All the right fish in all the right places.

Species hunting is fairly straight forward, once you know where to go hunting. Over the years, I’ve built up a good knowledge of places where certain species can reliably be caught at certain times of the year. Sometimes however, I’ll be fishing a venue that I thought I was very familiar with and be pleasantly surprised when I catch something I’ve never caught there before. This happened to me on Tuesday. Fishing at Newhaven Harbour in Edinburgh, I caught a sand goby, a species I’ve never caught there before. 

My first ever sand goby at Newhaven Harbour.

Two days later, I was fishing at the inlet area at Torness Power Station. It was very windy and things were very slow. When I finally caught a fish, it was yet another goldsinny wrasse, so I decided to go catch something else. Heading around to the outflow area, I spent thirty minutes there sight fishing for common goby from a large rockpool. There were lots of them present, and using tanago hooks baited with tiny pieces of ragworm, I soon caught a few and popped them in my photo tank. I also caught a small common blenny and popped it in the tank too, using the white push plate as a divider to keep the two species separate.

Common by name…

…common by nature.

On my way back, I took a detour and decided to try to catch a lesser weever. The eastern end of Belhaven Bay produces this small venomous fish at the end of the summer, so I headed there. Fishing a scaled down three hook flapper rig, with 4lb short snoods, small sections of ragworm baited onto #12 hooks and using a 14g lead, I cast out just past where the waves were breaking. Holding my ultra light rod in hand, I slowly wound in my rig along the sandy bottom. After a few casts, I felt a rattle and after a brief pause, wound in a small flounder. 

There must be thousands of these along the length of the beach, feeding in just a few inches of water. 

With an easterly wind blowing, it was pretty cold, but I persevered, catching two more tiny flounder before a fourth bite produced what I was after, a lesser weever. Happy enough, and not wishing to further increase my chances of being stung, I carefully unhooked and returned it, called it a day and headed home having added another species to my 2024 tally.

The lesser weever, a nice looking little fish that lives in the sand. It has a nasty sting that causes a great deal of pain should its black dorsal fin or gill plate spines puncture your skin. 

The beach is popular with people who enjoy watersports including this large group of children who were learning to surf. No doubt barefoot!  I’m surprised more people don’t step on buried weever if I’m honest. I guess when they detect nearby movement, they simply wiggle up from where they’re hiding and swim away to safety.

On Thursday afternoon, I headed to fish in a drainage pond about an hour from Edinburgh. My mate Chris caught a lovely rudd there recently and was kind enough to share the location with me. He caught it on a dry fly, but I decided to fish a maggot under a puddle chucker float. It was a cold windy day, but thankfully the small body of water was low down in a depression, so I was slightly sheltered as I stood there fishing. Feeding a small amount of maggots fairly often, and casting my float repeatedly to try and induce a take “on the drop”, I missed a few very subtle knocks but after a few hours I’d had no luck catching my target for the day. A solitary small perch being the only thing preventing a blank. A reminder that just because you know where a species can be caught, doesn’t always mean you’ll catch it! 

The blank saver. 

Summer is gone. Autumn is here. Winter will follow. A slightly depressing thought. As the temperature continues to drop, the fishing is going to get more difficult. Opportunities to get out will no doubt start to thin out too as conditions deteriorate. Anyway, on a much more positive note, the weather on Malta looks great over the next week or so, and I’m flying out there early tomorrow morning. I can’t wait for some species hunting fun in the sun! I’m also going on a three week trip to Singapore, Cambodia and Thailand in November, so I’ve still got plenty of species hunting to look forward to. 

Tight lines, Scott.

Eastern shores before foreign shores.

Yesterday evening, I headed down the A1 with my mate Ryan, to fish the inlet area at Torness Power Station for a few hours. It can be a sheltered spot to fish when an Easterly wind is blowing. Armed with some ragworm, we fished small pieces, on small hooks, using ultra light tackle. Plenty of bites from the start of the session saw us catching a lot of juvenile fish.  Poor cod, cod, coalfish and pollock that were all fighting over the bait as soon as it reached the bottom. These were followed by a small ballan wrasse for Ryan and then we both caught a few of my least favourite fish of 2024, the goldsinny wrasse!

