Too hot to fish?

I headed west with my mate Ryan on Tuesday for a couple of days species hunting. The weather was glorious. Probably too hot if the truth be told, but we decided to smear ourselves in sun cream and go anyway. Discussing our plan of attack during the drive there, and the potential species we could catch, we set a target of twenty species between the two of us for the trip. Our first stop was Loch Creran Head, where we fished scaled down three hook flapper rigs baited up with small sections of ragworm. We fished from some bladderwrack covered rocks exposed by the tide to begin with before moving to some steep rocks above the high tide mark further east once the tide began to flood. Several unusual mini species that I’ve never caught before inhabit the sea floor in this area, so I had my fingers crossed. From our first cast we caught plenty of fish but nothing unusual, unfortunately.

Loch Creran Head on a hot sunny day.

As I’ve discovered during recent sessions there, the loch contains a very health black goby population. This makes it very difficult to catch rarer, less aggressive species. Ryan had never caught a black goby before but the novelty soon wore off and he got bored of catching them.

We also caught a few common dragonet. Another new species for Ryan.

After a few hours we’d more than had our fill of catching black goby, so we packed up and drove north to fish from the old stone pier in Kentallen. Fishing wasn’t non stop action, no doubt due to the midday sun blazing down, but a few wrasse and goby species bumped up our trip tally. Ryan also caught a butterfish and I caught a Connemarra clingfish which spiced things up. Then out of nowhere it started raining pretty heavily, so we hastily packed up and hit the road again.

Loch Linnhe on a hot sunny day.

Only my second ever Connemarra clingfish. The first addition to my personal 2023 species hunt of the trip.

An hour or so, a ferry crossing and twenty odd miles of single track road later, we arrived in Lochaline. After grabbing some food we self checked into the bunkhouse there where we'd be spending the night, and then headed down to the village’s West Pier to fish for a few more hours. Again, we caught lots of wrasse and goby as well as lots of poor cod and a few pollock. In the process I added three more species to my 2023 tally.

Small but perfectly formed, my first cuckoo wrasse of 2023.

Dozens of leopard spotted goby were caught. Another species added to my 2023 tally.

We caught a few rock goby too. My first of 2023 also.

We caught lots of goldsinny wrasse.

Some very colourful rock cook wrasse as well.

I also caught what would turn out to be the only short spined sea scorpion of the trip. My second in a week.

The Sound of Mull on a... Wait a minute! Is that rain coming or a swarm of midgies?

It turned out to be rain followed by swarms of midgies. Thankfully I had a can of Smidge in the car!

As the sun began to get very low in the sky we decided to call it a night. We’d caught fifteen species between us by the end of the first day, which I felt was a pretty good effort. Having left Edinburgh at 05:30 we were both feeling a little bit tired. Back at the bunkhouse we both had a much needed shower. The scent of sun cream, ragworm juice and Smidge isn’t a pleasant combination!

In the morning we were up early again and were down at Lochaline’s ferry terminal fishing by 06:00. We headed there because I knew it was a good spot to catch a certain diminutive species and after catching lots of them, we decided to head to a new spot.

Several two spotted goby in my photo tank.

I wasn’t sure if fishing was permitted out on the pontoons of Lochaline Harbour, but there were no signs saying it wasn’t and none of the people who had their vessels moored there seemed to mind us fishing, some even showing an interest in what we were trying to catch, which was mainly sand goby. I did see what I think might have been a tiny clingfish, but it disappeared underneath a scallop shell and I couldn’t tempt it out. Through the crystal clear water we also saw some trout cruising about and a solitary flounder moving along the bottom, but we failed to catch any of them. Before we left I did manage to add a painted goby to our tally, taking it to eighteen. With the plenty of time left before we had to head home we only had two species left to catch to reach our target!

Lochaline Harbour on a hot sunny morning. Surely this should be called Lochaline Marina?

I lost count of the number of sand goby I caught. Ryan caught his first ever sand goby too.

Ryan tries to tempt a trout on small metals.

I pinched his spot and sat relaxing in the sun waiting for mini species to bite. After catching even more sand goby and a couple of common dragonet I managed to add a painted goby to our tally.

Before we left Lochaline we decided to head back to the West Pier for a couple of hours. I was hoping we’d get lucky and pull out a Yarrell’s blenny but all we caught were wrasse, goby and some poor cod. The next stop on our adventure was a new mark I'd spotted on Google Maps. Heading north from Lochaline we took a right turn onto a winding B road, driving through some amazing scenery before ending up on a slipway next to a small stone pier on the northern shore of Loch a’ Choire.

What a beautiful view!

