Hunting new UK species whilst on "staycation" in England and Wales.

At the beginning of September, Lillian packed a case, I packed some fishing tackle and we jumped in the car and headed south on a two week long "staycation", a tour of various locations around England and Wales. While we were away, as well as doing a lot of sightseeing, I took the opportunity to try and catch a few new UK species and also meet up with some of my fishing mates along the way to wet a line.

After visiting Whitby, York, Leamington Spa and Warwick we made our way further south to Nottingham where I made my first attempt at catching a new species from the River Trent, a water that has a healthy population of spined loach, cousin of the stone loach.

The spined loach, a tiny fish that many anglers have probably never heard of, let alone caught. It is only found in five river systems in the east of England.

Armed with my tanago setup, my approach was quite simple, fishing in the margins ledgering small chunks of pinky maggot on the bottom in silty areas fairly close to the edge. Loach are normally nocturnal, but as I discovered recently, when I caught my first stone loach, they can be tempted to feed during daylight hours. The problem with that tactic however, is that most other species in the river also feed during the day. Quite predictably, my bait didn't stay on the bottom very long before being eaten by other small fish instead of my target.

Minimalist tackle means you can be very mobile, so we wandered along the river, enjoying the scenery and I tried numerous spots with my tiny tanago rod.

As well as lots of roach and perch, I caught a few dace...

...and some nice rudd too, but as I pretty much expected, no spined loach.

After a few hours, we walked back to the car and headed further southeast, so I could have another go at catching a spined loach from the Nene washes. They are a system of large ditches that act as a flood storage reservoir for the River Nene. They also supposedly have high concentrations of spined loach in them. Sadly, I had no luck there either, instead catching lots of roach and a couple of small perch. Having enjoyed catching a fair amount of fish at both venues I wasn't too disappointed, besides, I knew that catching a spined loach was a long shot, especially during the day. I might have to revisit these venues on my own for some nighttime sessions next year during the summer.

The next destination on our itinerary was the market town of Sudbury, where we'd pay my mate Lee a visit. It was nice to see him again and also to meet his new girlfriend for the first time. We had dinner in the evening and the next day we headed out for a few hours to target chub on the River Stour. Lee has caught some cracking chub on various small lures on very light tackle over the last few years since he moved back to Sudbury, and he was confident we would catch some.

Lee with a nice lure caught chub.

As it turned out the fishing was quite tough, but I was happy enough when I eventually caught my first chub from a river, having only ever caught them from coarse fishery ponds.

My first River Stour chub. Not a new species for me, but still a first, so I was chuffed to catch it on a freelined carp pellet. Much smaller than some of the fish we spooked and failed to tempt, but I didn't care.

In the evening, after another tasty meal, we headed out again to Ely, where we spent a few hours trying to catch zander on lures from the River Ouse at a well known spot that's popular with lure anglers. Again, Lee had caught a few nice ones there, so hopes were high, and again whilst I've caught them before it had been a while, so I was keen to catch one again.

They only come out at night.

The session got off to a good start when I caught a nice pike and then we both caught a few perch as the sun began to set. After dark we were sure the zeds would come out to play, but unfortunately we failed to get any interest at all from them. Still, it was an enjoyable session in good company. 

Leaving Lee early the following morning, we drove southwest to our next English city, Portsmouth. On the way we stopped for an hour or so and joined the crowds to have a walk around Stonehenge, and then we stopped in Romsey, so I could try to catch another new species, the topmouth gudgeon. An ornamental fish farm near Romsey is believed to have been the entry point into the UK for this invasive species in the early 80s. From there it spread around England and Wales in the mouths of other coarse fish. The Environment Agency has been trying to eradicate them for years and have been quite successful in achieving this I believe, although a few isolated populations still remain.

It was very busy when we visited the ancient stones. Very difficult to get a photo with no other tourists in it.

Perched on a tree stump watching a tiny pole float I was quite content.

This is what a topmouth gudgeon looks like. A small, but extremely naughty little fish.

Fishing with my tanago setup again, this time armed with some squat maggots, I had lots of fun catching endless roach, perch, rudd, dace, minnows and gudgeon but failed to get "lucky" with the destructive invasive species, so I didn't have to contact the Environment Agency to let them know I had found a population.

