Trigger warning!

Attention: This post may contain grey triggerfish and other unusual UK fish species!

At the end of August, I headed down to Cornwall with my mate Ryan for four days of species hunting. Checking the weather forecast in the days running up to the trip, it didn’t look great. With strong winds and some rain forecast, our plans would have to adapt as our trip progressed, but we were still keen to make the most of our time down there. Last Monday, we arrived and headed to Fowey to seek shelter from the wind. We were soon joined by my Welsh mate Ben and the three of us spent the afternoon fishing flapper rigs out in the channel of the estuary there. Being a bank holiday, there were lots of small boats around, which made fishing difficult at times, but we soldiered on and caught a few fish. Ryan and Ben caught a few Couch’s seabream, my main target for the session. Sadly, I didn’t get one, but did catch a gilthead seabream and a striped red mullet. 

Silver and gold. Not the seabream I was hoping for!

Only my second ever UK striped red mullet, but it was a UK first I was after!

The following day, the three of us met up in Newquay, where along with other anglers Jack, Nev and Lewis, we had a day out with Newquay Fishing Trips aboard Atlantis targeting grey triggerfish. The weather was kind, with the wind having eased up a fair amount from the previous day. On our way out to the mark, skipper Matt told us that a fortnight previously another group had caught plenty of our target species there and before too long we were all dropping rigs baited with squid, mussels and prawn down. Drifting past a ridge on the sea floor, we all started catching them almost immediately and over the remainder of the day we must have caught about forty grey triggerfish between the six of us.

I caught one when I fished in Florida a couple of years ago, but I was over the moon to catch my first ever UK grey triggerfish.

A couple of hours into the charter, I started to feel a little bit ill. Over the years, I’ve had sea sickness a few times and as I steadily felt worse it became apparent that yet again my “sea legs” had failed me. I stopped fishing, sat by the wheelhouse, and sipped water in an attempt to alleviate my symptoms, watching the others catch a few fish. Lots of grey triggerfish aside, nothing too interesting was caught. A few wrasse, some pouting and a couple of scad putting in an appearance. Having all caught what we wanted, with not much else being caught, the wind beginning to pick up and the swell starting to build, we decided to head back to port early. Needless to say, I was very grateful to get back on dry land!

On our penultimate day, Ryan and I headed to Falmouth where we made a couple of brief stops at two very different marks to fish for two very different species. At the first spot, we were out of the wind and our target soon appeared when some bread was thrown in. The mullet however were being, well, mullet! I enjoy the tricky, frustrating nature of freelining bread flake for them, but Ryan just wanted to catch one so we could head to our next spot! Eventually, I caught a couple of small thick lipped mullet and then Ryan caught a pair at the same time, his two hook rig paying dividends!

Mullet are so frustrating, but they can also be a lot of fun too!

We then headed off to fish in some rockpools for Montagu’s blenny. The area we visited was very exposed, with strong wind and rain battering it, so things were challenging to say the least. Clambering over the slippery rocks, we eventually found a small rockpool with a boulder in it that was slightly out of the wind and spotted our target species sitting on the bottom. As we approached, it swam off under the boulder, so Ryan, who had never caught one before, was first to drop a tanago hook baited with a tiny piece of ragworm down the edge in front of the crack where the fish was hiding. It didn’t take too long to tempt it out and it was soon unhooked and placed in my little tank to be photographed by Ryan. Shortly afterwards, I caught a Montagu’s blenny of my own from underneath the exact same boulder.

I like catching Montagu’s blenny. I wish we had them up in Scotland!

When you examine them closely, they’re quite colourful little fish.

In the afternoon, we headed to Flushing, where we spent the rest of the day fishing the flooding tide. With plenty of ragworm for bait we both fished two rods, although Ryan put out a crab bait on one of his, to hopefully tempt a passing bass. I was still after my first UK Couch’s seabream, with an outside chance of catching my first UK common pandora.

Falmouth over on the other side of the estuary on an overcast, windy afternoon. 

Things were slow to begin with, until the tide began to pick up a bit and Ryan was first of the mark. Winding in his fish, when it came to the surface, I thought initially it was a Couch’s seabream when I saw the colour of it. When it got a closer, I realised it was in fact the much rarer common pandora!

A number of these common pandora have been caught in the Fal Estuary over the last few years. I was a little bit jealous!

Excited by this capture, we fished on, hopeful that it would signal the beginning of a busier spell, but unfortunately it didn’t. The wind made things unpleasant, but eventually I connected with a good rattle on one of my rods and wound in a small pink fish of my own. Not long after, I caught a second.