Three hook flapper rigs were cast out, but these didn’t produce any fish. I then spotted a common blenny down the side of the slipway and Ryan dropped a bait down in front of it. Species number nineteen caught we jumped back in the car and headed to Fort William to fish Loch Linnhe again from the town 's West End Car Park. I was confident we’d get a dab or a grey gurnard there, but the water was a bit coloured up, and we caught neither. Ryan managed a couple of pollock before we decided to head off to try the Linnhe Picnic Area a few miles south of Fort William. The water there was also coloured up a bit and there was a fair amount of suspended weed to contend with as well. We soldiered on and after several fishless casts I wound in my three hook flapper to put fresh bait on and was pleasantly surprised to discover a Yarrell’s blenny on the bottom hook!

My first Yarrell’s blenny of the year.

A cool twentieth species of the trip for us.

Holding the fish in a rock pool I got this great photo of the fish's funky "eyebrows"!

After that things remained slow, but we fished on for a while and Ryan eventually caught a nice dab before we finally called it a day and began the three hour drive home.

The last fish of the trip.

So it had been a great little trip in very hot weather. We’d done very well, catching twenty one species in total. Not bad considering just how hot it had been. I’d added five species to my 2023 species total and taken it up to ninety nine. I think I’ll pop out and try to make it one hundred before I fly out to Singapore on Tuesday. It’ll be even hotter there, but will that stop me fishing for an incredible variety of new species? Not a chance!

Tight lines, Scott.

Exceeding expectations.

My workmate Gordon caught some viviparous blenny over on Granton breakwater recently, so the two of us headed out last Wednesday to see if we could catch some more. The exact spot we wanted to fish was busy, and the water in that area was slightly coloured up anyway, so we decided to head along to Newhaven Harbour instead where we felt it might be more sheltered from the easterly wind. I’ve not fished there for years and my expectations were pretty low as previous sessions there had been poor, but we were pleasantly surprised by the fishing. Dropping small pieces of ragworm down the side underneath the lighthouse produced lots of bites and several small fish to begin with. 

A common blenny was the first species to be caught. 

Followed by lots of long spined sea scorpion. 

After a while we both lost bigger fish and made some changes to our rigs. I increased the strength of my rig body and hooklength and also switched from fine wire pin hooks to a small chinu, a much stronger pattern. This saw us landing a number of ballan wrasse and cod. 

A nice ballan wrasse. It was great sport on my trusty Rock Rover. 

A small cod. No need to put the chips on. 

Switching back to lighter rigs produced more long spined sea scorpions and then Gordon caught a viviparous blenny. A good sign and I was confident I'd get one too if we fished for long enough. Next up though I caught a short spined sea scopion, a species I have caught at Newhaven Harbour before.

An unexpected bonus species added to this year's tally.

Shortly afterwards I did hook a viviparous blenny, but it fell of as I lifted it up the harbour wall. Disappointed, I carried on fishing and a few long spined sea scorpions later I caught a second viviparous blenny that stayed on the hook.

Viviparous blenny ticked off for another year!

We called it a day at about 21:00 having enjoyed a very productive session. In fact, we had enjoyed it so much that we returned the following evening after work again for a few hours. Gordon and I were joined by fellow workmate Ryan, who was keen to get in on the action. Unfortunately the water was a little more coloured up than the night before and the fishing wasn't as good. Ryan caught his first viviparous blenny and butterfish though, so he was glad he’d come with us. I caught a butterfish as well which I was over the moon about. I love catching them as I remember finding them under rocks on the foreshore as a child.

Butterfish always evoke happy memories of my rockpooling adventures as a young boy.

So, I've had to re-evaluate Newhaven Harbour as a species hunting venue. I'm pretty sure that Yarrell's blenny might be a potential target there too, most venues that produce butterfish usual hold them as well I’ve noticed over the years, so I'll definitely be going back to try and catch one of those! Although I’m away at the moment fishing marks soon that also throw up Yarrell’s blenny so I may get one sooner than that. 

Tight lines, Scott.

These aren't the cyprinid you're looking for.

My mate Callum caught a small barbel recently at Parkview Coarse Fishery near Cupar in Fife. It's a fairly new venue and on Tuesday last week I headed there to try and get one myself. It would have been a new addition to my Scottish life list, but unfortunately I didn't manage to catch one. Fishing maggots under a waggler for the majority of the day I did catch lots of small perch and a few roach. I also caught ide and their ornamental variants, blue and golden orfe.

My first Scottish golden orfe that didn't involve fishing in a corporate headquarter's ponds.

Likewise, the blue orfe I caught were my first from an actual fishery in Scotland.

