Double dragonet.

On day three of my trip I headed to Mevagissey in Cornwall to try and escape the rampaging children that had taken over Ilfracombe. When I arrived just late in the morning it was a nice day and more importantly it was very quiet. Settling down to fish on the outside of the harbour's southern breakwater I was curious to see if the multitude of species that can be caught in the summer were still around. In short the answer was a resounding no! However, it was nice to enjoy some peace and quiet as I sat fishing a scaled down three hook flapper with #14 hooks baited up with small pieces of Dynabait ragworm on ultra light tackle waiting for bites. The fishing was incredibly slow and I was starting to think that in fishing terms the drive had been a complete waste of time when I finally had a bit of interest and caught something. It was a small dragonet that for some reason looked a little funny. Upon further inspection I got a pleasant surprise.

Looking at it casually it would have been easy just to assume it was a common dragonet but something about told me it was different. I think it was the slight red tinge to its head that made me take a closer look at the little chap.

Extending the first dorsal fin revealed a nice pattern and also that the fish was a male.

Extending the tall second dorsal fin revealed another set of striking markings and confirmed my suspicions. I had caught my first ever reticulated dragonet.

I was delighted and probably wouldn't have been bothered if I hadn't caught anything else but over the next few hours I caught a few common dragonets. Another angler then turned up and we had a chat about species hunting. I showed him the photographs of my reticulated dragonet so he could identify one should he catch one and he told me that he'd caught some pilchards whilst out on a charter boat a few days previously. He didn't stay long and didn't catch a reticulated dragonet but managed to catch a few common dragonets too. After he left I caught a second reticulated dragonet and then a few more common dragonets.

Here is one of the common dragonets. Note the completely different fin shape and colouration. They group of spines on the rear edge of the gill plate common dragonet is also slightly larger and stands out more prominently.

Towards the end of the session I tried fishing straight down the wall through gaps in the kelp along at the end of the pier. Using this tactic I had clingfish in mind but instead caught a few of goldsinny wrasse and a long spined sea scorpion. Before heading back to Ilfracombe I decided to get something to eat and ended up trying something new. I can now heartily recommend huss which was very tasty indeed served with some chunky chips. So my trip was going well, whilst the fishing certainly hadn't been frantic at the two venues I'd fished, it had been most productive in terms of catching new species and with three days left I was keen to try and catch some more.

Tight lines, Scott.

Another successful raid on Cornwall, Dorset and Jersey.

When my trip to Shetland this month got moved forward a week it left me with six days off work and I was really struggling to find something to fill it with. Then it hit me, I could go fishing! Ok, I'll admit it, what I was going to do was never in question. Where to go was the real dilemma. With a few places I love to fish but haven't visited this year and catching new saltwater species in mind I weighed up where would probably give me the best chance do a bit of both and decided to visit the south coast of England again and began planning my itinerary. I then checked out the cost of a ferry crossing to Jersey as a foot passenger and was pleasantly surprised. A quick text to my mate Ross Johnson, who is over on Jersey for the summer, to see if he was free was sent, I had the start of a plan and after checking tides and asking a few other people if they fancied meeting up I was really looking forward to the trip.

I drove down to Bodmin in Cornwall last Friday. After arriving and dropping off my case at the B&B in the early afternoon I went up to the north coast to fish some rockpools in search of Montagu's blenny. The rocks were next to Treyarnon Bay, a spot that can get very busy with lots of surfers and families enjoying it when the weather is nice.

Treyarnon Bay from the rocks to the north.

The rockpools were certainly full of fish but my main problem were the plentiful common blennies. As soon as my ragworm chunk went in they would shoot out and fight over it making it difficult to catch anything else. When I finally did it was a small giant goby. This was soon followed by a specimen giant goby that was hiding under a fairly narrow gap under a large slab of slate in a very shallow rockpool.

It always amazes me the tight spaces these big brutes sometimes hide in.

I also caught a few long spined sea scorpions and a single rock goby casting across a very large rockpool and working my bait back across the bottom.

Another nice change from the endless common blennies. Not the fish I was after though!