Small, but perfectly formed. My first ever UK Couch’s seabream!

Winding this in, I was hopeful it was a common pandora, but it was just a second, bigger, Couch’s seabream.

We carried on fishing until it started to get dark, and by that point we had just about run out of bait, so we called it a night and headed back to our accomodation. In the hour or so before we left, we hardly had any decent bites. Our rod tips were twitching away, and I correctly guessed what was responsible before we caught a handful of black seabream.

Black seabream can be a bit of a bait stealing nuisance, especially when you’re after other, much rarer, seabream species.

On our last day, the wind picked up and rain showers increased too. We visited Mevagissey in the morning to get out of the wind, but the fishing was very poor, with only a few wrasse being caught. Ryan wanted to catch a reticulated dragonet from the sand out in front of the breakwater, but drew a blank. In the afternoon, we drove west to hunt mini species in the rockpools at Marazion.

St Michael’s Mount on a grey rainy afternoon.

There wasn’t much biting there either, but we both eventually caught giant goby. Protected in the UK, we quickly photographed Ryan’s as it was his first ever and then carefully returned them to the spots where we’d caught them from to go about their business.

 Ryan’s first ever giant goby was a bit of a chunky brute. Giant by name.

When I put the one I caught back, it sat on the bottom for a brief period before returning to its hiding hole.

After grabbing a steak filled Cornish pasty from a small bakery, we drove up to St Ives. Out at the end of the town’s harbour, we were totally exposed to the strong winds that were blowing. This made targeting lesser weever incredibly difficult from our elevated position, but eventually we caught a few of the little venomous fish.

Despite the large amount of hman activity in the water, I think the lesser weever population living in the golden sands of St Ives is quite healthy!

For our final session of the trip, we drove back south to Penzance to fish after dark for blackspot seabream and scad. The end of the town harbour's breakwater was already quite busy with anglers when we arrived, but we managed to squeeze ourselves in and fished for a couple of hours. Out of bait, we fished with Isome on a drop shot rig. Things were again, pretty slow, but after pulling out a few small pouting closer in, I caught a couple of blackspot seabream by casting much further out and slowly working my rig back in, pausing frequently to give any fish attracted a chance to strike at my fruity imitation worm.

Also known in the UK as red seabream, this was my last species of the trip.

On the lengthy drive back up to Edinburgh the next day, we discussed how it had went and agreed that the short species hunting trip to Cornwall had been a tough at times but ultimately a success, especially given some of the challenging conditions we were faced with. I had added two new species to my UK lifelist and Ryan had caught eight species for the first time. It was nice to catch up with Ben, Jack and Nev again and meet Lewis for the first time too. I was very impressed with skipper Matt too, he did a fantastic job of putting us on a highly localised population of grey triggerfish and I’d highly recommend a day out with him if they’re a species you’d like to catch. The south coast of the UK has some fantastic fishing and a superb variety of species too. Ryan and I might even “pop down” to Dorset in a few weeks' time at short notice if there’s a spell of nicer weather!

Tight lines, Scott.

I got more than what I came for.

Over the years, I've met quite a lot of other species hunting anglers, and many of them have helped me out enormously. As a result my fishing knowledge has improved greatly and my success as a species hunter too. I now try my best to give back to this branch of fishing whenever I can. Knowing that I'm still keen to add more species to my Scottish and UK life lists, fellow Scottish and UK species hunters often get in touch when they hear about anything unusual being caught or even seen. This is exactly what happened on Monday evening, when I received a screengrab from a Facebook group chat discussing the recent sighting of some lumpsucker in Hartlepool Marina. Checking the weather forecast, it looked very good, so I found myself some cheap accommodation, booked it for two nights and drove down there the following morning. Arriving early in the afternoon, I had a look around and paid a quick visit to the bronze statue of the infamous Hartlepool Monkey to make a wish.

Hartlepool Marina on a pleasant March afternoon.

You can probably guess what wish I made!

Returning to the area where I had been told the lumpsucker had been spotted, I set up two rods and fished fairly long three hook flapper rigs straight down the side of the Marina wall. With my hooklengths spread out at different depths I was hopeful that should my target swim past it would find one of my six raw prawn chunks! The water in the marina had a bit of a green tinge to it and I wondered if the nice weather had caused an algae bloom. Things were very slow for the first couple of hours, and I was beginning to think the trip might turn out to be a waste of time, when some interest was registered on one of my rods. Picking it up I felt a couple of very subtle knocks and lifting the rod I was pleasantly surprised to feel the weight of a good fish. It turned out to be a nice plaice that had taken my bottom bait. Not too long afterwards, this scenario played out again almost exactly, and with the aid of my extendable net, a second much bigger plaice was landed!

