An American species hunter in Scotland.

At the start of May I received an email from a young American species hunter by the name of Brandon. One of the things I really like about writing the blog is that it occasionally brings myself and other like minded anglers together. In his email he explained he enjoyed my blog, would be visiting Scotland at the end of May and was keen to meet up, so we could do some fishing together. I told him that I would meet up with him when he was in Edinburgh, and I'd help him catch a few new species for his life list. After I finished work last Sunday I picked him up from his Airbnb, and we visited the Water of Leith, as Brandon was keen to catch his first bullhead. Waiting for it to get dark, we targeted minnows for an hour or so. They weren't particularly active however, although I did manage to catch one. It was an opportunity to try out a small "photo tank" that I recently bought to take to Singapore with me.

My new photo tank works quite well I think.

Once it got dark we headed to my favourite bullhead spot and began searching the shallows with our head torches. The bullheads were out in numbers, and as usual, couldn't resist a maggot on a small hook dropped right in front of their relatively large mouths. Before long we’d lost count of how many we'd caught. Whilst Brandon took lots of photos of bullheads I began scouring the bottom for bigger specimens. A monster bullhead soon appeared, out from underneath an overhanging section of the bank. A new personal best bullhead was soon in my photo tank!

Brandon photographs the latest addition to his life list.

My new PB bullhead. Possibly. I didn't weigh it.

Our mission accomplished, we headed back to the car. After dropping Brandon off, I headed home, satisfied with a successful guiding effort. I was working in the morning, but we arranged to meet up the following evening again.

Whilst I was working on Monday, Brandon was out fishing on Granton Breakwater. He wanted to catch some wrasse and I told him that this was a good spot to try. The wind had a made it a pretty tough session, but he caught his first ever ballan wrasse, so he was happy with that. I managed to get away from work thirty minutes early and headed down there to pick him up. Off we went to Dunbar Harbour for a session targeting, to begin with, flounder and plaice. We arrived a little too early but as the tide flooded and the depth of water over the sandy corner we were fishing in increased, we eventually spotted some flat fish chasing our ragworm sections as we slowly twitched them along the bottom. My first fish of the evening was a small plaice, which was my first of the year. Plaice make up a small percentage of the flatfish I've caught in Dunbar Harbour of the years. so it was a slice of luck to catch one straight away. It was followed fairly quickly by a small flounder.

A small plaice. Another species added to my 2023 tally.

A flounder soon followed.

Soon afterwards Brandon also got lucky and caught his first ever plaice. After the sun had set and light begun to fade I hooked a big flounder that unfortunately came off just as it was coming to the surface. A short time later, Brandon hooked a big one too. Perhaps it was the fish I'd lost. It was certainly too big to swing up, so I grabbed my 5.9m landing net from the car and netted it for him.

A tiny plaice. Size doesn't matter to species hunters. They all count.

Brandon uses a Tupperware tub full of water to photograph his fish. This is a great tool for identification purposes and shows most of the fishes features very well.

A big flounder. Size doesn't matter to species hunters. They all count.

Once it was dark we spent a couple of hours fishing into some mixed ground at the back of the harbour. We were hoping that shore rockling, five bearded rockling or viviparous blenny might take our worm baits, but it wasn't to be and at midnight we packed up and headed back up the A1. The following day I was off work and Brandon had to be back in Edinburgh by 19:00, so we decided to make an early start to a day of species hunting.

After getting about three and a half hours sleep, I jumped in the car and picked Brandon up at 06:00. We drove west to East India Harbour in Greenock where we had a small list of species that I thought Brandon and I could catch around there. A common dragonet was our first target. Rigging up running ledger rigs and baiting small hooks with a little section of ragworm, we cast out as far as we could and slowly wound in. On my second cast I felt a bite and stopped winding. Waiting a second or two before lifting, I felt the weight of a fish and reeled it in. When a stunning male common dragonet appeared on the surface I was absolutely delighted!

I’ve wanted to catch one of these for years! Absolutely stunning! Just look at those colours.

Brandon caught his first common dragonet shortly afterwards too, so our session had got off to the perfect start. After a few more common dragonet and some dab from further out we began fishing over the rocky, weedy ground closer in, but surprisingly this didn't produce anything, so Brandon suggested we try fishing inside the harbour instead.

Dab are another species you can catch at range from East India Harbour.