We continued on to Portsmouth, which was only on our tour because my mate Adam had promised me he would take me out on his boat there to his secret brill mark. He also caught a few butterfly blennies earlier this year and if I'm honest that was the inspiration for the entire trip!

Adam with a chunky ballan wrasse.

A brill Adam caught with its dorsal frill on show.

The totally awesome butterfly blenny Adam also caught.

The trip was actually in doubt due to the conditions over the days leading up to it, but they calmed down enough on the day, allowing us to go out. It was actually a lovely day and I had to apply some sun cream to stop myself being burned. It turned out to be a very tough session though. Adam caught a couple of bass and a dogfish from the small bank we were fishing over and all I managed to catch was a solitary black bream. Despite this, I enjoyed Adam's company and several interesting conversations we had about fish and catching them. I don't think Adam will mind me saying he's a bit of a nerd like me when it comes to these topics! I'd love to go back down next year for another go at catching a brill and if possible I'll time it to coincide with the arrival of the butterfly blennies in the summer.

Back to port and back to the brill drawing board.

The next morning we headed west to fish inside Brixham harbour. My target there was a ringneck blenny, a species I've caught before in the Mediterranean and the Canary Islands, but never in the UK. Using ragworm as bait in an area swarming with wrasse probably wasn't the best choice, but I thought it would also give me the best chance of catching one, so I used it anyway. After about four hours of endless corkwing, ballan, cuckoo and goldsinny wrasse, as well as fair numbers of pouting and the odd tompot blenny, juvenile pollock and rock goby I finally caught my target.

Good quality ragworm. Wrasse and mini species love it!

The first successful session of the entire trip produced my first ever ringneck blenny in the UK.

It has two rings going around its neck hence the name.

No reason to hang about any longer I quickly packed up and we jumped back into the car. We then drove all the way to Rhossli in South West Wales where we'd stay in the Worm's Head Hotel for three nights. The area was stunning, with high cliffs and beautiful long sandy beaches. Whilst in the area I had two sessions on Mumbles Pier attempting to catch my first ever grey triggerfish, but the conditions had just began to settle down after a windy period and the fishing was extremely challenging. Over the two sessions I only managed to catch two fish, a tiny black bream and a corkwing wrasse. Other anglers fishing did confirm that plenty of triggerfish had been caught over the previous months so I'll just have to return next summer I guess to try again.

The highlight of two difficult sessions fishing on Mumbles Pier.

The last place we visited was Bangor in North Wales which we used as a base to visit Snowdonia National Park and Anglesey. I only had two short sessions here and no new species were targeted. The first session was from the rocks on the northern side of Trearddur Bay. Sections of ragworm fished on my ultra light setup produced some great sport from the resident wrasse.

This ballan was the biggest fish of the trip and put a nice bend in my Rock Rover.

Fishing over a sandy area further into the bay also produced a few sand goby. Fun too, they just require a different set of skills to catch.

Whilst in the area we met up with my mate Ross for a spot of lunch with his new girlfriend in a small eatery in Menai Bridge. Afterwards we drove up to Amlwch Harbour where we did a spot of mini species hunting. Just relaxing fun really and whilst we did rack up a few species it was more about catching up with Ross for a few hours than catching fish. His job means he spends a fair amount of time out of the country guiding in Norway and other exotic desinations. Now he's bought a house in Wales and settled down a bit, finding time to meet up might get even tougher, so it was great to see him again.

Ross guides in Norway, where he also catches a few fish like this impressive halibut.

He also guides in more exotic destinations. This giant trevally was caught on Rodrigues Island, a territory of Maritius.

The end of our "staycation" had almost arrived and it was time to drive back up the road to Edinburgh. We planned in two stops to break up the journey. First we stopped at Kingsdown Flash in Abram so I could catch a few bitterling on my tanago rod. Not targeting a new species, just having a bit of fun. My approach being more refined than previous visits I caught dozens of the diminutive fish, pretty much one every cast at every peg I fished from as we wandered around the small venue.

Good eyesight is required to put a tiny piece of a pinky maggot on a tango hook.

This is actually a very large bitterling. Most of them I caught were much smaller. They're very pretty fish that photos don't do justice to sadly.

Our next stop saw us taking a slight detour into the Lake District so that Lillian could visit The World of Beatrix Potter Attraction close to Lake Windermere. I didn't read the books when I was a child but appreciated anglers being represented in one of the scenes.

