Pre-trip reconnaissance.

I popped out with my mate Ryan on Sunday evening, for a couple of hours’ fishing at Newhaven Harbour. Ryan had never caught a viviparous blenny before, so that was our main target for the session. I also had another motive for trying to catch my second viviparous blenny of the week. My species hunting mate Ben is heading up to Scotland soon, and a viviparous blenny is high on his list of targets, so I promised him I would get out to see if any were around! 

Ryan brought a box of ragworm with him, but fishing small pieces of it straight down the side of the harbour wall didn’t produce any bites to begin with. Moving our rigs around, I eventually caught the first fish of the session, but it wasn’t the species we were hoping to catch.

A greedy long spined sea scorpion was the first fish to munch a bit of ragworm. 

Things continued to be very tough, with nothing else biting, and as the sun set it got pretty chilly. Ryan eventually got off the mark with a small codling, and once it was dark I caught a pin whiting. Almost all of the viviparous blenny that get caught there, seem to reside within a fairly concentrated area, and Ryan’s rig was right in the middle of it. Not long before we were about to pack up, he hooked a small fish and wound it in to find it was the species we were after. 

Ryan’s first ever viviparous blenny was small but very lively, making getting a photo of it challenging! Mission accomplished for Ryan and confirmation for Ben that viviparous blenny were around for his upcoming trip.  

We carried on fishing for a little while longer, but when I caught a few more pin whiting in quick succession, we decided to call it a night. Once they start feeding, often hitting the bait as soon as it touches the bottom, not much else is getting a chance! I’m looking forward to hopefully meeting up with Ben locally to target viviparous blenny when he comes up from Wales. I think he’ll be spending the bulk of his time in the highlands and perhaps I’ll be able to do some fishing with him up there too. 

Tight lines, Scott.