Not another goldsinny wrasse! Thankfully, next Sunday, I'll hopefully be saying the same thing about Mediterranean rainbow wrasse when I'm fishing on Malta! No chance of any goldsinny wrasse there!

After an hour, light started to fade and I recieved a WhatsApp message asking my opinion on the identity of a clingfish. Putting my rod under my arm whilst I had a look at the photos I’d been sent and replied, I popped my phone back into my pocket and turned my attention back to my own fishing. Rod in hand again, my line had went a little slack and winding that up I felt another small fish on the end. Winding it up, I was pleasantly surprised to see a butterfish come to the surface. 

Not another butterfish! My twelfth of 2024! I never thought catching so many in a year would be possible!

We both caught a few more juvenile cod and also a few leopard spotted goby as it continued to get dark. As well as these fish we pulled up a few velvet swimmer crabs too that grabbed our ragworm and stubbornly refused to let go of it until they reached the surface, or were lifted up to have it coaxed from their claws. Once our headtorches were required I also pulled up a lobster. Instantly recognised by the thrashing of its tail. Following that the bites slowed right down over the area we’d been fishing over, so we moved a short distance and began fishing into a rougher patch on the bottom, made up of boulders covered in kelp. Ryan caught a couple of small cod and then pulled out a small shore rockling that had a lovely reddish brown colouration. 

Not another shore rockling! Ryan's second consecutive Sunday evening session shore rockling. I was jealous and wanted to catch one myself!

Determined to get a shore rockling too, I carried on fishing away and it didn’t take too long before I felt a couple of gentle tugs. Allowing the bite to develop, a few more pulls were followed by my rod being pulled down much harder. Lifting into a fish, it put up a spirited little fight but was soon wound up to the surface and quickly hoisted up onto the platform we were fishing from.

Yes! A shore rockling! My first of 2024. A bit bigger than Ryan’s, it was, in my opinion anyway, a much less attractive colour than his and also had extensive mottling all across its body. 

Not many sea anglers enjoy catching shore rockling, but Ryan and I sure do. They’re great fun on ultra light tackle too when you can feel them taking your bait! After a period of no further fish showing an interest in our ragworm sections, we called it a night, and headed back to Edinburgh. It had been an enjoyable short session. I’ve got some ragworm left, so I may pop out locally to use it up before I fly out to Malta on Saturday. My mate Chris has also told me where I can catch some lovely looking rudd from a small drainage pond about an hour outside Edinburgh, so Ryan and I might go and try to do just that later this week too. 

Tight lines, Scott.

My patience is now wearing a little thin.

Topknot. My new nemesis. I've put in a serious amount of time over the last few months trying to catch one. Slightly annoyingly, they keep popping up on my Instagram feed too, caught by anglers on the south coast of England.  Earlier this week, I had yet another couple of sessions after dark, dropping live prawns down the walls and into cracks in and around St Abbs Harbour trying to catch a highly elusive, rock dwelling flatfish. On the first trip I was joined by my mate Ryan. It was nice to have some company, creeping around in the dark on your own can be a little lonely, especially when the fishing is slow, which it was during both trips! We both caught a few fish, although Ryan trounced me on the species front, catching four I didn't in the shape of a ballan wrasse, a flounder, a shore rockling and a leopard spotted goby. 

Scanning the bottom with our headtorches, we saw this darkly coloured flounder moving around over sand, but it swam over some weed, disappearing. Ryan cast his rig over the area a few times and the fish eventually took his ragworm section.

Ryan pulled this shore rockling out from the base of a wall inside the harbour. Normally associated with mixed to rough ground in the open sea, it must have been inside the harbour under the cover of darkness to scavenge.