After spending a few hours there I resigned myself to yet another failed attempt to locate and catch my target blenny and headed off to meet up with my mate Lee Goddard who was in Cornwall for a family holiday. It was the last day of his trip and he had been given permission to go fishing late in the evening so I picked him up at about 20:30. We drove down to Fowey and fished at the small ferry pier. Lee was fishing a whole red Isome on a Decoy Rocket jighead whilst I used a mini one up one down rig and baited my hooks with small pieces of ragworm and slivers of mackerel. Unfortunately the fishing was quite slow. As the tide rose we moved up onto the wall above the pier and finally started catching some fish. I caught a long spined sea scorpion, a rock goby, a tompot blenny and a small plaice. Lee caught a long spined sea scorpion too. I told him that there were a few specimen long spined sea scorpions at the mark and sure enough he soon caught one which he was quite pleased with.

Quite a handful.

Just before we left Lee had a cast in the area I had just been fishing. I was rebaiting when he called to say he had hooked a topknot but it was stuck in the weeds on the edge of the wall below us. I reached out, took hold of the line and applying gentle, even pressure managed to slowly pull the fish free. Already celebrating, Lee started to lift the fish up only for it to thrash, come off and make its escape. He was gutted to say the least. This was the second time he had hooked a topknot, a fish most anglers will never catch, only to see it throw the hooks and escape. I really felt for him and despite trying to tempt it again or maybe catch another one it was soon time to go and it was a bit of a disappointing way to end the session although after a brief period of stunned disbelief we did laugh about it. It's always good to catch up with Lee and I wish we could have fished together for longer. After dropping him off back at his accommodation I headed back to mine.

I got up fairly early on Saturday but the weather was not great. A pretty miserable day in fact being overcast and raining quite heavily. I decided to head to Mevagissey Breakwater as it's a very comfortable venue to fish and if the rain got really bad I could hide in the car which was parked close by. In addition I wanted to catch some dragonets and there are plenty of them to be found there on the sandy areas on the bottom. There were two main reasons for this. Firstly I was hoping to catch a male as they are very colourful fish indeed. Secondly I wanted to check that the species present were indeed common dragonets using a simple test I have recently discovered. Running a fingernail along the gill cover towards the three backward facing spines you will feel a forth facing forward just below the common dragonets skin. Reticulated dragonets lack this hidden forth spine. So I began fishing ragworm on a one up one down rig. On my first drop down I managed to catch one. I eagerly did the fingernail test and located the forth forward facing gill plate spine confirming that it was a common dragonet.

A small specimen typical of those normally caught at Mevagissey.

I was rather pleased by this and after popping the fish back it started raining quite heavily but I was quite happy to get the day off to a good start. At this point I received a text from local angler Luke Fox whom I had arranged to fish with to say he was on his way. I caught a lot more common dragonets and a lot of small corkwing and ballan wrasse before he arrived. The wet conditions meant I had a tricky time handling some of the fish and got caught by quite a few spines on the fish.

A much larger common dragonet. The elongated first dorsal fin makes me think this one is a male but has not yet reached full maturity and therefore has not changed colour.

A lovely little Cornish ballan wrasse.

I caught quite a lot of these colourful little corkwings.

When Luke arrived I told him about what I had been catching and he started fishing with some Isome and Ecogear straw tails. I carried on fishing my bait rig for a while before deciding to switch to lures for a bit too. We both caught a few more dragonets and wrasse between us and I had a chunky tompot blenny before we decided to head up the coast to a small harbour so we could try for tub gurnard and lesser weevers.

Soaked but I didn't really care. This rather chunky tompot blenny was a nice reward for my efforts.

After a short drive up the coast we soon arrived and headed to the end of the outer harbour wall. Fishing over clean ground my first cast resulted in a small fish being hooked and quickly landed. It wasn't a tub gurnard though. It was a lesser weever and was the first of many.

Nasty but nice. When you inspect them up close they are actually quite pretty little fish.

Luke had never caught one before and was well chuffed to get his first. Handling them carefully is a must and whilst Luke was avoiding the spines he almost grabbed his first one by the sides of its head. I quickly told him to stop and explained that as well as poisonous dorsal spines they also have poisonous spines on their gill plates. A nasty sting narrowly avoided, Luke used his mini grips to hold it for a photo.

I'm not a big fan of grips but better safe than sorry.

We kept on fishing and must have caught about twenty lesser weavers between us. A switch to a metal baited with a mackerel strip to try and tempt a tub gurnard only saw me catch a mackerel as I retrieved it to cast out again! Also by this point the wind had picked up quite a bit making things quite difficult so Luke suggested a change of mark and a short walk later we were soon fishing for perch in a small pond. This was good fun and we must have caught a few dozen small perch between us.