This suggestion proved to be a great one. In the past I've never had much joy fishing inside the harbour but as soon as we took a look we spotted lots of wrasse moving around over the rocky bottom, including some pretty big rock cook wrasse. One hook paternoster rigs were dropped down and quite a few wrasse were soon being caught. Mainly rock cook wrasse and corkwing wrasse, but we also had some goldsinny wrasse and a ballan wrasse too. The rock cook wrasse and goldsinny wrasse were firsts for Brandon. He'd caught corkwing wrasse in the Mediterranean before but one of his was the most turquise coloured example I've ever seen!

Another very colourful UK wrasse species, the rock cook is probably my favourite.

Brandon caught this bright turquoise corkwing wrasse.

The Tupperware tub put to good use again. Look at those colours!

We didn't catch as many goldsinny wrasse as I was expecting. They normally make up the bulk of catches over the rough ground close in.

As the sun got a little higher in the sky, things really slowed down. We watched as all the wrasse that had been cruising around headed down into the gaps in between the boulders to seek shade. A few shoals of sand smelt turned up at this point, and we caught a few of those, another new species for Brandon. Before we began fishing on the outside again, Brandon caught a rock goby, a black goby and a two spotted goby. The last two being new to him.

The Tupperware tub is great for capturing the detail of fish's fins like those of this sand smelt.

Switching back to fishing the outside of the harbour the bites dried up almost completely, and I only caught three fish in a couple of hours, a common dragonet, a goldsinny wrasse and a black goby.

I'd have preferred to catch a rock goby as I'd already caught a few black goby this year.

It was the early afternoon by this point, and as the fishing had slowed to a crawl, we decided to switch to freshwater targets and headed back east to Magiscroft Coarse Fishery. Brandon wanted to catch his first gudgeon and it's probably the best place to catch them that I know. On the way we hit heavy traffic as we approached the middle of Glasgow. Brandon took the opportunity to have a nap.

A tired species hunter.

Before long the traffic started moving again and we soon arrived at Magiscroft. It didn't take us too long to set up some puddle chucker floats and catch a few gudgeon from a shallow peg on the venue's main loch. All mine were pretty average in size, but Brandon managed to catch a couple that were pretty chunky!

An average gudgeon. Size doesn't matter to species hunters. They all count.

A large gudgeon. Size doesn't matter to species hunters. They all count.

Having caught what we came for, as well as a few roach and perch, we then jumped back in the car and headed to the River Forth so we could spend an hour or so trying to catch dace. I thought it might be tough as the water levels were very low due to the lack of rain recently and this proved to be the case. We trotted maggots down the faster flowing water but all we caught were lots of minnow and the odd salmon parr.

An Atlantic salmon parr in my photo tank. Another species towards this year's challenge.

Soon it was time to go, so we packed up and headed back to the capital where I dropped Brandon off at his Airbnb. It was great to meet him and I really enjoyed both our fishing and our conversations about fish, fishing and species hunting. I hope our paths cross again in the future, and we'll hopefully keep in touch in the meantime.  I enjoyed helping him add ten species to his life list whilst we were together and also gave him advice that helped him add two more in the shape of the ballan wrasse he caught from Granton Breakwater and I also gave him information that led to him catching his first bitterling a couple of days after he left Edinburgh on his way to Manchester. Furthermore, whilst playing at being a guide, I'd also added another two species to my 2023 species hunting challenge, catching my first plaice and Atlantic salmon of the year. The large male common dragonet was probably my own highlight of our time together and is a capture I won't forget.

Tight lines, Scott.

A fresh start.

I visited Magiscroft Coarse Fishery last month with my mate Ryan to open my 2023 freshwater species account. It was a very windy day, but the fishery is located in a valley, so it was nice and sheltered. Maggots fished under a puddle chucker float were the basic tactics for the day and we both caught plenty of fish.

We both caught a some perch...

...lots of roach...

...a few small carp, including this cute little mirror...

...and finally, we also managed to catch a few gudgeon, one of my favourite small freshwater species.

Nothing complicated, it was simply a very laid back, fun day out, staring endlessly at our floats as our feet slowly froze! I'll no doubt be back over the summer to tick off a few more coarse species. Magiscoft also has a few barbel stocked, and as I've never caught one in Scotland before I'll be spending some time targeting them when I do.

Tight lines, Scott.

Push it to the limit.

On Monday I headed west to fish two different places with my tanago rod. First stop was the River Forth where my target was the humble minnow. Normally there are lots around down the edge but for some reason there didn't seem to be any around at all. There were however a few small fish taking flies off the surface slightly further out so I decided to find out what they were. After catching and quickly returning a few small salmon parr I caught a little dace.

Dace are a lovely looking fish. I think I'll go back again soon with my float rod and centrepin to spend a day specifically targetting them.