Returning a couple of nights later on my own, I again failed to catch my intended target and after several hours trying, I decided to try to catch a leopard spotted goby. Ryan's the session before was the first one I'd seen caught from the venue, and I wanted to replicate the feat! Shining my headtorch straight down the harbour wall close to where Ryan had caught his, I couldn't believe my luck when I saw one sitting motionless on a concrete shelf. Dropping a small chunk of prawn down, the fish ignored it to begin with, but after a brief pause I gave my bait a twitch and watched the goby spring to life and my bait quickly vanished.

It was the same size as Ryan's fish. I compared our photos a few days later out of curiosity. It was in fact the exact same fish!

By the end of a pretty tough evening, I was feeling just ever so slightly frustrated at my repeated failures on the topknot front. Keen to go fishing as the weather was glorious, the other day I opted to spend a few hours targetting mullet at the outflow of Torness Power Station. In particular, I wanted to catch a golden grey mullet, as I hadn't caught one yet this year. Donning my polarized sunglasses to eliminate the surface glare, below the surface I couldn't see any mullet swimming about, but decided to have a go anyway. Tearing up some bread into small pieces and throwing it in to try and draw in some mullet, eventually I spotted a few small fish swimming up the current into a pocket of slack water and taking the free offerings. Fishing a very small piece of flake on a #16 hook and using a few split shot to get my bait down, I felt the odd nibble and eventually caught a couple of fish in quick succession.

The first fish I caught was this thick lipped mullet. Easily identifiable from the rows of papillae on the lower section of its thick upper lip.

The second mullet was the one I was hoping to catch, a golden grey mullet. With a much thinner upper lip and a bright, well defined golden spot on its gill plate it was very straightforward to identify.

About thirty minutes later, I hooked a third mullet. It was small and having already added a golden grey mullet to my 2024 species tally, I didn't even bother using my net to land it. Swinging it up to hand however, it looked a little odd. Curious, I popped it into a bucket of water, so I could carry out further examination and take some photos.

The fish in question. It had a thin upper lip, but only a very faint golden marking on its gill plate. It was not as slender as a golden grey mullet either, being much heavier in the body. Furthermore, it also had a black spot at the base of its pectoral fin and an orange/gold shade to parts of the iris, both are features of a thin lipped mullet!

The shape of its head didn't look right for a golden grey either. The snout was stubbier and flatter across the top. The maxillary bone at the corner of the mouth was also larger than that of a golden grey mullet. In the golden grey mullet, this structure is very small.

Had I caught my first Scottish thin lipped mullet? In the back of my mind, I seemed to recall a simple test that I had read about that could be used to positively identify UK mullet species. Doing a quick Google search on my phone, I found details of the method in question. Folding the pectoral fin forward, it will not reach the posterior edge of the eye or at most will just reach the posterior edge of the eye on a thin lipped mullet. On a golden grey mullet, the pectoral fin when folded forward will reach well past the posterior edge of the eye, sometimes as far as the centre of the eye.

The pectoral fin folded forward didn't reach the eye! Along with the other features, did this mean my fish was indeed a thin lipped mullet?! It would be a new Scottish species for me if it was!

Returning home, I consulted the numerous species identification books that I own. Some, including the excellent "The Fishes of The British Isles & N.W. Europe" by Alwyne Wheeler, which has detailed dichotomous keys that can be used to positively identify fish within a known group to species level, also specified the pectoral "fin test" as the means of distinguishing between the golden grey mullet and the thin lipped mullet. At this point, I sent my pictures to a few fellow species hunting anglers and also to the National Mullet Club, asking for their opinions on the identity of my fish. The consensus was that I have indeed caught a thin lipped mullet! 

