Stuck in a rut.

Since returning from the Isle of Lewis at the end of May, I haven't been feeling very good. In fact, my symptoms have probably gotten worse: Constantly feeling fatigued, and having aching arms and legs isn’t much fun. As a result, I’ve been out fishing less than I normally would over the start of the summer months, usually choosing to stay fairly local when I have ventured out. A trip down to Torness Power Station midway through June didn’t produce that many fish, but a few leopard spotted goby and a butterfish were in amongst those I managed to catch, bringing a smile to my face. 

If pushed, I’d probably say that the leopard spotted goby is the coolest of all the UK goby species.

Butterfish are cool, and it's always fun to catch them!

Before heading back up the road, I quickly visited the sea defence boulders around at the station’s hot water outlet. My objective there, was to catch my first common blenny of the year. It didn't take long at all!

This shanny eagerly munched a small piece of prawn. 

Later in June, I also met up with a young American species hunter named Dominik, who was in Edinburgh for a few days before he and his family headed north on a Scottish road trip. We spent a few hours fishing beneath the lighthouse at Newhaven Harbour. It was a very productive session, during which, Dominik added a few new species to his lifelist, including butterfish, which we caught lots of. In amongst the more common species found there, all of which were new to Dominik, we also caught about a dozen grey gurnard, and towards the end of the session, I caught my first viviparous blenny of the year.

Dominik’s first ever butterfish. One of seven we caught between the two of us!

We also caught lots of juvenile grey gurnard.

My first viviparous blenny of the year. Another mini species I really enjoy catching!

So, I only went fishing a couple of times in June, but on both occasions, whilst the sessions may have been fairly short, they were very enjoyable! I might not have been feeling great, but getting out had cheered me a bit. I really enjoyed meeting up with Dominik and helping another species hunter successfully catch a few new species is always very satisfying.

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.

Packing for Norway.

Two weeks ago, when I really should have been packing my bags for a one week trip to Norway, I put doing that off until the last minute and crammed several fishing sessions in hunting for a topknot. With the summer coming to an end, I guess I figured I had better make the most of what was left of it. By the time I got back from Scandinavia it would be Autumn after all.

The weather wasn’t great when I visited Torness Power Station for my first session, but I tucked myself away down in the sea defence boulders and dropped live prawn down into the deepest holes I could find.

This nice deep hole didn’t produce a topknot,..

…only this solitary blenny.

After a few pretty fruitless hours, scrambling around the rocks and not catching much, I drove down to St Abbs to try my luck there. The fishing there was much more productive, and there were lots of ballan wrasse around that were more than happy to munch a live prawn. A few long spined sea scorpion found them tempting as well. I’m sure a topknot would eagerly eat one too. I suppose I just didn’t manage to put my bait near one.

The rocky areas surrounding the outside of St Abbs harbour held plenty of ballan wrasse.

They're home to a few long spined sea scorpions too.

A couple of days later, I headed back to St Abbs again, this time to fish Starney Bay from the rocks on its right hand side.

Only accessible at low tide, I hadn’t visited the rocks on the right of Starney Bay for a long time.

It was a beautiful day when I made my way down from the coastal path, scrambled over the rocks and finally got out onto the point, and I was soon catching a few fish. Dropping sections of ragworm and live prawns down close to the vertical rock surfaces produced a couple of ballan wrasse, which were followed by a succession of coalfish.

Coalfish give a great account of themselves on ultralight tackle.

I did intend to stay on the rocks for several hours, but a change in the weather forced me to alter my plans. Thankfully, I made it back across the gully that fills up as the tide rises just in time, otherwise I would have been stuck out on the point for a few hours in the rain. By the time I made it to St Abbs Harbour, the blue sky had been replaced by dark grey rain clouds passing overhead, and I did end up getting slightly wet a few times as rain sporadically fell. I focused my efforts on lowering live prawns down the vertical concrete surfaces, exploring as much of them as I could. I may have been slightly damp, but the fishing was pretty good, and I was also rewarded with some pretty spectacular rainbows.

Somewhere over the rainbow, topknot lie.

Live prawn has become one of my favourite baits this year. Fish love them, collecting them is easy, and best of all they are free!

One of several chunky ballan wrasse I caught.

I carried on fishing into darkness, working over the same areas I’d covered earlier in the session. Eventually, I ran out of prawns, so I switched to sections of ragworm. This produced a couple of long spined sea scorpion and a small lobster.

A bizarre creature, but sadly not the one I’ve been after for weeks!

Two days later, Lillian and I went for a walk around Butterdean Wood in East Lothian. Afterwards, we visited the inlet area at Torness Power Station where I was permitted to fish for a couple of hours to use up some ragworm I had left over from my previous session. This produced a few wrasse, and a couple of other species, but once again no funky flatfish, unfortunately.

