adam also caught.

The trip was actually in doubt due to the conditions over the days leading up to it, but they calmed down enough on the day, allowing us to go out. It was actually a lovely day and I had to apply some sun cream to stop myself being burned. It turned out to be a very tough session though. Adam caught a couple of bass and a dogfish from the small bank we were fishing over and all I managed to catch was a solitary black bream. Despite this, I enjoyed Adam's company and several interesting conversations we had about fish and catching them. I don't think Adam will mind me saying he's a bit of a nerd like me when it comes to these topics! I'd love to go back down next year for another go at catching a brill and if possible I'll time it to coincide with the arrival of the butterfly blennies in the summer.

Back to port and back to the brill drawing board.

The next morning we headed west to fish inside Brixham harbour. My target there was a ringneck blenny, a species I've caught before in the Mediterranean and the Canary Islands, but never in the UK. Using ragworm as bait in an area swarming with wrasse probably wasn't the best choice, but I thought it would also give me the best chance of catching one, so I used it anyway. After about four hours of endless corkwing, ballan, cuckoo and goldsinny wrasse, as well as fair numbers of pouting and the odd tompot blenny, juvenile pollock and rock goby I finally caught my target.

Good quality ragworm. Wrasse and mini species love it!

The first successful session of the entire trip produced my first ever ringneck blenny in the UK.

It has two rings going around its neck hence the name.

No reason to hang about any longer I quickly packed up and we jumped back into the car. We then drove all the way to Rhossli in South West Wales where we'd stay in the Worm's Head Hotel for three nights. The area was stunning, with high cliffs and beautiful long sandy beaches. Whilst in the area I had two sessions on Mumbles Pier attempting to catch my first ever grey triggerfish, but the conditions had just began to settle down after a windy period and the fishing was extremely challenging. Over the two sessions I only managed to catch two fish, a tiny black bream and a corkwing wrasse. Other anglers fishing did confirm that plenty of triggerfish had been caught over the previous months so I'll just have to return next summer I guess to try again.

The highlight of two difficult sessions fishing on Mumbles Pier.

The last place we visited was Bangor in North Wales which we used as a base to visit Snowdonia National Park and Anglesey. I only had two short sessions here and no new species were targeted. The first session was from the rocks on the northern side of Trearddur Bay. Sections of ragworm fished on my ultra light setup produced some great sport from the resident wrasse.

This ballan was the biggest fish of the trip and put a nice bend in my Rock Rover.

Fishing over a sandy area further into the bay also produced a few sand goby. Fun too, they just require a different set of skills to catch.

Whilst in the area we met up with my mate Ross for a spot of lunch with his new girlfriend in a small eatery in Menai Bridge. Afterwards we drove up to Amlwch Harbour where we did a spot of mini species hunting. Just relaxing fun really and whilst we did rack up a few species it was more about catching up with Ross for a few hours than catching fish. His job means he spends a fair amount of time out of the country guiding in Norway and other exotic desinations. Now he's bought a house in Wales and settled down a bit, finding time to meet up might get even tougher, so it was great to see him again.

Ross guides in Norway, where he also catches a few fish like this impressive halibut.

He also guides in more exotic destinations. This giant trevally was caught on Rodrigues Island, a territory of Maritius.

The end of our "staycation" had almost arrived and it was time to drive back up the road to Edinburgh. We planned in two stops to break up the journey. First we stopped at Kingsdown Flash in Abram so I could catch a few bitterling on my tanago rod. Not targeting a new species, just having a bit of fun. My approach being more refined than previous visits I caught dozens of the diminutive fish, pretty much one every cast at every peg I fished from as we wandered around the small venue.

Good eyesight is required to put a tiny piece of a pinky maggot on a tango hook.

This is actually a very large bitterling. Most of them I caught were much smaller. They're very pretty fish that photos don't do justice to sadly.

Our next stop saw us taking a slight detour into the Lake District so that Lillian could visit The World of Beatrix Potter Attraction close to Lake Windermere. I didn't read the books when I was a child but appreciated anglers being represented in one of the scenes.

Mr Jeremy Fisher playing a fish. Not sure which species.

I enjoyed our "staycation". The weather had played a part in making some of the fishing tough but I was happy that I'd added a species to my all time UK tally. Really it was nice to spend time with Lillian in some nice places we'd never visited before and also catch up with some of the good friends I've met through my fishing adventures over the years. There are still several species I've never caught in the UK before, particularly on the south coast of England, so I'll be back down there again soon. Adam tells me the butterfly blennies appear in July, so perhaps I'll do a little trip down then.

Tight lines, Scott.