I have to get some of those firetiger Fiiish Black Minnows.

It wasn't long before Luke realised his time was up and he had to head off to go to a wedding reception in the evening. Really wish we could have spent longer fishing together as I really enjoy his relaxed approach to fishing. After he headed off and with an early start the following day I decided to pop back to nearby Fowey for a couple of hours to see if I could tempt a topknot. I had no luck with that though but managed to catch a few ballans and corkwings which gave me a good scrap on my ultra light rod.

Great fun on ultra light gear.

It started raining quite heavily and when a group of seagulls came, stole some of my bait when I wasn't looking and it became hard to focus on fishing because the cheeky buggers kept trying to get into my bag to get more, I called it a day, packed up and headed back to the B&B.

On Sunday I had another appointment with a fish I failed to catch when I fished Swanage Pier in July, the black faced blenny. With the pier opening at 7:00 I left Bodmin at about 4:30 and made the two and a half hour drive along to Dorset, stopping briefly at the Weymouth Angling Centre to pick up half a pound of ragworm on the way. After speaking to the pier master to get some inside information and pay for my £3.50 fishing permit, I was soon at the spot he'd described to me where the divers have seen the little triple finned fish I was after. Like my last visit the action was constant from the start and over the course of the next six hours I caught over 170 fish from the gap in the middle of the lower section at the end of the pier. Mainly wrasse, the majority of those being corkwing wrasse, but I caught lots of ballan wrasse and Baillon's wrasse too with quite a few tompot blennies and a couple of pouting as well breaking up the wrassefest.

A lovely orange ballan wrasse with light turquoise spots.

How cute. I think this is the smallest ballan I've ever caught!

I caught over a dozen Baillon's wrasse too.

As well as having pink lips and fin edges Baillon's wrasse also have quite nice blue, violet and orange facial markings.

I caught this small ballan with rather odd eyes twice. I named him Marilyn. The chances are he probably wasn't the only fish I caught on more than one occasion on the day but he stood out due to his appearance.

Tompot blennies are so cool!

Whilst thoroughly enjoying the frantic action I was still quite disappointed not to catch a black faced blenny. I decided to try fishing off the side of the pier to see if I could catch one there or perhaps something different. This chance resulted in a couple of common dragonets being caught and a lot more corkwing wrasse.

The sand just a few meters out from the pier obviously held a few common dragonets.

I caught an incredible ninety four corkwing wrasse from the pier!

When I ran out of ragworm at about 17:00 I decided to call it a day, headed back along the coast to Weymouth and checked into the B&B there where I'd be staying the night before getting the ferry to St Helier the following afternoon. After doing this I met up with local angler and member of The Lure Forum admin team Mike Hayes and we went fishing using lures on ultra light gear at a few different spots around Weymouth harbour. It was a very relaxed session and we had a lot of fun catching mainly pouting, and gobies with a few goldsinny wrasse and whiting also taking our Isome and Gulp! Sandworm.

The gobies we caught were almost all black gobies. I caught this single leopard spotted goby which was a nice surprise.

A nice little goldsinny wrasse in perfect condition.

An early season whiting.

Weymouth Harbour on a warm summer evening.

We had a chat about various angling related topics as we fished and walked between the various spots and it was a real pleasure fishing with Mike. By the time we finished and walked back to my B&B I was quite tired and very hungry after a very long day with little food. After I thanked Mike for meeting up with me and he headed home I treated myself to a large pepperoni pizza before heading off to bed.

Up at 8:30 on Monday morning I had a tasty full breakfast before checking out and leaving the car as close to the ferry terminal as I could without having to pay for parking. It was a lovely day, very sunny and hardly any wind and I decided to fish from the end of the pleasure pier for an hour or so before heading to the ferry terminal to check in. I walked down there via Weymouth Angling Centre to get some bait but they were out of ragworm so I got a small frozen pack of six raw prawns instead. The end of the pier was quite busy and the short session saw me catch a few corkwing wrasse, a few pouting, a couple of whiting and a single tompot blenny. Before I left I helped a young boy improve his chances by giving him a hook, retying his end gear for him and giving him some of my bait. He was soon catching fish and bragging to his brother about it which was quite funny. I left him my raw prawns and headed off to get the ferry over to Jersey. The crossing was only four hours and the good conditions meant it wasn't going to be unpleasant one.

