We meet at last.

I visited East India Dock in Greenock on Wednesday with my mate Ryan. We arrived pretty early in the morning, and were soon joined by Ed, a long time reader of this blog. Ed and I have kept in touch via email sporadically for many years, talking about fishing and travel mainly, and decided to finally meet up to wet a line together. We’ve met before, because he also happens to be a customer in my work, but for some reason we’ve never fished together.

East India Dock is a bit of a species Mecca and has produced some unusual fish in the past, so I thought it was the ideal place for a short session. Last year, a lumpsucker and a streaked gurnard were caught there! Things were quite slow to start with, as the three of us tried to tempt the fish with small pieces of ragworm and squid, but it didn’t take too long for the three of us to start catching a few. Probably the three most common species that reside there, so nothing to get excited about, unfortunately.

My first UK saltwater species of 2024 was a goldsinny wrasse,…

…and was followed soon after by a small pollock.

The amount of male corkwing wrasse in the vicinity was ridiculous.

After a while, fishing straight down the harbour walk, Ed caught a couple of black goby, and then wound up a long, pink and brown fish that I recognised immediately. It was a species he had never caught before, so he was over the moon to catch it.

Ed admires his first Yarrell’s blenny.

A very funky little fish!

After a while, things slowed down considerably, so we moved to a second spot. Ed and I spent some time fishing further out, hoping to catch a dragonet, but sadly neither of us got any bites. We all also spent some time fishing inside the harbour, but this was also almost completely unproductive, with just a few more corkwing wrasse taking our baits. Returning to fishing into the rocks close in on the outside of the harbour didn’t throw up anything other than a few more goldsinny wrasse, the odd pollock and dozens of corkwing wrasse. At about noon, something very unusual did appear, in the shape of the world's last seafaring paddle steamer.

“The Waverley”. An unexpected and rather majestic sight.

The time to pack up soon arrived, just as our bait was about to run out anyway, and sadly we hadn’t caught anything else of any great interest. So, not the diversity of species we had hoped for, in fact we had only managed five species between the three of us! Despite this, it had been an enjoyable day's fishing. It was great to finally meet up with Ed, catch a few fish together and have a few conversations about our passion for fishing and travel. In all honesty, it’s something we should have done much sooner. I’m sure I’ll fish with him again at some point in the future.

Tight lines, Scott.