At 47.5cm this is the biggest plaice I've ever caught from the shore!

Over the next few hours my rods sat pretty much motionless. I was hopeful that darkness would bring some action, but things didn't really improve much. Occasionally, I was getting strange little indications, so I wound up one of my rigs and swapped out the hooklengths for some coarse fishing #26 hooks to nylon. Baiting them with miniscule flecks of raw prawn, I dropped them down expecting the next bite to result in a tiny goby or some other micro species I'd caught before, but you never know! More time passed, with nothing happening, not even the little taps, and to be honest I was contemplating calling it a night, when my tiny hook rigged rod began twitching away. Picking it up, whatever was on the end felt bigger than a small goby and was putting up a strange fight. As it came up to the surface, I got quite a shock when I realised that it was a rather big pipefish! My first ever, it turned out to be a specimen greater pipefish.

What a bizarre fish! Cousin of the seahorse, they have a bony armoured body, but are surprisingly flexible. While trying to get some photos it kept moving its long tail around in a circling motion!

With a long straw like snout, they slurp up their food. I'm not sure what they normally eat to be honest, but was certainly glad this one had taken a tiny piece of raw prawn!

A totally unexpected bonus species, I was over the moon to catch my first ever species of pipefish. It was also my 93rd saltwater species in the UK, so I now only require ten more to hit my target of one hundred. I carried on fishing for a couple more hours but nothing else was biting, so I packed up and headed along the coast to my accommodation, happy in the knowledge that regardless of what happened during the rest of the trip, it most certainly had been worthwhile visiting Hartlepool Marina!

The next day, I didn't get up too early and after breakfast I decided to visit the exposed intertidal rocks on the shoreline between Pilot Pier and Heugh Breakwater. I wasn't expecting anything unusual there, but it was a lovely day, and I was still in a high spirits after the previous day's specimen plaice and greater pipefish. Carefully making my way down over the bladderwrack covered rocks, I eventually found a few rockpools that looked quite promising and spending some time dangling tiny pieces of prawn into potential hiding spots eventually produced a few fish.

My playground for a few hours of rockpooling fun.

Slightly deeper rockpools with large rocks in them provide perfect hiding places for small ambush predators and highly territorial species.

I caught a few tiny long spined sea scorpions. They're super aggressive, and if present, quickly rush out to gobble a tiny bait.

Common blenny are a bit more cautious. They won't dart out and prefer the bait put inside their hiding place or at least right next to it, so they can grab it and retreat to safety. Once caught they like to bite you, which I still find very amusing.

Walking back to the car, feeling quite relaxed and enjoying the sun, I passed a mural featuring a local angler who seemed to be struggling to catch anything.

Andy Capp wasn't having much luck with the lumpsucker either.

After some lunch, I headed back to Hartlepool Marina for another session. Hoping that lightning would strike twice, and I'd somehow catch my second new species of the trip in the shape of a lumpsucker, it was very slow. Towards the end of the session, Bill, the local angler who had spotted the lumpsucker last week, came down to say hello, so at least I had someone to talk to for the last hour or two. It was great chatting to him and the info he shared on the lumpsucker and their behaviour was very interesting. A few have been seen and some of those caught over the last few years in Hartlepool Marina, in fact only one person that he knew of had caught one fishing blind. As we chatted away, my rods sat still, and by the time I threw in the towel the only thing that I'd landed was a solitary large common prawn.

Crustaceans do not count! I'd suffered my first blank of 2026.

The following morning, I met up with Bill and another local angler named Kev. Meeting up near the marina, we walked out across Middleton Beach to fish in some rockpools next to Middleton Pier that were about to be exposed over low tide. They were both fairly confident that we'd be able to catch viviparous blenny, a species I normally target in the open sea, so the prospect of catching them from rockpools was a fairly novel concept to me.

Bill & Kev patiently searching for our target species.

One of several long spined sea scorpion I kicked the session off with.

Eventually I caught a common blenny from a deeper hole.