The backs of the blue orfe had a lovely deep blue colour to them.

I also fished double sweetcorn and 2mm pellets on a small method feeder for a few hours but surprisingly this only produced one small common carp.

A lovely pristine little fish.

Speaking to one of the guys who works at the fishery shortly before I left, he told me that fifty barbel have been stocked into it. I'll certainly be returning soon for another go at catching my first Scottish barbel.

Tight lines, Scott.

Fishing. Like a boss.

On Monday I headed west to the old crusher pier situated to the south of Creetown with my mate Ian. He’s an accomplished shore angler who fishes matches regularly. He also happens to be my boss, being the retail manager of the Edinburgh Angling Centre, where I work. Our main target species for the trip was starry smoothhound, a species I've never caught from the shore before, but I was also hopeful that I’d get a common eel too. Ian assured me I’d probably get one of those fairly quickly and he was right! A three hook flapper baited with small crab baits soon did the trick. 

I got a small common eel on my third cast!

Rig wrecking slippery swines. I’m not a fan if I’m honest.

I then turned my attention to fishing a big crab bait on a pulley rig at distance for starry smoothhound. Ian also cast out a pulley rig to target them as well, but he decided to also fish a three hook flapper on a second rod closer in with much smaller baits, to try and catch flounder, possibly bass and no doubt more eels.

Ian brought some top quality fresh peeler crab for us to use.

After watching our rod tips for thirty minutes or so we wound in to change our baits. There was a fair amount of weed in the water, but I got my rig in fairly quickly, Ian’s rig however had picked up a substantial amount of it, and he struggled to get it in. Eventually, once he'd dragged a huge mass of weed in to the side of the pier, he lifted it up by hand. As soon as he began removing the weed however he got a bit of a shock in the shape of a bass!

This silver surprise was hidden under a large amount of weed!

Over the next few hours, Ian caught a few flounder and eel on his second rod and spent a fair amount of time removing weed from his rig! I stuck with fishing just the one rod and sat watching it diligently, waiting for something bigger to hopefully take my pungent bait.

Ian winds in more weed. Occasionally there would be a flounder or an eel too!

A horrible messy tangle of eel and weed.

Just after the tide turned and began to ebb, Ian got a cracking bite on his big bait rod and wound in the first starry smoothhound of the trip. He had predicted their arrival at this stage of the tide and with some moving through the area I was hopeful I'd get one too before too long.

Ian showing me who's boss!

About an hour later, Ian caught his second starry smoothound of the session. We fished on for another two hours or so, but as the tidal flow increased it became very difficult to hold the bottom and I admitted defeat, probably a while after I should have. Ian had caught a lot of fish, species hunting like a boss too, catching all four that the mark usually produces. The solitary common eel I'd caught at the start of our session meant it wasn't a complete blank for me, and I'd added another species to this year's tally so that was something positive at least. On the way back we discussed the fact that spent more time driving than we spent fishing. Crazy really, but if I’d have caught a starry smoothhound I guess I wouldn’t have minded! If I return to the area I think I’d probably stay overnight and have a couple of sessions at the old crusher pier and perhaps head round to the Isle of Whithorn to fish over low water to try and catch a tompot blenny. 

Tight lines, Scott.

Back to the drawing board. Again.

On Wednesday last week I spent the day exploring St Abbs Head. Fishing for small unusual species was the aim of the game. I took a light quiver tip rod, some light rigs, small hooks and a box of ragworm with me to scratch about. There are lots of photos online of rare fish taken in the area by divers. Streaked gurnard, John dory, anglerfish, Norwegian topknot, Montagu’s sea snail, snake pipefish, lemon sole, to name only a few! I was hoping to get lucky. Very lucky! After waking all the way from St Abbs village to Pettico Wick, to check out that area for the first time, I decided to fish instead from the rocks down to the right below the lighthouse. The climb down is pretty dodgy with some steep sections, loose scree and a step over a large crack onto a large rock. I find myself thinking “I’m too old for this nonsense!” every time I go down there!

Pettico Wick at the western end of St Abbs Head. Picturesque, but it was pretty shallow and didn’t look that “fishy”, so I gave it a miss. 

To begin with I fished with a 10g metal jig and caught a few small coalfish. Happy to have caught some fish to avoid a potential blank, I switched to my light scratching rig, a running ledger with a small hook baited with a small section of ragworm. I fished with these rigs for several hours but lost almost every one I cast out. Eventually I dropped the rig down close in and caught a small ballan wrasse.

This small ballan wrasse was the sole reward for my mini species bottom fishing efforts.