Yet another ballan wrasse over 40cm on ultralight tackle,..

...a colourful corkwing wrasse,..

...a nicely coloured small codling,..

...and a couple of butterfish. I think those take me into double digits of butterfish caught this year!

Just as we were about to leave, another angler who was heading off offered me some cracking, freshly dug ragworm. At that point, I had no intention of fishing the following day as I still had to pack for Norway, but this generous offer was too good to turn down, so I gratefully accepted the free bait.

So, the day before I flew out to Norway, and with most of my packing still to do, I headed west to Gourock, to use my newly acquired supply of fantastic quality worms for one final pre holiday topknot session. At the first spot, rather unsurprisingly, all I caught was endless wrasse and a few tompot blenny and long spined sea scorpion.

If I never catch another goldsinny wrasse again...

Three tompot blenny made a nice change from the endless wrasse!

My mate Andrew popped down to fish with me on his lunch hour, and as we caught more of the same species I'd been pulling out all morning, we had a good chat about topknot. Just after he left to go back to work, I headed along to a try a second spot in Greenock that I know has produced several topknot this year. I only had a small amount of ragworm left, and the resident goldsinny and corkwing wrasse rapidly set about depleting that. Almost out of bait completely, a fairly gentle take resulted in all hell breaking loose when I lifted into it. A large fish started stripping line from my reel at a worrying rate. Luckily, the fish didn’t dive into the submerged rocks, instead charging off, swimming furiously away from me horizontally just above them. It made a few of these surging runs before I eventually got it up to the surface. Extending my net down, a large ballan wrasse was drawn into it and lifted up onto the venue's distinctive cobbled brick.

43cm of very chunky ballan wrasse. I didn't bother weighing it, but I'm confident it was my heaviest one of the year on ultralight gear. A real test of the tackle I was using!

I had a last few drops after catching the large ballan wrasse and caught a few more goldsinny wrasse, but it was soon time to head back to Edinburgh to do what I had been putting off all week, pack my suitcase full of fishing tackle! Sadly, a fishing session packed week in the lead up to my Norwegian adventure had not produced a topknot. I’m back from Norway now, and I’ll keep trying to catch a topknot in the coming weeks. The days will be gettting shorter soon, so I’ll be out after dark more often too I think. The wrasse should be less of an obstacle once the sun has vanished below the horizon and topknot are supposed to be more active at night as well.

Tight lines, Scott.

Three new Scottish species in one day!

I’m off to Norway at the end of August with two of my mates, Nick and Ryan. We met up yesterday down at the outflow area of Torness Power Station to catch up, discuss our upcoming Scandinavian adventure and hopefully catch some mullet on freelined bread flake. Despite there being lots of mullet around it proved to be incredibly frustrating trying to catch them. Even more so than usual! After a couple of hours, a few had been hooked, but most hadn’t stayed hooked for very long, and the few that had, threw the hook at the net. Nick got a dog earlier this year, so he had to head off to take it out for a walk. Ryan and I carried on fishing and eventually a small mullet took his bread, was well hooked, and I netted it for him after a short fight. 

Ryan was over the moon to catch his first Scottish thick lipped mullet.

We fished on for a bit longer, but eventually I admitted defeat, and the two of us headed around to the inlet area to fish for a few more hours. There we fished small pieces of ragworm, black lug and prawns to see what mini species we could catch. The bites came sporadically, but when they did come, we were steadily racking up a few different species.

I’ve caught a few goldsinny wrasse down at Torness Power Station now. They seem to be fairly localised in only a few specific spots.

I’ve caught way more than my fair share of butterfish lately, and added another to my tally, this being number eight!

We both also caught a few leopard spotted goby.

After a short quiet period, Ryan hooked a fish, and as he wound it up I looked down from our elevated position to see what it was? As it reached the surface, I could see that it was a Yarrell’s blenny. I knew this was a species that Ryan really wanted to catch, so I told him to lift it up from the water and over the fence in front of us quickly, without actually telling him what it was. Luckily, the fish was well hooked and made it up onto the platform. Ryan was ecstatic when he saw what he’d caught!

Ryan was thrilled to catch his first Yarrell's blenny.

Ever since he witnessed me catch one last year, Yarrell's blenny has been top of his mini species wish list!

Before we left, we decided to clamber down the defence boulders to have a few casts with metal jigs to see if there were any mackerel around. This turned out to be a waste of time. 

I search the deep inlet channel with a 10g metal jig. 