Curious to carry out the pectoral fin test on a golden grey mullet, I returned the other day to try and catch one. The session turned out to be quite a frustrating one. The wind had changed direction and a swell was running directly up the outflow. It didn't look promising, but I had a go anyway, this time fishing a two hook presentation to increase my chances. Feeding small pieces of bread, I eventually spotted one or two fish, so I persevered. After about three hours, this paid off when I finally hooked a few fish, three taking my hook bait in a fairly short period. All three somehow managed to eject my hook though, after being on for a brief period. They felt like bigger fish, too big to be golden grey mullet I felt, so I wasn't too annoyed. Another couple of hours later, I’d had no more action, and I was about to admit defeat and head off when I hooked a fourth, smaller fish. This time the fish was well hooked, and I had it in the net fairly quickly. It was the golden grey mullet I was after.

Time to put the pectoral fin test to the test!

As predicted! The pectoral fin when folded forward reached the centre of the golden grey mullet's eye.

Personally, I'm now extremely confident that I have indeed caught a thin lipped mullet, a quite unexpected and very welcome bonus catch that I'm happy to add to my lifetime Scottish species tally, taking it to ninety eight. With only two species now required to reach my goal of one hundred, and as the colder months approach, I don't want to take my foot off the gas just yet, but conditions will play a huge part in the fishing I can do, and the species I can target. Regardless of how my fishing plans develop over the coming months, I really need a break from topknot hunting! I’ve taken the opportunity to get just that with an impromptu, very last minute, week long trip to Malta with my mate Gordon this Saturday, and there's zero chance of catching one there!

Tight lines, Scott.

Returning the favour.

Now and then, a fellow angler who has found this blog, or my Instagram account, gets in touch looking for more detailed information on some of the fishing spots I post about or to ask me where I would recommend they go to catch a certain species. I’ve been helped many times over the years by other anglers who have been very generous with their advice and knowledge, so I like to do the same whenever I can. Species hunter Ben contacted me last year about haddock fishing off the north coast of Scotland, and we’ve kept in touch ever since. When he told me he and a friend were coming up to Scotland from Pembrokeshire for a few days and had based some of their mark choices on my blog posts, I decided to go and meet up with them. The weather was pretty terrible while he was up here with his friend Nev, but their final day trip to Lochaline saw a slight improvement in the conditions and I got up early to make the long drive up there to fish with them. Four hours later, I arrived at the first spot. 

Logs on the logging pier in Lochaline. I found two species hunters fishing behind them in the corner. 

When I joined them, they were each had a mackerel bait out in the incredibly deep water directly in front of the pier and were fishing for mini species down the side of the pier with ragworm baited sabiki rigs while they waited for bites on their heavier gear. Both of them are taking part in species hunting competitions and were up in Scotland hoping to add to their already very impressive totals. Ben’s main target for the session was a spurdog, whilst Nev was hoping to catch a leopard spotted goby. I fished small pieces of ragworm down the side of the pier, keen to catch a quintet of UK wrasse species. I managed four of the five quite quickly, but a cuckoo wrasse proved elusive, and I didn’t catch one until later on in the day, completing the set. 

With their lovely pastel shades markings, rock cook or small mouthed wrasse were present in large numbers.

I caught lots of them in Norway recently, but this was my first Scottish cuckoo wrasse of the year.

My four hundred and fifty seventh* goldsinny wrasse of the year! *Estimated, but it feels like I've caught that many. This particular specimen had lovely golden markings on it.

While I was fishing away, chatting to Ben and Nev about fishing, species hunting and various fish species we’d all caught over the years, they both added a couple of species to their competition tallies. Ben caught a coalfish and shortly afterwards a small spurdog, and Nev caught a Connemara clingfish followed later on by a leopard spotted goby. Later in the afternoon we decided to change venue and headed around to the stone pier near the ferry terminal in the village. From this spot, Nev wanted to target a couple of small goby species and Ben was keen to try for a sea trout. Whilst Ben fished metals, Nev and I baited tanago hooks with tiny pieces of ragworm and caught a few painted goby and two spotted goby with relative ease. 