The rockpool that Bill had caught nine viviparous blenny from during one session a previous year, sadly didn't produce any, and left us wondering if there were any around. The lads explained that recent storms had moved a lot of the boulders around and sand had also filled in some of the cracks underneath some of the larger rocks too, limiting likely spots somewhat. Working our way along the base of the pier, Kev found a dark recess and dropping a piece of isome in, pulled out the first viviparous blenny of the session.

I think this is the first viviparous blenny time I've seen caught from a rockpool.

As we carried on exploring all the nooks and crannies we could find, a few more long spined sea scorpion were caught. The deeper and darker the hole, the bigger they got. Some also had some beautiful spots on the back sides of their pectoral fins.

The colour variations in long spined sea scorpions are diverse, but these marking are pretty awesome too.

The biggest long spined sea scorpion I caught.

As the tide turned and began to flood, we doubled back and made our way back towards the shore. When we reached the spot where Kev had caught the viviparous blenny, I dropped my bait into the same spot. It wasn't in there long before a fish was pulling my rod tip down and the second viviparous blenny of the session was quickly pulled out.

My first viviparous blenny from a rockpool. A new way to target them that I might try locally.

Bill then encouraged me to drop my split shot rig down into a small but particularly deep hole. Rather than a gap in rocks in a rockpool, it was part of the foundations of the pier and the hole went down a few feet. Again, it didn't take too long for a fish to take my bait and pull my rod tip down. Pulling it out, I could tell it was a bigger fish and was quite surprised when a shore rockling appeared!

My first shore rockling from a rockpool too!

Three beards does not always make it a three bearded rockling!

By that point, the tide was about to cut us off, so we made our way back up onto the sea coal covered sands of Middleton Beach. It had been great fishing with Bill and Kev, I'd really enjoyed their company and had learned a new approach for targeting viviparous blenny that may prove to be useful in the future at similar venues.

Middleton beach is covered in a layer of sea coal giving it a jet black appearance.

Heading back to our cars, I thanked Bill and Kev for inviting me to join them, sharing their knowledge, and then we said our goodbyes. After some lunch, I decided to make the three hour drive back up the road. It had turned out to be a very enjoyable trip. The specimen plaice and the unexpected bonus capture of the greater pipefish made the tough fishing in the marina well worth the effort and the time spent rockpooling had also been very enjoyable too. I'd gone to try to catch a lumpsucker, but despite having failed to do that, it felt like I'd gained a lot more out of the trip. A new PB plaice, a new species, and I'd also met two local anglers who had given me valuable information and shown me a new way to target viviparous blenny. All that being said, the draw of catching a lumpsucker might see me returning to Hartlepool again very soon!

Tight lines, Scott.

Two fishes, one tank.

At the beginning of last week, I made the last minute decision to drive down to the southwest coast of the UK for three days to do some species hunting. Based on what some other anglers had been catching in September, I had five targets in mind. Four of them I’ve caught before, but never in the UK. These were...

Black faced blenny. I caught this one on São Miguel, in the Azores.

Comber. I caught this one on Gran Canaria.

Common pandora. I caught this one on Madeira.

Couch's seabream. I caught this one on Lanzarote.

I also had some reliable info from my mate Donny on a spot where I could perhaps catch a Couch’s goby, a rare species that I’ve never caught before. There are very localised populations of this species of goby in the UK, but they are also found in Ireland and in the Mediterranean, where this one was photographed...

A Couch's goby, photographed in Croatia. Note the second dorsal fin is taller than the first, a key distinguishing feature.
Like Couch's seabream, both species are named after Jonathan Couch, the Cornish ichthyologist and naturalist.

I decided to base myself in Weymouth, and arriving midafternoon after the long drive down, I headed over to Portland to check out a black faced blenny spot my mate Donny had found whilst snorkeling and had shared with me. The shipwrecks and reefs inside Portland Harbour are known to hold a healthy population of this diminutive species and over the last year or so, lots of anglers have been wading and snorkelling in various coastal spots around Weymouth and Portland both observing and catching the UK’s only resident triplefin.

The spot is only really fishable over low tide, and quite by chance the tide was still dropping and approaching low when I got there. It's also great because it allows you to sight fish for the black faced blenny without having to get wet! I fished for just over an hour, and in that time, despite the wind creating a bit of unwanted surface disturbance, I did manage to spot a couple of black faced blenny! Sadly, when I presented my small ragworm bait to them, I managed to spook both of them, and they quickly shot off out of sight. Feeling tired, I was encouraged by successfully locating them and would return two days later when the conditions were calmer, which might help me present my bait a little better. Before heading off to check into my accommodation, I fished nearby and caught some sand smelt, juvenile pollock and wrasse.

