The hunt begins! Again!

The temperature isn't the only thing that's hit zero recently. My annual species hunt tally has also been reset. Last year I caught almost one hundred species. Looking back over my records to before the Covid pandemic started, that's about average for me as a species hunter. This year I've decided to set, what I think at least, are some ambitious targets. I'll be fishing in three countries in Asia this year, visiting South Korea and Japan for three weeks in March and then Singapore for a week in June. I'll also be having a holiday on Crete at the end of September too. So the potential is certainly there to rack up a lot of different species in 2023. As a result, I'm going to try to catch two hundred by the end of this year, including one hundred new ones!

To get started, I've been braving some strong, icy cold winds locally over the last week. Marine Esplanade near the Seafield waste water treatment works was the venue I picked. It's only a five minute drive from my flat, so it's perfect to fish for a couple of hours in the evenings after work.  Five bearded rockling were my first target species of the year, and fishing scaled down two hook flapper rigs at close range on ultra light tackle was my chosen approach. Over three short sessions, things were pretty slow, but I managed to catch a few juvenile cod on small sections of black lug and also a couple of five bearded rockling from the rocky ground at the bottom of the sea defences.

No chips required.

Disliked by winter cod anglers, who see them as a nuisance, I think rockling are cool fish in their own right. Adept scavengers, not only do they have a face full of sensitive barbules to detect food, they can even taste using their adapted first dorsal fin!

So, the ball is rolling and 2023 should be an exciting and hopefully a very productive year of species hunting. I'm obviously very excited about visiting several new places in Asia and think the fishing there will be great. When I return to Crete in September, I'll be trying to catch lots of species there too, including new ones like lionfish and silver cheeked toadfish. In the UK I may make short trips to England and Wales to target new species as well, and finally I'm also going to carry on trying to catch new Scottish species during the rest of the year to edge me closer to my goal of catch one hundred of them. A three bearded rockling is at the top of my target list for that challenge, and I've got a trip to the west coast of Scotland planned to target them at the end of February. In the meantime, I'll continue fishing locally to add more species to my 2023 tally. Only one hundred and ninety eight to go!

Tight lines, Scott.