My next stop was Magiscroft coarse fishery near Cumbernauld. Before using my tanago rod I fished maggot under an insert waggler out close to an island using a light float setup. My first two casts both quickly produced small mirror carp. Then, after a few roach and perch, I caught a few more carp which led me to believe the pond had been stocked with them recently.

Good fun on a very light float setup.

Lots of pristine roach too.

After a while I decided to switch to my tanago rod and dropped my pole float down right under its tip. With single maggot on a #26 Gamakatsu 6315 hook to 0.75lb nylon at the business end I was soon pulling out lots of small perch and the odd roach.

I employed a chop stick style grip on my 15g rod.

The main reason for my visit was to hopefully catch some gudgeon. They're a cool freshwater mini species and it had been a while since I'd caught one. Eventually, my persistance paid off when one beat the small perch and roach to my wriggling bait on the bottom. As gudgeon go it was pretty big and on my super light rod I'd go as far as to say it even put up a bit of a scrap!

A cracking gudgeon.

Keen to catch some more I carried on fishing close in but for a while all I caught was more perch and roach. Then, suddenly, my float shot under as something larger began chrging about the swim in front of me. My tiny rod was bent right over and I was worried about my hook bending out but after a few minutes playing the fish, dropping the rod to give it some line when I felt it necessary, I managed to tire out the fish and another small carp was drawn into my net.

This little fully scaled mirror really pushed my tanago rod to the limit.

I fished on for a while and caught a few more perch and roach but sadly no more gudgeon. I'm really enjoying fishing with my tanago rod at the moment. It's a very direct and fun way to fish. The small carp I caught on it has forced me to rethink what it's capable of. I'll be out using it again soon, targetting some saltwater species on a trip to Loch Etive and Oban with a few of my mates.

Tight lines, Scott.

Gudge match.

I popped to Magiscroft last Wednesday with my mate Keith for a friendly gudgeon catching competition. It was quite a blustery day but the Birch Ponds where the challenge was to take place were quite well sheltered. Fishing pinkies and maggots on #22 hooks under very sensitive wagglers it didn't take long for us both to catch a few gudgeon but Keith seemed to locate a shoal of tiny perch that were beating everything else to his bait so I took an early lead.

My first fish out was a roach. A few gudgeon soon followed.

By the afternoon I had built up a fairly comfortable gudgeon cushion and whilst I was happy to fish close to a small island feature in front of my peg, Keith decided to move around the pond and try chucking his float into a few different swims. This soon produced a nice bonus fish for him.

I stayed put all day, clipped up and fished close to the small island.

A nice common carp.

This would turn out to be the first of three carp and while I continued catching lots of gudgeon and extended my lead Keith seemed to have forgotten about our little competition and was happily exploring. His efforts were soon rewarded again when he caught a rather nice perch.

Keith surveys a rather plump perch in very good condition. A new PB in fact at 13.5 inches and probably about 1.5lb. 

Having by this point racked up what I considered to be an unassailable advantage in the gudgeon match I decided to scale up my hook lengths and fish double maggots to try and land myself a carp or a nice perch. Alas this change of tactics only resulted in less small roach and gudgeon being caught. I did however land what I'm pretty sure was a juvenile bream. 

A quick count of rays in its anal fin led me to believe this small fish was my first bream from a Scottish water.

It was soon time to pack up and the results were as follows...

My gudgeon tally : 58
Keith's gudgeon tally : 17

...a pretty comprehensive victory!

A trio of my match winning gudgeon. 

Regardless of the result we both enjoyed a good days fishing and I'm sure the gudgeon match would have been closer had Keith decided to focus on catching them but I think he was fairly pleased to catch a few carp and the nice chunky PB perch. All just a bit of fun anyway and I'm looking forward to more not very serious course fishing competitions with Keith over the summer months.

Tight lines, Scott.

Tickled pink.

Last Tuesday I had to sit in the flat waiting for a few packages to arrive as well as an engineer to repair my Dyson vacuum cleaner. Exciting stuff and not how I wanted to be spending a day off really. Luckily all three arrived before noon and one of the packages contained a couple of pints of pinkies that I'd ordered online. I was keen to try fishing with them for the first time to see if they would improve catch rates in the cold weather and also in preparation for freshwater mini species hunting in the summer. I decided to pop to Eliburn for a few hours in the afternoon to hopefully catch a few fish on the waggler. Fishing a puddle chucker a rod length out things were slow to say the least and after two hours staring at a stationary float I opted to move. It took another hour before the orange insert tip finally went under and I started catching some fish. Before it got dark I had caught a few roach, perch and a couple of bream/roach hybrids.

