Not a new nemesis after all.

I visited Drumtassie Coarse Fishery on Thursday to try my luck at catching a Siberian sturgeon again. I've had a few attempts now and was beginning to think it might take me a long time to eventually get one. A potential new nemesis. Having chatted to a customer in work who had caught them during a recent session, I arrived very early to ensure that I got a peg in the area he had been fishing. During my last visit, I had fished in fairly shallow water, whilst he had caught them from the deepest part of the pond. I quickly got set up, and was soon catching a few fish using a pretty straight forward approach.

Nothing fancy, just a couple of pieces of chopped worm, ledgered on the bottom using a light feeder rod.

After four hours, I’d caught several common, mirror and F1 carp, a few tench, an ide, and a perch. After a short break for a bite to eat, I started fishing again. In my head I'd imagined how a sturgeon might fight, in some strange way given it looks so different to other freshwater fish, so when I hooked a fish that didn’t fight in any way unusually, I thought nothing of it. When it came close to the surface however, and I got a brief glimpse of a shark like tail fin, my heart rate instantly increased quite dramatically! I’d hooked my target!

Don’t come off. Don’t come off. Don’t. Come. Off!

Playing the fish carefully, trying not to bully it too much in case I pulled the hook, it eventually tired, came to the surface, and was drawn into my waiting net!

A juvenile Siberian sturgeon. My first sturgeon of any kind!

A small but perfectly formed, if somewhat odd looking, freshwater fish.

Its head was hard and bony, with a quartet of barbules.

They also have a protrusible mouth, that reminded me of the mouth of a saltwater ray.

I was ecstatic, and even better, soon followed it up with a second shortly afterwards. I'm not sure how many of them have been stocked, but I think they must be swimming around the pond in groups. Anyway, it was another species mission successfully accomplished! It's very satisfying to catch what you are after, and another species had been added to my Scottish lifetime list, edging me a little closer to my goal of one hundred, leaving me with only four to go! 

For the remainder of the afternoon, I decided to move to the smaller of the two coarse ponds at the fishery. There, I wanted to try and catch one of the very colourful koi carp, that have been recently stocked into it. I changed my tactics and switched over to a method feeder, fishing a bright purple 5mm wafter on a bait band. 

Wowsers "Hi Vis" wafters in bright purple.

A nice contrast against my 2mm feeder pellets.

The move proved to be a good choice, as I enjoyed fairly steady sport for the remainder of the session. Each time I hooked something, I was hopeful that a brightly coloured koi would appear, but it wasn’t to be. I can't complain though, as I caught plenty of nice fish and the sun even came out for a while.

I caught several bream,…

…lots of F1 carp,…

…a few small tench,…

…and few carp, including this nice mirror.

So, having caught my ninety-sixth species from Scottish venues, what’s next? Well, I’ve got a few ideas around what species I can target, but I think things are really going to get very tough now. I’ll probably be doing a lot of travelling over to the west coast of Scotland over the coming months, and the weather will no doubt play a massive part in how many trips I can do. Fingers crossed the summer gives us better weather than what we've had so far in 2024.

Tight lines, Scott.

The Environment Agency are aware.

When I saw a post on Instagram recently of a topmouth gudgeon caught in the UK, I’ll be honest, I was quite excited. They’re a pretty nasty little invasive species that have found their way into several waters in England and Wales since the Eighties. They breed four times a year and eat the eggs of native fish, so they’re not a welcome addition to any body of water. Anyway, I’ve always wanted to catch one, so I quickly made some enquiries. Before too long I’d started a conversation with a fellow species hunter named Donny who told me that the Environment Agency are aware of their presence, that the angling association responsible for the water were still permitted to fish the venue, but were no longer allowed to fish matches or use keepnets. Day tickets were available, so we arranged to meet up last Wednesday to go and catch some. As an added unexpected bonus Donny told me that the pond also contained a population of motherless minnow, also known as sunbleak, another non-native species, but one I have caught previously, many years ago.

After driving south on Tuesday night, we visited a local tackle shop the following morning to buy our permits. A short drive later, we arrived at the pond and set about catching some diminutive invaders. It didn’t take us long to start catching lots of them. 

A tiny piece of pinkie on a tanago hook was the presentation of choice, fished under a tiny float. Perfect for small fish with small mouths. 