Mr Jeremy Fisher playing a fish. Not sure which species.

I enjoyed our "staycation". The weather had played a part in making some of the fishing tough but I was happy that I'd added a species to my all time UK tally. Really it was nice to spend time with Lillian in some nice places we'd never visited before and also catch up with some of the good friends I've met through my fishing adventures over the years. There are still several species I've never caught in the UK before, particularly on the south coast of England, so I'll be back down there again soon. Adam tells me the butterfly blennies appear in July, so perhaps I'll do a little trip down then.

Tight lines, Scott.

Letting the fish out of the bag.

When I think of goldfish I recall seeing them when I visited fairgrounds, hanging up in plastic bags full of water for people to try and win by playing a game and if successful to take home and keep as a pet. The owner of Forest Lane Fishery near York has found another use for these pretty fish and has stocked his ponds with them instead of F1 carp. Like F1 carp they feed all year round, by all accounts the goldfish have flourished at the fishery and are regularly caught too so I headed down the A1 early last Friday morning to see if I could catch one myself.

A nice orange goldfish, just like the ones I remember from my childhood visits to fairgrounds, welcomes anglers to the fishery. 

After speaking to the fishery's owners in its on site cafe I made my way around and set up my seat box on peg three of "The Oaklands" pond. I got my gear ready and began fishing single maggot on a #18 hook under an insert waggler about a rod length out. It didn't take long to get a few bites and I was soon catching a few perch, roach, rudd and small bream. I had been fishing for an hour or so when a white and orange goldfish appeared just below the surface right in front of me and cruised around for a while before disappearing again. It was almost as if the fish was taunting me but I took it as an encouraging sign that they were present in my swim and reasoned that a bit of persistence would hopefully see me catch one of them. After a few more small fish something bigger took my float under and striking into it the fish charged off taking some line. Initially I thought it was a carp as it stayed deep but when it finally came to the surface I was pleasantly surprised to discover I had caught a barbel, a species I've never caught before. 

A very nice looking fish and my first new freshwater species of the year. I was impressed by its stamina, they are a very muscular fish. 

Another angler very kindly took this photo of me with the fish. 

Tired from its exertions in the fight I held the fish upright at the edge to let it recover before it swam off. 

The angler who took the photo was fishing a couple of pegs along from me with a pole, catching mostly carp and tench and we got talking. I asked what bait he was using and he told me it was cooked prawns which he very kindly gave me a handful of. I use raw prawns a lot in my saltwater fishing but I've never used cooked prawns so I was curious to try them. I scaled up to a #14 hook, put a small chunk on and the results were impressive. I caught a carp on the first cast and several more afterwards. A few more barbel took the cooked prawn and I also caught a few tench on it.

The cooked prawns chunks worked a treat and also totally eliminated the small silver fish and perch from my catches. 

One of the lovely tench that fell to the cooked prawn. I'll certainly be using them again for sure. 

The fish kept on coming and I was really enjoying myself. So much so that I had almost forgotten why I had made the journey, until that is I caught a fish that at first I thought was a small common carp but upon closer inspection once landed I realised was my first goldfish.

A fairly drab example of the species but I was very happy to have caught my target. 

Carp, barbel and tench kept coming and after a while I caught a second goldfish. It was a much prettier fish with an elongated tail, beautiful violet and orange tones and scattered golden scales. I'd later discover that this variety of goldfish is called a shubunkin. 

Goldfish come in a vast array of colours and with different fins shapes. Some varieties even have a double tail fin. 

The shubunkin has a long tail and is partially scaled like a mirror carp. A very pretty fish indeed. 

Eventually I used up my pile of cooked prawns and decided to try something else on my hook. I had a small jar of Japanese bait manufacturer Marukyu's JPZ hooking pellets in my seat box that I bought some time ago and had never used so I gave them a go. 

These pellets are made of a soft jelly and are strongly scented. 

I went for a "sweetcornesque" presentation of two jelly pellets on the hook. 

To be honest I was a bit sceptical about how effective they'd be but I was pleasantly surprised by how good they were. The fish loved them and again using them eliminated the smaller silver fish and perch from my catches. 

Another nice little mirror carp. 

I love tench. 

I caught a few common carp too. 

