"Insanity is...".

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

I thought this famous quote was made by Albert Einstein. However, a quick search online to confirm this revealed that actually there's no evidence at all that it can be attributed to him. Regardless, the phrase could be applied to my fishing of late. Visiting the same places. Trying to get lucky and catch species that are very rarely caught. Instead, catching the species that you would expect to catch. Does this approach make me insane?

Last month I headed back to St Abbs Harbour again, to try and catch a topknot again. The result was the same, again. I didn't catch one! I did catch some flatfish during the session, but not the one I was after, and only after I abandoned fishing down the harbour walls and turned my focus to the harbour bottom’s sandy areas.

My first flounder of the year was darkly coloured and savagely took a live prawn.

My second and third both took a whole pink mini isome, and had a much paler, what I'd probably describe as honeycomb, colouration.

After catching the flounder, I switched my focus back to fishing vertically down the harbour’s walls again. This only produced one long spined sea scorpion however. I then jumped back in the car and headed off to fish at the inlet area of Torness Power Station. Again. An hour or so there, hoping to catch a topknot, produced the usual suspects, mainly coalfish but also a few goldsinny wrasse.

I find hooking mini isome through the tip is just as effective as threading the hook down into it, but prevents fish pulling it round and spoiling the presentation. 

This goldsinny munched a live prawn. I’ve had great success fishing with them recently, and I’m confident if I present one within striking distance of a topknot, it will take it straight away. 

A few days later I fancied another session, but the wind was blowing pretty hard, limiting my choice of venue. In the end, I decided to visit the inlet area of Torness Power Station. Yet again. With a strong feeling of déjà vu kicking in as I drove down the A1, I decided to grab a loaf of bread en route and began the session by targeting some mullet at the artificially warm outflow over high water. This was a good decision as there were a reasonable amount of them around. With a bit of patience, an essential ingredient when fishing for mullet, I managed to hook three thick lipped mullet. Being on my own and struggling with my long net handle from my elevated position, I only managed to land one of them.

The one that didn’t get away! I think I average about a fifty percent hook up to successfully landed ratio when I’m on my own, so by my own standards it was a slightly below par performance. Having a friend on net duties obviously helps massively.

As the tide dropped, the mullet disappeared and so did I, back around to the inlet to try and catch a topknot. Again. I tried fishing down in the gaps in the sea defence boulders first, but that surprisingly didn't produce any fish at all. Fishing from the gantry was much more productive. Live prawns and then small pieces of ragworm produced a few coalfish, a couple of goldsinny wrasse and a solitary ballan wrasse. A few years ago, the inlet area also used to throw up some very large corkwing wrasse. Thinking about this, I can't remember when I last caught one there.

A nice change from the goldsinny wrasse. I’ve no idea where the big corkwing wrasse have gone. 

Last Sunday, during a trip to St Andrews with my girlfriend Lillian, I got permission to do some scratching about in the rockpools there. Hoping that something weird would turn up, I was sadly disappointed, with only a single blenny popping out of a crack to munch a tiny piece of ragworm.

The only fish of a short and very unproductive rockpool raid. 

So, I've had a few sessions at familiar spots, catching familiar species. All very predictable, but it was good during those trips to break it up by forgetting about catching new species and targetting the flounder and mullet. I’ve realised I can’t just focus on new Scottish species all the time. If I did, I'm pretty sure I’d eventually go just a little bit insane! 

Tight lines, Scott.