I’m not taking part in any species hunting competitions, but it was still nice to get another species ticked off for 2024 with this two spotted goby.

Having quickly caught our two target goby species, we headed further north up the shoreline, passing Europe’s only underground sand mining facility, to reach the village’s small marina. Nev and I targeted tiny fish with tanago hooks whilst Ben continued casting metals around hoping to tempt a sea trout. 

Ben fishes from the marina pontoons with small metals, hoping to catch a sea trout.

It didn’t take any of us long to catch fish. Nev and I very quickly pulled out several sand goby, whilst Ben began to supply some of the marina’s boat owners with freshly caught mackerel. 

One of several sand goby that we caught. 

Nev was over the moon to catch a sand goby as it was another addition to his competition tally. We carried on searching the sandy bottom and caught a few more species. There were lots of tiny poor cod around, and I also caught a couple of tiny grey gurnard.  

Perfection in miniature and incredibly adorable into the bargain!

The last time I visited this spot I thought I saw one of the UK’s two smaller clingfish species, so I was scanning the bottom trying to spot one of those. When I saw a small dark fish sitting motionless, I spent some time trying to catch it. It didn’t seem interested at first, moving around a few centimetres at a time before settling in a new position. Borrowing a bright pink cheburashka weight from Nev I was able to more accurately lower a tiny piece of ragworm right in front of the fish and after a while it took the hook into its mouth. Quickly lifting the fish up, I was slightly disappointed to discover it was in fact a tiny short spined sea scorpion. 

My first of the year, but not the species I thought I’d been trying to catch!

Ben had come over to see what we’d been catching before returning to the pontoons to target sea trout again. Just before we all called it a day, Nev managed to catch a juvenile short spined sea scorpion too, which was also an addition to his species hunt tally. By this point, light was beginning to fade, and we called it a day. With a ferry to catch as well as an overnight closure of the road through Glencoe and a detour increasing my journey time home, I said farewell to Ben and Nev and hit the road. It was great meeting up with them both, and I wish them success with their future species hunting. I might not be too long until Ben and I meet up again for another spot of species hunting, he’s invited me down to Pembrokeshire to try and catch my first ever UK grey triggerfish. Fingers crossed the right conditions for them materialise! 

Tight lines, Scott.

Species hunting adventures in Norway.

At the end of August I flew out to Oslo Gardermoen Airport with two of my mates, Nick and Ryan, for a week long fishing holiday staying in a Hustadnes Fjordhytter wooden cabin. Located right next to Hjørundfjorden, and surrounded by the stunning Sunnmøre Alps, a range of breathtaking mountains rising steeply up to 1700 metres from the fjord on all sides, providing stunning vistas in all directions. Landing in the afternoon, we picked up our hire car and made the seven hour drive north. The last few hours of the drive took us through some stunning scenery. Emerging from a tunnel, we stopped to stretch our legs and took in this stunning view.

A small picturesque village nestled in a Norwegian valley

By the time we arrived at the cabin and met our host Anders, it was dark, so we got our gear into the cabin and were quickly shown the boat we had hired for the duration of our stay. Up early the following morning, the view across the fjord from our cabin window was awe inspiring, even if the weather forecast for the next few days was not.

Imposing mountains surround the fjord.

Grabbing our boat fishing tackle, we headed around to the tiny harbour and motored out into the bay, where we set about catching some mackerel to use as bait. Catching some was fairly straight forward, and we soon had enough to start fishing for other species in the area. Beginning our species hunting in relatively shallow areas, we were soon catching lots of lovely grey gurnard on strips of mackerel fished close to the bottom.

We all caught plenty of nice grey gurnard. They are so spiky!

The real target was megrim, a flatfish with a very large, cavernous mouth, and Nick managed to catch one pretty quickly. The grey gurnard were present in large numbers however, and catching anything else proved quite difficult. After a while, I caught a cuckoo wrasse when we drifted closer to shore over some mixed ground.

A nice female cuckoo wrasse.