It's just as enjoyable catching stillwater fish but they're usually not a patch on wild loch ones in terms of appearance.

The following day I was off work too and after checking the weather forecast I headed to Magiscroft for another afternoon's waggler fishing. It was quite overcast with the odd light rain shower but I was looking forward to another day's stress free fishing. When I arrived I headed to one of the Birch Ponds at the back of the complex. Unlike the day before bites were coming from the first cast and were pretty continual throughout the session. Single pinkie on a #22 hook proving quite effective on the resident roach, and much to my delight, a succession of gudgeon. 

A gang of gudgeon.

The humble gudgeon is a little freshwater favourite of mine and the population in this pond seems to have exploded from nowhere. Despite having fished the pond several times in the past I've never caught one from it but I ended up catching forty of the pretty little fish. I spoke to the bailiff when he came round and he told me that this was due to their six year life cycle causing their numbers to increase rapidly and then drop again in a repeating pattern as the adults die off and the juveniles that replace them develop. Quite interesting and not something I've really given much thought to before. A couple of other anglers who were also fishing seemed to be struggling and packed up and left half way through the afternoon. I can only guess that my pinkies, small hooks and sensitive insert float made a difference in the conditions. I caught over one hundred fish including a few tiny perch only a couple of inches long before packing up and heading home before it got dark.

On Tues this week I popped back to Magiscroft again and used up the remainder of the pinkies. The quality of these small maggots was very good and none of them had turned into casters. I can't say that maggots I buy from some tackle shops are anywhere as good so I'll certainly be ordering freshwater baits online again. Despite the weather being quite miserable and strong winds blowing I managed to tuck myself away at the back of the Birch Ponds again and enjoyed another busy afternoon catching gudgeon, perch and roach. Due to the poor weather I had the place to myself but was joined for most of the day by some ducks. They swam around in front of me, gobbling up any pinkies that went astray and landed in the shallow water in front of me as I catapulted them in around my float .

Grubs up.

These short sessions really are quite relaxing even in poor conditions and tide me over nicely until the weather improves again. My mate Keith is a big gudgeon fan too so I can see us heading through to Magiscroft soon and having one of our friendly coarse fishing competitions which I'm sure will be a good laugh.

Tight lines, Scott.

South Coast Fishathon Part 4 : East Sussex.

When planning my trip I wanted to include some freshwater fishing so after eight days of fishing in the sea I ended my south coast fishathon with a couple of days of relaxing coarse fishing at Tanyard Fishery in East Sussex. Whilst the fishing was to be slightly more relaxed, not that any of the fishing I had done had been particularly stressful, I was still hopeful of catching a few new species whilst there.

One of seven ponds at Tanyard Fisheries. A very nice fishery indeed I must say.

Arriving at the fishery early on Thursday morning I sorted out my rod licence over the phone and paid for my permit as well as a pint of maggots, some luncheon meat, a can of sweetcorn and some feed pellets. Most importantly though I sought the advice of the bailiff on the best locations to try for some of the species I hoped to catch. My top target being a pumpkinseed, I was soon heading up to "Coarse Pool 1", the smallest pond of the venues seven. Setting up opposite some overhanging trees, fishing my favourite puddle chucker waggler, I was soon catching fish. With all of my shot directly under my float bar a single No. 10 a few inches above my #18 hook I had a single red maggot falling nice and slowly through the water column and this approach was soon producing bites on the drop almost every cast resulting in a steady stream of small roach and rudd including this rather nice specimen.

A lovely rudd.

After about thirty fish I hooked another small fish and it didn't feel any different so I quickly reeled it in and just swung it up to my hand to discover it wasn't a roach or rudd. I had caught my pumpkinseed and was quite relieved it had stayed on the hook whilst I lazily neglected to use my landing net! A very nice looking little fish and one that photographs don't do justice to due to their bright blue reflective markings.

A small pumpkinseed. I was over the moon, if taken a little by surprise, to catch this beautiful little fish.
New species #6 and addition #14 to my 2013 species tally

Happy to catch a quite unusual new freshwater species I carried on fishing to see if I could catch a few more pumpkinseed but after quite a few more roach and rudd I decided to head over to the "Carp Free Pool" to try and get my first bream. Fishing luncheon meet on the bottom over feed pellets it took a little while to get any bites but I was encouraged by the fact that both the anglers to my left and right both caught bream whilst I was trickling in the pellets and waiting for my float to go.When it finally did disappear it did so rather quickly and in fact the fish nearly pulled my rod in as it went quite ballistic once it realised it was hooked, surging off breaking the surface in the process. After this initial run however it did what bream are famous for, a rather good impersonation of a wet sack, and was quickly brought into my net.