I arrived in St Helier at 17:30 where I was picked up by fellow species hunting fanatic Ross Johnson who is currently staying over there. After a quick chat about our options we headed off to try for garfish. Once down on the rocks Ross made up some chervy using a closely guarded recipe and I started fishing a sliver of mackerel under a float. Ross meanwhile decided to fish a small metal close to the surface.

The fishy, oily chervy groundbait certainly did the trick and we soon spotted one or two garfish breaking the surface.

We soon managed to catch a few fish but they were mackerel and pollock and the beaked berserker could not be tempted. Ross then hooked a gull which put up quite a scrap before being landed and carefully unhooked and released.

Ross pulls a bird.

Before long the sun was setting so we headed back across the island again stopping at Big J's for a tasty burger on the way. We then headed to try for horse mackerel under some harbour lights but as suspected it was perhaps a little too early in the year for them to be so far inshore and all we caught were a few more mackerel and a couple of small pouting. Before we left we checked a few other spots and Ross located a small group of feeding mullet. Knowing that as soon as one was hooked the others would more than likely be spooked and disappear Ross generously allowed me to have a go at catching one by free lined some bread in the current. After a couple of missed takes I managed to hook one and after quite a scrap Ross did a great job of landing it without a net.

My first thick lipped mullet of the year. Good scrap on my ultra light gear. It would seem at night they are slightly easier to catch too so I'll be trying for them after dark again in the future.

On Tuesday morning we headed to harbour for our first boat trip of two. Whilst we waited on the rest of the anglers turning up we messed about down the harbour wall where we caught a few sand smelt and small pollock. Ross then spotted a fifteen spined stickleback and borrowed one of my #26 hooks to nylon to try and catch it. Amazingly it took a tiny piece of mackerel straight away!

A sand smelt. The second addition to my 2013 tally.

Ross was very pleased to get a new species! Just as well I had brought my tiny goby bashing hooks for him to catch it on!

I had a go too but despite seeing a couple they were quite small even for fifteen spined sticklebacks and they didn't seem that interested in my bait. The rest of the anglers soon arrived and we got aboard Anna 2 skippered by Tony Heart and were soon heading west to drift over some banks for turbot.

Blue skies and flat seas.

Strips of mackerel on long flowing traces were soon being worked along on the bottom to entice the big flatfish but the fishing was quite tough with a fair bit of tide running and only one turbot was boated with a second being hooked and subsequently lost close to the boat. We then headed to another mark and anchored up to target black bream using strips of squid on two up rigs. Again the fishing was quite slow and didn't start to pick up until tide eased off in the early afternoon. Ross was the first angler to catch a black bream and pretty soon a few more were being caught. Trotting my bait away from the boat after Ross suggested it may help locate the fish I soon started getting bites and finally hooked a black bream which I asked Ross to net for me just to be on the safe side!

A lovely looking fish and my first new species of the trip!

I then changed to a running ledger with a whole joey mackerel for bait to try for a conger eel, a bull huss or a tope. One of the other anglers then caught a horse mackerel close to the bottom on his bream rig so after asking permission I fished a second rod with a set of feathers on and a pound of lead to get it down quickly to the bottom through any mackerel shoals that may have been around further up in the water. It didn't take too long before I hooked a fish. Reeling up I was hoping it wasn't a mackerel and to my relief it wasn't.

My second new species of the trip. Again netted by Ross just to be on the safe side. It was followed by two more on the feathers.

No action on the big baits and by now the tide was really racing, making it very hard to hold bottom so we lifted the anchor and headed to an inshore mark. The tide wasn't as strong here but the fishing was still quite slow although the other anglers did manage to catch a few more black bream before we headed in. Quite a tough days fishing really but I was very pleased to catch two new species.

In the evening Ross and I went to try for garfish again. Sadly though all three spots we visited, even a fairly secluded one, were already being fished by other anglers feathering for mackerel and with the sun dipping we decided to head to the Victoria Pier area of the harbour for a fairly relaxed session in the hope something odd might turn up. When we arrived Ross made up some more chervy, this time using a different but equally closely guarded recipe. A rather stinky concoction was soon attracting lots of small pouting and some rather large sand smelt. We both then caught a small black bream each.

Small harbour pouting. The south coast equivalent of East Lothian harbour coalfish.

Once you go black...