In the afternoon, we headed across the fjord to fish in the shadow of a particularly massive and very steep lump of rock that had a waterfall running down it. The ground close in was pretty rocky and our first few drops produced some big whiting and some coalfish that hit our baits as we dropped them to the bottom. These were followed by a few cusk caught from some rougher ground.

My first new species of the trip. All three of us caught a few of them.

We call them cusk or torsk in the UK. They can be caught in the Shetland Islands. The Norwegian for cod is also torsk, so things can become slightly confusing. Its scientific name is Bromse bromse. The Norwegian name for this species is bromse. Hope that's cleared that up?!

Drifting along a little further out in deeper water, we all began catching small Norway haddock. A second new species of the trip for us all.

The Norway Haddock or redfish. Not related to the haddock from the cod family, this fish is a rockfish. By the end of the trip we'd all caught a lot of these brightly coloured bottom dwellers.

The following day, we continued our search for megrim in the bay to the west of the cabin. Fishing close to the clean bottom, in different areas, at various depths, I was quite surprised when I lifted into a bite and pulled up a small hake! I knew they were a potential catch but was expecting to catch them in much deeper water. This was followed shortly afterwards by my first megrim of the trip. A great start to the day's fishing! Four new species in my first two days boat fishing was a fantastic start to my trip.

My third new species of the trip! This long, streamlined member of the cod family possesses a large mouth full of small razor sharp teeth and also has an impressive set of large fins.

My first ever megrim, a flatfish species I was hoping to catch, so I was pleased to get one on day two.

As the day progressed, we carried on exploring the bay out in front of Sæbø. Over some mixed ground we caught a few small ling and our first haddock of the trip. Ryan also caught a blackbelly rosefish, also known as a bluemouth.

My first ling of 2024.

My first haddock of the year too.

I was quite jealous of Ryan's blackbelly rosefish, but at least we knew where we could potentially catch more.

That evening after dinner, we messed about outside the cabin with ultralight tackle and caught tons of wrasse. There was a huge amount present, we caught a few ballan, corkwing and cuckoo wrasse, but the most abundant were definitely goldsinny wrasse, attacking our small pieces of Isome aggressively. Through the crystal clear water, I was positive I could also see a few rock cook wrasse as well. I tried hard to pull one out from amongst the hordes of other wrasse to complete the set, but didn’t manage to get one.

Due to my determination to catch a rock cook wrasse, I probably ended up catching more goldsinny wrasse than any other species during the trip! Slightly ironic, given it's certainly my most caught species back home this year too!

The following two days the weather forecast was pretty poor with lots of rain forecast. Wearing our waterproof clothing, we went out in the boat anyway. There ended up being lots of showers, but we avoided the heavy rain that was predicted. As well as visiting areas we’d already tried, we also spent some time fishing bigger baits in deeper water to see if we could catch long nosed skate. This produced a nice hake for Nick. Ryan and I both caught a black mouthed dogfish. I say caught, but both were merely holding onto our baits all the way up through about a hundred and fifty metres of water, only deciding to let go once we lifted them into the boat.

A nice hake for Nick from deep water.

Black mouthed dogfish. Not the smartest shark in the ocean but a very cool one.

In the evening the worst of the rain fell so we chilled out in the cabin and had a few beers. In between a couple of downpours, Ryan heard some splashing outside and looking out of the cabin window spotted several groups of pilot whales slowly making their way up the fjord. It was an incredible sight, and Nick ran outside with his camera to get some photos.

Pilot whales passing by.

The following day more heavy rain was forecast, so we headed out again suitably dressed. In the morning, we really struggled to get locate any mackerel. Maybe the arrival of the whales had something to do with it, I speculated. After three hours, we had only caught two mackerel between the three of us! Nick decided he fancied a hike in the afternoon, so Ryan and I dropped him off, and we went back out to drift over the spot where he'd caught the blackbelly rosefish two days previously. We didn't get any, but after a while we started catching a few fish out in deeper water, but no species we hadn't caught already.