The topmouth gudgeon seemed to prefer hanging out under floating debris. 

Donny focuses on his tiny float, looking for any sign of movement. Sometimes the float didn’t go under but slowly moved sideways, indicating a fish had taken the bait. 

Before too long, I'd caught my first ever topmouth gudgeon! Also known as the stone moroko.

It was soon followed by a few more. They seem to come in two colourations. One, like my first, with green and purple hues with a lovely pearlescent sheen. The second has silver scales with a black edge, like the one above in my little photo tank.

We fished for a few hours before Donny had to head off, and I fished on for another hour before I called it a day. As well as a few dozen topmouth gudgeon, I also caught a few small rudd, perch and about a dozen motherless minnow.

My first rudd of 2024.

The biggest motherless minnow of the session. I last caught one of these about ten years ago!

I caught my largest topmouth gudgeon of my session shortly after Donny left.

I really enjoyed meeting Donny and fishing together, I was very happy with the way the session had gone, and pleased to have met another tanago rod owner too!

Later in the day, I set off across England in preparation for a visit to a coarse fishery in Lincolnshire the following day. Whilst talking with Donny before the trip, he had mentioned to me there were populations of Prussian carp in a few fisheries there. Yet another non-native species, also known as the Gibel carp and a close relative of both the crucian and the goldfish. The Environment Agency are aware of their presence in the venue I was going to fish, and have also studied specimens gathered from it, confirming their identity. The venue in question is a members only water, but when I spoke to their committee they generously agreed to allow me a one-off visit to target their stock of Prussian carp.

When I arrived last Thursday morning, I was welcomed warmly, told a bit about the history of the venue, taken to a peg that regularly produces Prussian carp, and given a few pointers to help me catch them. I started off fishing maggots on the bottom under a waggler. This produced a few roach, rudd, perch and gudgeon. I love catching gudgeon!

The swim in front of peg nine. Up the left was where I was told to fish.

Plain old gudgeon. Still one of my favourite little fish.

After about three hours it started raining, and I was feeling quite hungry, so I had a break, sitting in the car whilst I ate some lunch. Returning to the peg, I decided to switch over to fishing colourful wafters on a method feeder with 2mm pellets. 

Yummy. Who doesn't like banoffee?

Hair rigged on a bait band. Simple but very effective.

There's something satisfying about a nicely loaded feeder.

Any second now...

I was expecting to have to build up a bed of groundbait before I drew some fish into the area, but on only the second cast, my rod tip twitched a couple of times before being pulled round. A short scrap later, I netted the culprit and began carefully examining it. 

Large scales? Check.
29–33 scales along the lateral line? I counted 31. Check.

Stubby nose? Check.
No barbules? Check.
Silver halo around the pupil? Check.

First ray strongly serrated? Check.
Almost straight or slightly concave dorsal fin. Check.

Anal fin has five and a half soft rays. Check.

A deeply forked tail. Check.

I’d caught my first Prussian carp! Over the next few hours, I caught a few more and a solitary common carp that did its best to get into the vegetation to my left, but I managed to turn it away from them a few times before drawing it over my waiting net. 

A golden common carp.

After catching my twelfth Prussian carp, things went very quiet. I persevered for a while but with a third long drive to do in as many days to get back up the road, I packed up, thanked the guys at the fishery for allowing me the opportunity to fish at their lovely venue for the day, and hit the road. I’m on a bit of a roll at the moment. Adding a Siberian sturgeon to my Scottish Species Tally is my next objective. 

Tight lines, Scott.

Winter woes.

Well, the weather over the past couple of months has pretty much brought my species hunting for the year to a shuddering halt. I have made a couple of attempts at catching grayling on the River Clyde, but sadly I blanked on both occasions. Despite trying various stretches of the water, I just couldn't locate a shoal of fish. In addition, I have visited Drumtassie Coarse Fishery for a couple of sessions, hoping to pick up either my first Scottish barbel or my first every sturgeon. The fishing there was also very hard going. One solitary roach was all I caught on my first outing! I did slightly better during my second trip, catching a few small carp and a perch using both float ledger and method feeder tactics.

One of three common carp I caught. Not the fish I was hoping would munch my maggots and dendrobaena worms!

