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.