A numbers game.

I only had one day off this week and with nine spined stickleback in mind I headed down to Dumfries and Galloway with my mate Ryan, where there are populations of this lesser known species. We arrived early in the afternoon and explored a couple of spots looking for likely stickleback holding bodies of water. Armed with my tanago rod, I fished a few pools in a small stream to begin with, but there was no sign of any fish at all in any of them, so we headed to a second spot a short drive away. This area had several marshes and ditches, but we quickly discovered that most of them were pretty inaccessible. After walking around for a while, Ryan spotted a path through some long grass that lead towards a drainage ditch and after a few minutes of trudging through some soggy ground we found a spot next to the ditch and began fishing. 

Overgrown and full of dirty water, but this drainage ditch looked ideal!

Baiting up with just the tiniest piece of maggot on my tanago hook, it took a little while for my Chianti pole float to register any interest. Eventually, the scent of my bait seemed to draw some fish in and we were soon both catching three spined stickleback, taking turns to catch them and carefully checking each one.

Only three spines. Not the stickleback I was after!

After about half an hour or so we were well into double figures of three spined stickleback, and I was just explaining to Ryan the less obvious differences between the three spined and the nine spined stickleback when I swung a fish to hand. Upon inspection, I realised had actually caught the latter! Mission accomplished! Eagerly popping the diminutive fish into my photography tank, I headed up from the ditch to take some photos in better light. 

The nine spined stickleback is a longer fish and not so deep in the body either relative to its three spined cousin. As its name suggests, it most often has nine spines. I counted ten on mine. They can have only eight though and as many as twelve. In the water in my tank was a funky little bonus aquatic insect. These tiny invertebrates are no doubt part of a stickleback’s diet.

I took another quick photo for scale before I popped it back into the ditch. Tanago hooks really are a game changer when it comes to fishing for the smallest species, and they don’t get much smaller than nine spined stickleback, they are after all the smallest freshwater species in the UK. 

Well, I was over the moon and yet another step closer to my goal of catching one hundred Scottish fish species. I think a barbel is now the only "straight forward" species I can catch in Scotland, and catching one has proved tricky so far. After that, things are going to get tough. I believe there are two species of sturgeon stocked in Drumtassie Coarse Fishery, so those are perhaps also viable targets, so I'll maybe pay that a visit soon.

Tight lines, Scott.