In amongst the common carp I also caught this little mirror carp. 

I'm not sure if I'm going to manage to add any more species to this years tally given yet another storm system is on its way. I might have another go at catching a grayling if the weather allows it, and I did also fancy a trip down south to target zander. I’m not sure if I’ll manage to squeeze that in before the end of 2023 if I'm honest. We shall see.

Tight lines, Scott.

My new Scottish nemesis?

Having caught a Scottish three bearded rockling earlier this year, a species I spent many years unsuccessfully targetting around Scotland, I think I might have potentially discovered my new Scottish nemesis. The barbel. I've had a few attempts over the years to catch one at various coarse fisheries in Scotland, and have failed to catch one every single time. I recently had another attempt at Parkview Coarse Fishery in Fife and failed yet again. On the bright side, I did catch my first tench of the year, on a method feeder baited with double sweetcorn and loaded with Sonubaits' Fin Perfect 2 mm pellets.

I love tench. One of my favourite UK freshwater fish species.

I also caught several bream, some also on double sweetcorn fished on a method feeder and some on triple maggot fished on a float ledger rig. For some reason I thought I'd caught bream already this year, so I didn't take any photos of those. When I got home and checked my records, it turns out they were also my first of 2023, so in one respect it was actually a successful session. I also caught, but didn't take any pictures of, dozens of tiny perch, roach, blue orfe, ide, or a hybrid either. I did take a photo of the only carp I caught. With its chunky shape it looked a little bit like an F1 carp but upon inspection after it unhooked itself in the net, it had four barbules around its mouth which F1s lack.

Just a chunky little common carp.

Another fish with four barbules was my target.

Of course, I realise that whilst fishing at coarse fisheries that have stocked them, catching a barbel is more or less just a numbers game. Apart from fishing on the bottom it’s lucky dip really and usually the numbers are heavily stacked against you. All things considered, it’s still got to be easier than catching one from the River Clyde? Surely?

Tight lines, Scott.

Good heavens!

After the fairly disappointing fishing of the first half of my south coast adventure I drove west to Devon to do a bit of coarse fishing. I headed to Angler's Paradise to try and catch my first koi carp and golden rudd. I say Angler's Paradise but really I didn't fish the specimen lakes around the main complex as they are for residents of the holiday homes situated there only. As I was staying in a campsite down the road I was limited to fishing the day ticket waters that are situated nearby and over four days I fished two lakes in Angler's Eldorado and one in Angler's Shangri La. My visit got off to a great start and within the first few hours fishing I'd caught both my targets from the "Koi lake". The novelty of catching golden rudd quickly wore off however as the Koi lake is absolutely full of them.

Not technically a new species but still my first golden rudd.

My first ever koi carp was caught on single maggot fished on the bottom under a waggler.

Freelining maggots to cruising fish worked very well too. I simply cast onto a lily pad and slowly pulled it off into the water as a cruising carp approached.

Sight fishing was great fun and my third koi carp also fell to freelined maggots.

Things went a bit quiet on the Koi lake after my third koi carp so I moved to the neighbouring Tench and Orfe pond. Starting with single maggot under a waggler I quickly discovered that it was full of lots of small... 

...tench and...

...orfe.

Over the remaining days of my trip I switched to fishing a method feeder and had an enjoyable time. Fishing hair rigged double corn produced plenty of nice carp and I was pleasantly surprised that there were koi carp in all three of the lakes I fished.

I mainly fished down the margins to various water features.

Nothing fancy just double corn and micro pellets.

It usually didn't take too long for my rod tip to pull round.

All the fish were in great condition including this nice common carp.

In amongst the mirror carp I caught this stunning looking fully scaled fish.

I caught the odd small tench too including this lovely golden one.

I'm pretty sure I caught more koi carp than common carp and mirror carp put together.

With their colourful patterns they are beautiful looking fish.

I caught quite a few of these orange and black ones.

Before I knew it another south coast adventure had come to an end and I was heading back up the road. I must say I was very impressed with both the Angler's Eldorado and Angler's Shangri La day ticket waters and as I fancy a few sessions targeting the catfish and specimen carp in the two ponds I didn't fish in the Angler's Eldorado complex I may be back down there again next year at some point.

Tight lines, Scott.