After a while we decided to cast out a few bigger baits to try and tempt some common eels or perhaps a passing bass. It took a while to get any bites and my rod was the first to go but when I lifted it and struck there was nothing on. Ross then had the same thing happen and told me that his mate Dan had hooked a cuttlefish there recently which he'd failed to land. Sure enough the next time I got a bite rather than striking I just slowly reeled it in and it was indeed a cuttlefish holding on to the bait but it let go as it came up to the surface. We tried using a large squid jig Ross had but had no luck with that so we decided to call it a night and headed to Big J's again on way home for another very tasty burger.

The last day of my trip had arrived and we headed down to the harbour to go out fishing on Tony's boat again. Going down early I spent forty five minutes trying to locate and then pester some fifteen spined sticklebacks but despite finding a few small ones they seemed to be quite easily spooked and I didn't manage to tempt any of them before we set off. Off we went to the turbot mark again, making a quick stop on the way to catch some mackerel to use as bait. Again the fishing here was very slow. Only one fish was hooked but came off next to the boat as it came up. As it was quite apparent that a move was in order Tony wasted no time in taking us to the edge of a reef to fish for black bream again. I decided to tie up a rig with some Sakuma Chinu hooks and added a few pink and yellow beads to both snoods to hopefully give me an edge. This seemed to work a treat as I caught the first black bream of the day. Again I then swapped over to ledgering larger mackerel baits to try and tempt a conger eel, a bull huss or a tope. With two rods out this time and the tide dropping off I soon had a fish on one of them and it was one of my favourite species.

Lesser spotted dogfish. Some anglers hate them.

I love them and have been known to kiss them before release.

Whilst the other anglers carried on fishing for bream and were now catching a few I was happy to watch for bites from something bigger. One young angler in particular was having a great day and was showing most of the adults how to catch fish.

This young angler got the biggest black bream of the trip.

The next time I got a bite it was a tope picking up one of the baits and running with it before dropping it again. A second run shortly afterwards resulted in me hooking a tope but after being on for just a few minutes the hook pulled. I do have previous history of having bad luck with sharks and thought it was going to be one of those days! Pretty soon after though one of the rods started going again and I picked it up. No run this time but something was still there so wound down and struck. The fish was on and was putting up a bit of a fight but not much, I was hoping it was a bull huss as this would have been a new species for me but after watching the rod tip Ross knew what it was.

Ross called it correct and my first conger eel of the year was soon boated.

Time was now running out and I really wanted to get a tope. Watching the rods patiently in anticipation one of them started going, I quickly picked it up and a tope started running with the bait before stopping. When it started running again I wound down and struck. Shark on. With Tony and Ross offering advice and encouragement I took my time playing it and they soon expertly brought it on board. After taking a few measurements and tagging the shark I had my picture taken with it before it was carefully put back, swimming off strongly.

I'm talkin' about sharkin'!

With very little time left before we headed back in I decided not to fish anymore as catching the tope seemed like the perfect ending to a wonderful trip. As we returned to port the high speed ferry that would be taking me back to the mainland passed us.

Quite an impressive vessel.

Back at the harbour I thanked Tony for his services and then Ross dropped me off at the ferry terminal where I would begin my long journey home. It had been a superb trip and over the six days I had managed to catch twenty six species in total, adding six to my 2013 tally including three new ones. It was also great to fish with Lee, Luke, Mike and Ross again, visit some great places and the two trips fishing with skipper Tony aboard Anna 2 were great too. I don't have any more extended fishing trips planned at the moment but I still have some way to go if I'm to achieve my 2013 fishing targets and it's going to be very tough but I'm going to give it my best shot and who knows where that will take me. On more adventures no doubt!

Tight lines, Scott.

South Coast Fishathon Part 2 : Cornwall.

On Wednesday the 2nd of July at about 16:00 I arrived in Mevagissey, my base for the next four days. After dumping some of my stuff in the B&B I headed down to the harbour to fish. I could see that the outer harbour breakwater looked very busy so I started fishing inside the harbour using my ultra light gear and ragworm for bait. There didn't seem to be many fish around and the first bite I got resulted in a common blenny being hooked, landed and quickly returned to the gully it came from.

The view from my B&B. Mevagissey Harbour is a bit of a species mecca and can turn up all sorts.

Heading around to the outer harbour wall it wasn't nearly as busy as I thought and I found a space to fish directly above some kelp beds with a few sandy gaps in between them. Dropping my bait down on a drop shot rig into these gaps soon saw a ballan wrasse being landed, the first of many over the next few hours.