I may have to go back to the drawing board on this endeavour. It won't be the first time I've tried this sort of fishing and failed miserably. I had dozens of sessions at Loch Shira trying to catch a Fries' goby and didn't succeed. At least whilst doing that I caught lots of other species! The problem I have is that the ground on most of the accessible marks I’ve fished around St Abbs Head is rough, and the current can be very strong too. This makes fishing with delicate rigs and sensitive tackle difficult as they don't stay in the one position, being moved around until they eventually find a snag. I also think the areas where most of the divers explore and take their photographs aren’t really accessible from the shore either. Hmmm...

Tight lines, Scott.

Nymphmaniac!

I had another short session on the Water of Leith the other evening with my mate Chris. As well as a few minnow and brown trout, we caught a few bullheads, a species Chris had never caught before. After catching a few on maggot, I decided to up the ante and tied on a tiny tungsten nymph fly. It took a while, but eventually I located a bullhead that was "interested", and after a bit of teasing it greedily took my fly!

A hot butt UV nymph proved too tempting/annoying for this bullhead.

I suspect this was perhaps an angling first, but as no fly gear other than the fly was used, I can't really claim it was caught “on the fly”! Still, it was a fun session, and it was good to do a bit more “guiding” as well. I really enjoy seeing other anglers catch new species too.

Tight lines, Scott. 

An American species hunter in Scotland.

At the start of May I received an email from a young American species hunter by the name of Brandon. One of the things I really like about writing the blog is that it occasionally brings myself and other like minded anglers together. In his email he explained he enjoyed my blog, would be visiting Scotland at the end of May and was keen to meet up, so we could do some fishing together. I told him that I would meet up with him when he was in Edinburgh, and I'd help him catch a few new species for his life list. After I finished work last Sunday I picked him up from his Airbnb, and we visited the Water of Leith, as Brandon was keen to catch his first bullhead. Waiting for it to get dark, we targeted minnows for an hour or so. They weren't particularly active however, although I did manage to catch one. It was an opportunity to try out a small "photo tank" that I recently bought to take to Singapore with me.

My new photo tank works quite well I think.

Once it got dark we headed to my favourite bullhead spot and began searching the shallows with our head torches. The bullheads were out in numbers, and as usual, couldn't resist a maggot on a small hook dropped right in front of their relatively large mouths. Before long we’d lost count of how many we'd caught. Whilst Brandon took lots of photos of bullheads I began scouring the bottom for bigger specimens. A monster bullhead soon appeared, out from underneath an overhanging section of the bank. A new personal best bullhead was soon in my photo tank!

Brandon photographs the latest addition to his life list.

My new PB bullhead. Possibly. I didn't weigh it.

Our mission accomplished, we headed back to the car. After dropping Brandon off, I headed home, satisfied with a successful guiding effort. I was working in the morning, but we arranged to meet up the following evening again.

Whilst I was working on Monday, Brandon was out fishing on Granton Breakwater. He wanted to catch some wrasse and I told him that this was a good spot to try. The wind had a made it a pretty tough session, but he caught his first ever ballan wrasse, so he was happy with that. I managed to get away from work thirty minutes early and headed down there to pick him up. Off we went to Dunbar Harbour for a session targeting, to begin with, flounder and plaice. We arrived a little too early but as the tide flooded and the depth of water over the sandy corner we were fishing in increased, we eventually spotted some flat fish chasing our ragworm sections as we slowly twitched them along the bottom. My first fish of the evening was a small plaice, which was my first of the year. Plaice make up a small percentage of the flatfish I've caught in Dunbar Harbour of the years. so it was a slice of luck to catch one straight away. It was followed fairly quickly by a small flounder.

A small plaice. Another species added to my 2023 tally.

A flounder soon followed.

Soon afterwards Brandon also got lucky and caught his first ever plaice. After the sun had set and light begun to fade I hooked a big flounder that unfortunately came off just as it was coming to the surface. A short time later, Brandon hooked a big one too. Perhaps it was the fish I'd lost. It was certainly too big to swing up, so I grabbed my 5.9m landing net from the car and netted it for him.

A tiny plaice. Size doesn't matter to species hunters. They all count.

Brandon uses a Tupperware tub full of water to photograph his fish. This is a great tool for identification purposes and shows most of the fishes features very well.

A big flounder. Size doesn't matter to species hunters. They all count.

Once it was dark we spent a couple of hours fishing into some mixed ground at the back of the harbour. We were hoping that shore rockling, five bearded rockling or viviparous blenny might take our worm baits, but it wasn't to be and at midnight we packed up and headed back up the A1. The following day I was off work and Brandon had to be back in Edinburgh by 19:00, so we decided to make an early start to a day of species hunting.