My first common bream. Went off like a rocket but gave up the fight very quickly.
New species #6 and addition #15 to my 2013 species tally.

Another angler very kindly took this photo for me.

This would be the first of many bream throughout the afternoon and each time I was taken back by the short explosive runs they made before going rather limp and surrendering. My rod was almost pulled in a second time and after that I kept one hand on it at all times! After a while I decided to switch to double maggots to see if they would take them and first cast saw me hook a nice perch followed by a few more bream. I then changed to sweetcorn on the hook and after a couple more bream I hooked a fish that I knew wasn't a bream or perch due to the way it was staying deep and putting up a spirited fight. A lovely tench was soon played out though and was on the unhooking mat being photographed.

A colourful change from all the bream!

This powerful tench put up a good fight. The biggest I've caught.

Towards the end of the first days fishing I started experimenting with the "lift method". The following day I planned on targeting crucians and this was to be the method I'd be using. I managed to catch a couple of bream using it although in both cases instead of lifting up the float slid away rather quickly as the fish bolted off! The gates at Tanyard close at 19:15 so I headed back to my B&B and watched a bit of TV before going to bed.

Up early the next day and packing all my things into the car I set of back down to the fishery to begin my final days fishing. With an eight hour drive back up the road I wanted to be home at a reasonable time so decided to leave at 16:00 so this gave me eight hours fishing time to try and catch a crucian. Again speaking to one of the bailiffs before I started fishing he told me that the "Carp Free Pool" was the best place to try and advised me to try maggot and sweetcorn tight down the margin at the side nearest the small stream the ran along behind the pond. Off I went and set up at the spot he'd described. Fishing the lift method pretty soon I was catching a steady stream of roach, rudd and perch. It was rather odd watching my float behave in a very odd manner at times but it proved to be a very successful way to catch fish from the bottom.

A nice roach. I caught lots of these over the two days.

Another spiky fish with attitude took my maggots.

After a few hours with no crucian showing up I decided to try another spot and liked the look of a corner of the pond that had some nice looking reed beds that looked like a good place to try. After quickly speaking to another angler who agreed with my evaluation and very kindly gave me a little of his groundbait to try, I began fishing sweetcorn tight into the reeds. This saw me almost lose my rod again as a brief laps of concentration allowed a bream to pick up my hookbait and tear off after realising it had been hooked!

Another nice bream. They may fight like wet sacks but their initial run when hooked can be very powerful often propelling them out of the water in spectacular style and sometimes almost pulling rods in!

The next bite I had was quite a small one but striking gently I felt something on the other end and reeling in resulted in a red signal crayfish being landed. I've heard about these non native little crustaceans before but this was the first time I'd ever seen one "in the shell". I wasn't sure what to do with it and just tossed it back in but was subsequently told that they were not to be put back as they eat the fishes eggs and small fry and obviously that's not good for the fisheries stock levels.

An unexpected catch for me and an unwelcome guest at the fishery, a red signal crayfish.

This is how they get their name. When threatened they rear up and display the underside of their claws.

A few more bream and a tench later and now into the early afternoon I had sort of resigned myself to not getting a crucian. The fishing had slowed right down as the temperature had risen and I decided to try switching out the swan shot on my lift method rig for a small drilled bullet to try another technique, float ledgering. The beauty of this method is that the fish feels almost no resistance at all and it quickly became apparent that when fishing on the bottom this method is highly effective indeed as I soon started catching a steady stream of roach and perch again. The bite sensitivity seemed to be excellent too and the only real drawback I could see is that along with the lift method you can't hold your rod so may miss some bites. I'll certainly be experimenting more with both the lift method and float ledgering in the future. The last two fish I caught before packing up were gudgeon so whilst I didn't get any new species on my final day or even add any species I've caught before to my 2013 tally it was still a cool little fish to end my trip on.

My second tench from the carp free pool.

The final fish of my trip, a gudgeon. A nice little fish to end it with.

So my ten day fishathon had come to and end and I packed up my gear and headed up the road. What an epic time I'd had. I'd fished with some great people, in some great places, caught a lot of fish including many new species and even better, caught three of my "Most Wanted" species. I thouroughly enjoyed myself in the process, so much so that I may just make this an annual pilgrimage! 

Tight lines, Scott.