A nice whiting for Ryan.

Tired of making our own food, in the evening we drove up through the valley to Ørsta for some pizza. We did intend to fish there, but it was very windy, quite cold as a result, and we weren't suitably dressed, so we decided to head back to Sæbø to fish there instead where it was much more sheltered. Dropping scented lures down the harbour walls, the results were quick predictable, wrasse, lots of wrasse. The water was so clear we were able to do a bit of sight fishing, trying to target specific fish, which was fun. All three of us caught plenty of wrasse, and in amongst them, I caught an absolutley stunning male cuckoo wrasse.

Sæbø's Harbour and ferry port. The perfect venue for some ultra light fun.

Possibly the most incredibly brightly coloured male cuckoo wrasse I've ever caught!

After a while, we went for a wander along to the marina in front of the Sagafjord Hotel. More wrasse were caught, and we added a couple of mini species to our trip tally in the shape of a long spined sea scorpion and a black goby. Before too long it got dark and we returned to the ferry port where we spent some time looking for topknot using our headtorches. Sadly, the topknot in Norway proved just as elusive as the Scottish ones!

Ryan fishes in amongst the rocks and bladderwrack.

There were probably lots of black goby around, they were just being beaten to my Angleworm by the resident wrasse.

During our last two days afloat on the fjord, we were treated to some glorious weather. We really struggled to find mackerel though, and once we did, we generally found the fishing to be much more difficult, catching less fish than we had during the first few days of the trip, and nothing new species wise.

Not a cloud in sight.

As we fished away, we were treated to a second, much closer encounter with a pod of pilot whales when they swam by the boat, and we were also visited by a white tailed sea eagle which was also fantastic to see up close. Nick had his camera out on the boat with him and got some great photos.

Pilot whales pass the boat.

Bird of prey.

Flying high.

We spent a reasonable amount of time over the last two days dropping bigger baits in deep water trying to tempt a long nose skate, but this only resulted in a few more very greedy black mouthed dogfish being caught. Our last hour or so of fishing was spent drifting over much shallower areas. Nick and Ryan spent some time fishing jigs, whilst I stuck to fishing strips of mackerel close to the bottom. A few ling, cusk and whiting were caught. While Nick and Ryan declared their fishing was over and tidied up the deck, I had one last drop with the last of the bait and caught the final fish of the trip in the shape of a megrim.

I think I caught five of these big gobbed flatfish over the trip. Nick and Ryan caught some too. I wish topknot back home were so easy to catch!

Light was fading by the time we got back in to the harbour. Our species hunt was over and overall, despite the mixed weather and fishing, it had been a most enjoyable trip. Between the three of us, we’d caught twenty one species. I was slightly disappointed not to catch either a blackbelly rosefish or a long nosed skate, but was happy I’d caught four new species during the trip, highlighted in bold in our trip tally below.

1. Ballan Wrasse
2. Blackbelly Rosefish/Bluemouth*
3. Black Goby
4. Black Mouthed Dogfish
5. Coalfish
6. Corkwing Wrasse
7. Cuckoo Wrasse
8. Cusk/Torsk
   
9. Golsinnny Wrasse
10. Grey Gurnard
11. Haddock
12. Hake
13. Ling
14. Long Spined Sea Scorpion
15. Mackerel
16. Megrim
17. Norway Haddock/Redfish
18. Pollock
19. Poor Cod
20. Pouting
21. Whiting

*would have been a new species for me, but I failed to catch one sadly.

I'd like to return to Hustadnes Fjordhytter, it’s a stunning place and a feel like we’ve barely scratched the surface. Perhaps it would be more apt to say we barely scratched the bottom. The fjord is 400m deep in places, and there are all sorts of unusual species down there that I’d love to have a go at catching. A trip to northern Norway to target wolfish and halibut is on the bucket list too!

Tight lines, Scott.