There may have been no mackerel around, but Ryan did catch a greater sandeel just before we left. This was his third new species of the day, but didn’t seem to excite him quite the same way as the first two had. He didn’t even bother taking a photo of it, instead just quickly unhooking it and throwing it back. All in all an enjoyable session, and it was great to see someone else getting a new species adrenaline rush a couple of times! 

Tight lines, Scott.

In the zone.

I popped down to Newhaven Harbour again this afternoon. I’m quite enjoying fishing there at the moment, three visits in four days is testament to that! Whilst the quantity of fish caught isn’t anything spectacular, it’s been pretty reliable in terms of the species present. The weather wasn’t great today, and it did rain again, but it was fairly light and only lasted about half an hour. 

Dull, with rain on the horizon. 

Employing the same simple tactics as my first two sessions, dropping small pieces of ragworm straight down the side of the wall, I winkled out two of the less frequently caught mini species I’ve been repeatedly catching there already.

My fourth viviparous blenny in as many days,..

…and my seventh butterfish in the last six days!

All three visits have produced both butterfish and viviparous blenny. Clearly, there are small, healthy populations of both of these interesting mini species present. It may sound like catching them is easy, but they’re actually fairly localised within a short section of the wall. Fishing outside this relatively small area or not close enough to the vertical surface, and you wouldn’t know either species were there because it’s highly unlikely you would catch either of them. As a species hunter, I find it very satisfying figuring these things out and then being able to target and catch specific species consistently.

Tight lines, Scott.

...but didn't stay long.

Well, rather predictably, the nice weather we had on Friday didn’t last long. There was no sign of the sun at all yesterday, it was grey and rained several times throughout the day. At least it wasn’t windy, that’s something I suppose. Despite these slightly miserable conditions, in the evening I met up with a couple of mates at Newhaven Harbour to target mini species. 

An overcast and soon to be wet Newhaven Harbour. 

Scratching around with little pieces of ragworm on small hooks, things were quite slow, but eventually a few fish were caught, including my fifth butterfish of the week! After a while I caught my second viviparous blenny in as many days as well.

Butterfish are very slippery customers. 

Also known as eelpout, viviparous blenny are tricky to handle too. Wriggling and writhing around when you try to hold them, making unhooking them tricky at times. A wet towel comes in handy. 

About an hour after meeting up it started to rain again. Lovely. After catching a lot of micro whiting and a small long spined sea scorpion, I then caught the only two wrasse of the session. Normally by this time of year there are quite a few wrasse around but they still seem to be a lot thinner on the ground than they usually are. 

First up was this goldsinny wrasse.

Followed shortly afterwards by this small ballan wrasse. 

After about three hours, it was still raining, we were all pretty wet, and the bites had pretty much dried up, so we decided to end the session. The arrival of some feather throwing mackerel bashers making this decision a little easier!

Tight lines, Scott.

Summer has arrived…

Getting up this morning and looking out of the window I was puzzled by the weather. There was very little wind and the sun was out. Excited by this rare occurrence I decided to visit a couple of local spots today armed with a few ragworm. First up was Newhaven Harbour.

Blue skies? Calm conditions? Oh my god!

Not sure how long the freak weather would last, I decided just to fish the last two hours of the ebbing tide at the mouth of the harbour, dropping small pieces of ragworm tight down the sides of the walls. Things were pretty slow, but eventually a few fish started having a go at my bait and I caught some cool mini species. 

Ragworm. Yummy!

My first viviparous blenny of the year. 

My fourth butterfish this week! This one did a spot of breakdancing as I tried to get a hold of it to remove the hook. 

Eventually it tired itself out!

As low water arrived, the bites dried up so I decided to head to the exposed boulders opposite the entrance to Leith Docks. Not much to report from there apart from a few tiny whiting. I tied on a 7g metal jig and had a few casts with that to see if there were any mackerel around, but if they were around they weren’t impressed by my efforts! 

Probably the smallest whiting I’ve ever caught!

Before leaving, I dropped my ragworm section down into some holes in the boulders I was standing on. This surprisingly didn’t produce any fish. Something did grab my bait though, and it felt quite strong, violently pulling my rod tip down a few times. Initially I thought it was a small cod or a wrasse thumping away, but it turned out to be a tiny lobster, using its tail to try and make its escape. 

Lobster are such strange creatures. Their bulky, powerful claws look ridiculous when compared to their thin, spindly legs. 

Their colours are amazing too. 

I persisted for a while, but with no fish biting I called it a day and headed home. A short, fun session and for some reason my head has gone a little bit red. I’ll be heading out again to Newhaven Harbour tomorrow evening to fish the last few hours of the flooding tide. I wonder if it’ll still be summer? Who knows, I might have to put some factor on!

Tight lines, Scott.