First fish out was a small dark brown ballan wrasse.

Also present in abundance were poor cod and I started catching lots of them too. Switching to small sections of white Gulp! Sandworm did not seem to slow down the action so I decided to fish further up the wall close into a band of weed there to try and catch something different. I switched over to a split shot rig and this resulted in three nice corkwing wrasse being caught as well as a couple of ballan wrasse and a couple of small pollock.

Lots of poor cod around.

Fishing further up the wall close to the band of kelp produced some corkwing wrasse.

Another nice ballan wrasse.

This small pollock was caught on a section of white Gulp! Sandworm.

I then wanted to fish hard on the bottom to try and catch some dragonets. I was keen to catch them both because they would add to my species tally and also because I was keen to have a good look at them and try and establish if they were common or reticulated dragonets. Going to the spot where I had caught them last year I set up a simple running ledger using a mini boom I made to prevent tangles as the rig dropped to the bottom.

I wanted to switch to fishing hard on the bottom and made this little boom by crimping a 7g lead onto some rig tubing.

After catching a couple of long spined sea scorpions I caught my first two dragonets of 2013. Inspecting them though and using the key identifying features of both species unfortunately left me not much further forward in deciding which species they were!

One of the long spined sea scorpions I caught from the bottom close in at the base of the wall.

A dragonet but which variety? Common or reticulated? Despite doing a fair amount of research into the differences between the two species, after doing some checks I was a little confused. Whilst most of my checks pointed towards them being common dragonets the spines on the gill covers pointed towards them being reticulated dragonets.

Common dragonets are supposed to have a forth spine pointing forward. The dragonets I caught only seemed to have three all of which were pointing back which is what a reticulated dragonet has. Further research upon my return would solve this problem and I now believe them to be common dragonets.
Addition #5 to my 2013 species tally.

Species identification headaches aside, pretty soon I had caught over fifty fish yet most of the other anglers seemed to have caught very little. Whilst I was paying little attention to what they were doing I think most of them had been trying to catch mackerel and obviously there weren't many around because by about 20:00 they had all given up, packed up and left leaving me to fish the breakwater on my own. This ordinarily would have been nice but at this point I decided to head up the coast to visit the rockpools at Spit Point to have another hunt for Montagu's blenny.

Mackerel not in. No one else seemed to be catching much and they all left one by one which meant I had the place to myself for a brief period. 

Looking at Spit Point on Google Maps it didn't really seem obvious where to park as there was a golf course and a large industrial harbour behind the area I wanted to fish. Upon arrival I parked the car in a disused part of the harbour, forced my way up some overgrown stairs before climbing over a fence to get myself onto the coastal path that led down to the beach. When I reached the beach it looked to have a reasonable amount of rockpools and I began searching them.

A disused concrete installation reminded my of the ones on Cramond Island back home.

Plenty of rockpools but light was fading already.

Unfortunately there was no sign of any fish at all and feeling quite uncomfortable having left the car where I had and with light fading fast I called it a night and headed off. Montagu's blenny had evaded capture yet again! With hindsight I should perhaps have went up there earlier but due to enjoying the fishing at Mevagissey I had forgotten the principal reason for my trip, hunting species that would add to my annual tally or even better be new to me. This is an easy trap to fall into as a species hunter!

Thursday morning I had breakfast and headed south west to resume my search for Montagu's blenny, this time at mark on the Penzance coastline where I had been reliably informed they were resident. It was quite a miserable start to the day and the view east from my fishing spot towards St Michael's Mount was rather less breathtaking than it usual is.

Normally a very scenic view sadly ruined by an overcast sky and light drizzle.

The cold grey conditions didn't seem to put off this swimmer though!

Well the area certainly held lots of blennies. In just over an hour I caught fifteen but all of the common variety. Blennies can breath out of water so I kept them out of the rockpools I caught them from before returning them each time I moved to a new one to eliminate the possibility of repeat captures of the same fish. It was amazing how quickly they all changed their colour from quite dark to a very light shade.

Blenny identity parade. The suspect was not amongst them unfortunately.

The area I was searching didn't have that many rockpools sadly and with half an hour or so left on my car park ticket I decided to have a quick fish in a nearby harbour to see what would turn up. I could see a few mullet grazing on the hulls of the boats but experience told me that casting towards them would probably have resulted in much frustration as they ignored my efforts. Dropping a piece of Isome mounted on a drop shot rig down the side of a large vessel instead I soon felt a few little taps and caught a small goldsinny wrasse. Heading back towards the car park I decided to try one last spot before leaving and found a small area that held a lot of black gobies. I caught seven in ten minutes before heading back to the car. Most of them having the very distinctive elongated ray on the first dorsal fin which is more prominent during breeding season.