After getting about three and a half hours sleep, I jumped in the car and picked Brandon up at 06:00. We drove west to East India Harbour in Greenock where we had a small list of species that I thought Brandon and I could catch around there. A common dragonet was our first target. Rigging up running ledger rigs and baiting small hooks with a little section of ragworm, we cast out as far as we could and slowly wound in. On my second cast I felt a bite and stopped winding. Waiting a second or two before lifting, I felt the weight of a fish and reeled it in. When a stunning male common dragonet appeared on the surface I was absolutely delighted!

I’ve wanted to catch one of these for years! Absolutely stunning! Just look at those colours.

Brandon caught his first common dragonet shortly afterwards too, so our session had got off to the perfect start. After a few more common dragonet and some dab from further out we began fishing over the rocky, weedy ground closer in, but surprisingly this didn't produce anything, so Brandon suggested we try fishing inside the harbour instead.

Dab are another species you can catch at range from East India Harbour.

This suggestion proved to be a great one. In the past I've never had much joy fishing inside the harbour but as soon as we took a look we spotted lots of wrasse moving around over the rocky bottom, including some pretty big rock cook wrasse. One hook paternoster rigs were dropped down and quite a few wrasse were soon being caught. Mainly rock cook wrasse and corkwing wrasse, but we also had some goldsinny wrasse and a ballan wrasse too. The rock cook wrasse and goldsinny wrasse were firsts for Brandon. He'd caught corkwing wrasse in the Mediterranean before but one of his was the most turquise coloured example I've ever seen!

Another very colourful UK wrasse species, the rock cook is probably my favourite.

Brandon caught this bright turquoise corkwing wrasse.

The Tupperware tub put to good use again. Look at those colours!

We didn't catch as many goldsinny wrasse as I was expecting. They normally make up the bulk of catches over the rough ground close in.

As the sun got a little higher in the sky, things really slowed down. We watched as all the wrasse that had been cruising around headed down into the gaps in between the boulders to seek shade. A few shoals of sand smelt turned up at this point, and we caught a few of those, another new species for Brandon. Before we began fishing on the outside again, Brandon caught a rock goby, a black goby and a two spotted goby. The last two being new to him.

The Tupperware tub is great for capturing the detail of fish's fins like those of this sand smelt.

Switching back to fishing the outside of the harbour the bites dried up almost completely, and I only caught three fish in a couple of hours, a common dragonet, a goldsinny wrasse and a black goby.

I'd have preferred to catch a rock goby as I'd already caught a few black goby this year.

It was the early afternoon by this point, and as the fishing had slowed to a crawl, we decided to switch to freshwater targets and headed back east to Magiscroft Coarse Fishery. Brandon wanted to catch his first gudgeon and it's probably the best place to catch them that I know. On the way we hit heavy traffic as we approached the middle of Glasgow. Brandon took the opportunity to have a nap.

A tired species hunter.

Before long the traffic started moving again and we soon arrived at Magiscroft. It didn't take us too long to set up some puddle chucker floats and catch a few gudgeon from a shallow peg on the venue's main loch. All mine were pretty average in size, but Brandon managed to catch a couple that were pretty chunky!

An average gudgeon. Size doesn't matter to species hunters. They all count.

A large gudgeon. Size doesn't matter to species hunters. They all count.

Having caught what we came for, as well as a few roach and perch, we then jumped back in the car and headed to the River Forth so we could spend an hour or so trying to catch dace. I thought it might be tough as the water levels were very low due to the lack of rain recently and this proved to be the case. We trotted maggots down the faster flowing water but all we caught were lots of minnow and the odd salmon parr.

An Atlantic salmon parr in my photo tank. Another species towards this year's challenge.

Soon it was time to go, so we packed up and headed back to the capital where I dropped Brandon off at his Airbnb. It was great to meet him and I really enjoyed both our fishing and our conversations about fish, fishing and species hunting. I hope our paths cross again in the future, and we'll hopefully keep in touch in the meantime.  I enjoyed helping him add ten species to his life list whilst we were together and also gave him advice that helped him add two more in the shape of the ballan wrasse he caught from Granton Breakwater and I also gave him information that led to him catching his first bitterling a couple of days after he left Edinburgh on his way to Manchester. Furthermore, whilst playing at being a guide, I'd also added another two species to my 2023 species hunting challenge, catching my first plaice and Atlantic salmon of the year. The large male common dragonet was probably my own highlight of our time together and is a capture I won't forget.

Tight lines, Scott.