The following morning, I got up very early and drove west to Devon, where I met up at first light with a group of light rock fishing enthusiasts. The Big Lerf Weekender Worldwide Species Hunt had just taken place the weekend previously, and a visiting angler from Switzerland named Mathias, who was one of the anglers I would be fishing with, had caught half a dozen comber whilst participating. It’s a species that has been turning up more often this year, caught mainly by boat anglers, but also occasionally from the shore, so we were all hopeful that we could perhaps catch them too! Being a very aggressive predatory species, I knew that if any were around, there was a very good chance that we would catch them.

Rather disappointingly, it was a very slow morning, with the bites being few and far between. A few juvenile pollock, a whiting and a couple of black goby were all I caught, and the other guys also struggled. Just before high water I caught a nice ballan wrasse, but other than that the fishing was very poor.

This small ballan wrasse was the only real highlight of a very poor session.

In the afternoon, when the tide was almost fully out, the fishing became even slower. I tried moving around, but all I caught were a few more pin whiting and some sand goby. Feeling like I had caught the sun, I had a break and a spot of lunch. Meanwhile, some of the lads tried to keep themselves entertained by seeing who could be the first to catch a trio of goby species.

Donny, Rich and Aaron battle it out to see who can be first to catch a black, rock and sand goby.

It was around that point that I decided to call it a day and make the drive back to Dorset. I was feeling pretty shattered and might have stayed for longer if the fishing had been good, but it had been nothing short of terrible really, and I just didn’t think it was going to improve that much when the tide came back in, so I said goodbye to the lads and headed off.

The next day, I had a much-needed lie in. Feeling slightly refreshed, I drove back to Portland for another go at catching a black faced blenny. The wind had changed direction, and as a result the surface of the sea was nice and flat. This helped me to sight fish and I located a large specimen fairly quickly. Slowly lowering my split shot rig down fairly close to it, at first the fish didn’t react at all, but then it suddenly turned around, greedily ate the small piece of ragworm that I’d baited my tanago hook with and then sat motionless again. Quickly striking, the fish was hooked, and lifting it up out of the water into my waiting hand, I’d caught my first ever black faced blenny in the UK! Quickly unhooking it, I carefully popped it into my photo tank and put the lid on.

I’ve been after one of these in the UK for a very long time. I had my first attempt on Swanage Pier over a decade ago!

Having added a species to my UK lifelist, I was keen to add a second and as the Couch’s goby spot wasn’t very far away, I headed straight there. I thought it might be a fairly easy one to catch, as most goby species are not in the least bit shy. Three hours later and all I’d manage to catch on my one up one down rig with tiny pieces of ragworm on size 26 hooks were a few corkwing wrasse and over a dozen rock goby.

A few corkwing wrasse located and ate my tiny pieces of ragworm.

There were plenty of very hungry rock goby around.

I was beginning to think perhaps I wasn’t in the right spot when I finally caught a smaller goby that looked a little different. I moved away from the water’s edge, carefully unhooked the goby, and gently placed it into my tank for a better look to confirm my suspicions.

My first ever Couch’s goby! Difficult to make out in this photo, but its second dorsal fin was noticeably taller than its first.

Very pleased to have added two species to my UK lifelist, I headed back to my Weymouth to get some food and an early night as I planned to make an early start the following day.

I didn’t sleep very well that night, and when I got up in the morning, I couldn’t decide if I should make a seven-hour round trip to Cornwall to fish for common pandora and Couch’s seabream, or just forget about adding species to my UK tally and make the much shorter drive to Swanage Pier, where I could just have a relaxing day fishing. In the end, I tossed a coin and ended up “heading” all the way to Cornwall. I wish I had flipped tails, because after driving all that way, I didn’t get a single bite!. Not a single nibble! A blank was a terrible end to what was overall a pretty poor three days' fishing. By the time I got back to Weymouth, I was completely shattered and decided just to drive up the road the next day.

So, it was without doubt the worst fishing I've ever experienced in Devon and Cornwall, but thanks to the information given to me by Donny, Dorset had produced two of my five target species, so I can’t complain too much. I’d probably have settled for catching two new UK species at the start of the trip! Next year I'd like to spend more time down there over the summer, hopefully the fishing will be much better, and I can add a few more species to my UK lifelist. I've now caught eighty-nine species from saltwater in the UK, and I'd like to get that up to one hundred!

Tight lines, Scott.