Before I knew it the time came to start packing up as the fishery closes at 18:00. While doing so I kept fishing and as I didn't have an eye on my float all of the time I loosened the drag off on my reel. A small chub was first to interrupt me cleaning down my gear. This was followed by a nice barbel that picked up my bait and charged off towards the far corner of the pond. Despite my drag being loose it still managed to pull my rod out of its rest and almost into the water. I just managed to lunge forward and grab the butt before it went in. After landing the fish, which was the biggest of the day, I thought it was a nice one to end the day on and broke my rod down. 

Catching this solitary chub meant I had caught all the species that were present in the pond. 

This is the barbel that almost pulled my rod in. 

I had really enjoyed a fantastic day's fishing at a lovely and quite unique fishery. I think the decision to stock the ponds with goldfish instead of F1 carp makes it a little different and gives it a unique appeal and for me it was certainly well worth making the drive down. I was also surprised by the strength of barbel too. I knew they were a hard fighting fish but they really give a good account of themselves. I caught quite a lot of them and even the small ones were great fun. I'm determined to target them in a river now with the eventual goal of catching one from the River Clyde. Using the cooked prawns and jelly pellets during the session also served as a reminder that whilst maggots are a convenient bait that most fish will take, other baits allow you to single out other species or to avoid catching smaller fish. The next time I go coarse fishing I might try flavouring up some prawns or meat. I might also have a break from float fishing and do some feeder fishing too. Before I do either though I fancy a session targeting perch and pike on lures. 

Tight lines, Scott.

Avoiding a duck.

On Tuesday I headed to the Forth & Clyde Canal to target pike and perch on soft plastics. Things were tough to say the least and despite trying four different stretches I did not encounter any fish. When I got home I had a text from my mate Keith, whom I haven't seen for quite some time, asking me if I was free the following day so we could meet up and wet a line. I told him about my towpath blank, that I was indeed free but that I was unsure where we should go fishing. In the end we decided to spend the day at Orchill Coarse Fishery.

Driving up the M9 the next morning we soon arrived and set up a couple of rods each on Alex's Pond. Keith went with a ledgered worm on one and maggots under a small waggler on the other. I opted to fish a single maggot on the bottom under a waggler and double sweetcorn fished with a method feeder. Things were very slow and it took a while before the first fish was landed.

I was in the middle of loading my method feeder when my float rod started shaking in its holder. I'd not seen the float go under so I was lucky that this chub had hooked itself. 

After that things remained painfully slow for a while. The conversation centred around matters fishy for a bit, then we discussed last year's Scottish independence referendum result and Keith brought to my attention a conspiracy theory regarding postal voting statistical anomalies and potential illegal activities that might have caused them. All very interesting but I subscribe to the view that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Anyway, Keith and I both voted differently last September and we still get along fine.

The fish were clearly not in the mood. Keith gets comfortable and his fairly minimalist approach to fishing means he doesn't need an expensive seat box to do so.

The next thing hooked was a mallard that quickly scooted over the surface of the pond and grabbed my maggot when I cast in my waggler. Chaos then ensued as I attempt to "land it" as it tried its best to fly off. Having hooked a few birds in the past an successfully done so, unhooked and released them unharmed I was confident I could do so again and managed to get it out of the air and back in the pond. I slowly reeled it in and Keith was just about to net it when it took off again snapping my hook off in the process. Needless to say the punked up duck with its new #18 piercing and its mates were all a little bit more reluctant to go crashing about in our swims trying to steal our maggots after that.

Back to catching things that have fins instead of wings and shortly afterwards I got caught out again by another fish, baiting a maggot on one hook whilst it was busy on the bottom eating the sweetcorn on my other. Keith soon pointed this out to me, I quickly dropped my waggler rod, grabbed my feeder rod and my second fish of the day was soon being played out.

I was busy baiting the hook on my float rig when my feeder rod tip was pulled around. A short scrap later and this lovely bronze common carp was on the bank.

After this the action dried up again for quite some time. Another angler who was fishing a few pegs to our left wasn't having much luck either although he eventually caught a couple of carp. Keith, now getting a bit frustrated at not getting any bites, decided to head to the far end of the pond and soon reported that he was getting some interest so I headed round to join him. He wasn't having much joy converting the bites into hooked fish though and much to his annoyance a small F1 carp was soon pulling my feeder rod tip right over as it got hooked and charged off.

Keith found the fish but couldn't connect. I caught one of the culprits, a feisty little hybrid.

Much to his relief though, Keith then caught his first fish of the day, a chub, after switching to a method feeder. This was soon was followed by an F1 carp but only after it pulled his rod in. We just managed to grab it as it slowly got pulled out of the margin and out of sight. It was a close call but having successfully averted disaster we both laughed about it and agreed that had his rod gone all the way in then the fish would have been much bigger and would have probably grown in size the more he retold the story.

As well as angling in his spare time Keith is also keen on cricket so he was gald to catch a couple of fish and unlike me, successfully avoid a duck.

I then switched from a flat bed feeder to an in-line bait ball style feeder and this soon paid off when again a fish did its best to try and pull my rod out of the rest and into the pond.

What carp could resist a big tasty ball of groundbait, a few free offerings and most importantly, my hair rigged double sweetcorn hook bait?

Not this one, another common carp in fine condition. It ended up being the last fish of the session and was also the largest so I took my time playing it before Keith netted it for me.

So, typical of the time of year it was another slow but enjoyable session. I may have only caught four fish but I was glad as it was four more than my session the day before had produced. It was good to catch up with Keith again and I really enjoy our chats too, whether they be about fishing or exciting topics like politics and alleged electoral fraud on a national scale involving shady governmental agencies. Unfortunately Keith's job means he works a lot over the summer but I hope we can meet up and fish together more often than we did last year. The weather will soon be warming up a bit more and the coarse fishing should start to improve with it. Hopefully I won't be scoring any more ducks when I next visit a fishery or the canal, or catching them either for that matter.

Tight lines, Scott.

A first time for everything.

With the weather not looking suitable for my preferred choice of a session targeting pollock last Sunday I headed instead to Orchill coarse fishery with a couple of mates. Nick and Stewart had never fished a commercial fishery before so it was something new to them but they were both looking forward to trying a new style of fishing. After paying for our day tickets we headed up to Alex's pond. As I set up a float rod for Nick and a feeder rod for Stewart I talked them through the end tackle, quickly explained the fairly simple principles involved and before too long they were both fishing.

Before I had finished setting myself up a float rod Nick was getting bites and after missing some and losing a fish he caught a roach, his first ever. When I started fishing I also caught a few roach. Nick then caught a gudgeon, again his first ever. Stewart's rod tip was soon pulled around by a small carp which he played for a few minutes but sadly it came off as it came near the net. Things were pretty slow after that though but we heard a fair amount of splashing over the other side of the middle island so we moved around to the area where the activity was. Most of the surface activity was fairly tight to the centre island so we started fishing as close to it as we could. It didn't take long for us all to start catching chub and then Nick started landing a few F1 and common carp, another couple of new species for him. I soon caught a few too.

This chub was Stewart's first ever coarse fish.

I really like F1 carp. They are chunky fish and put up a spirited fight for their size.

Stewart wasn't getting as many bites as Nick and I so I switched him over from a black cap swim feeder to a method feeder and made up some halibut and hemp feeder mix with a few pieces of sweetcorn added. On the hair rig went double sweetcorn and this produced three carp on three consecutive casts proving how effective a tactic the method feeder is.

Stewart caught this rather nice mirror carp. You've guessed it, his first.

We had the pond to ourselves so when we weren't chatting away it was fairly quiet apart from the squawking of flocks of geese flying south overhead in formation. As the day progressed several helicopters also passed above us. It was the final day of the Ryder Cup so we surmised these were taking players to and from the golf. As Nick was using my seatbox I had taken his small fold down canvas stool. The next noise to break the relative silence was this suddenly breaking, giving way beneath me and me ending up on my back on the ground. Stewart found this quite hilarious. My accident and Stewart laughing away didn't seem to distract Nick who was by now into a bit of a rhythm and found that firing in a few casters around his waggler was attracting plenty of fish into his swim.

Nick's biggest carp of the session and his first mirror carp.

Stewart and I had a few more carp and chub too before it was time to pack up and head home. It had been a nice relaxing day, we had a good laugh and both Nick and Stewart are keen to do it again so whilst it may have been their first time it certainly won't be their last.

Tight lines, Scott.