Several of these little Penzance Pirates tried to steal my lure.

I then headed north to St Ives to hopefully quickly catch a lesser weever before trying to catch a garfish from the rocks at the back of St Ives Island. Whilst the drive was fairly short the change in the weather was quite incredible and after parking the car, applying some factor 30 and walking down to the harbour I was on some steps fishing onto the golden sand enjoying the glorious sunshine. First drop down and it was job done on a small piece of ragworm. I then switched to a piece of white Gulp! Sandworm and caught a second. Despite what some folk would have you belive about sea scorpions the weever is the only poisonous fish found in UK waters. The spines on the black dorsal fin and on the gill covers can deliver a nasty sting but despite this I decided to man up and actually handled them. Last year I used forceps to unhook and handle them. At this point it would have been easy to spend an hour or so catching lots of the poisonous little fish but I decided to head over to the back of St Ives Island to try for garfish.

Handle with care!
Addition #6 to my 2013 species tally.

It didn't take me long to get onto the rocks and I was soon flicking my new favourite metal, the cheap yet very effective Yoshikawa Jig, out some distance before working it back fairly quickly in the top few feet of the water. After a few casts I felt a few little bumps and decided to add a few pauses to my retrieve. I was glad I did because just after one such pause I hooked and quickly landed my first new species of the trip, a launce. Another cast five minutes later produced a second even larger specimen.

Greater sandeels (launce) eat lesser sandeels and can often be seen swimming below shoals of them picking them off.
Easy to see why they would attack this small metal.
New species #1 and addition #7 to my 2013 species tally.

I carried on fishing to try and get my first garfish but I had arranged to meet up with local lure angler Luke Fox that evening and had to drive east to Fowey where we would be fishing. Just as I arrived I bumped into another local lure angler Josh Fletcher, who won last years Cornish Lure Festival species hunt, and his mate Ben and whilst waiting for Luke to arrive we went down to fish from a small wall at the side of Fowey estuary. There weren't many fish around though apart from a few blennies and when Luke arrived he and I headed off on our own to a rock mark at the mouth of the estuary. Getting there was a bit of a hike up over a hill and then a fairly steep climb down a rock face onto the mark below.

Fowey estuary, another Cornish species mecca.

Did we just climb down there? Luke referred to this type of climb as a near death experience. I'm no adrenaline junkie but it certainly gets the heart going and the buzz you get is quite exciting.

Safely down on solid rock we both started off targeting wrasse on lures but to begin with bites were pretty much non existent. I then switched from lures to ragworm and it didn't take long for me to catch a couple of corkwing wrasse from the kelp in front of me very close in.

A nice example of a female corkwing wrasse. Often not as colourful as a male and can easily be mistaken for a small ballan wrasse. Note the dark spot on the centre of the tail root though.

Luke had moved around the rocks and was fishing across towards a small bay where he caught a small bass and some small pollock so I jumped over to where he was, quickly tied on a metal and was soon into a few pollock as well. Luke then went back to targeting wrasse and caught a nice green and orange ballan.

A happy angler. This was what Luke came for.

After a few more pollock I turned my attention to a rockpool that had appeared as the tide had receeded and amused Luke by catching a few fairly chunky blennies from it. We then climbed back up and headed to another spot further up the estuary. It was a nice little harbour and we fished down the inside wall and caught loads of long spined sea scorpions. I also caught a couple of ballans, the first time I've caught them at night although there was a light above us which may explain this. It was a really relaxed evening and we had a good laugh, chatting away and when it was time to call it a night I agreed to meet up with Luke on Saturday morning to do some more wrassing.

On Friday morning I decided to head off and have one final go for Montagu's blenny and chose to explore the rockpools at Sennen Cove. I went there last year but only spent an hour or so exploring and from memory there were quite a few big deep rockpools there so off I went.

The sea was battering the offshore reef but it was nice and comfortable fishing on the rocky shore.

Unfortunately Montagu's blenny was not to be found again and I only managed to catch a couple of long spined sea scorpions and a few common blennies from what looked like rockpools that should have held a lot more fish.

The same two species I caught at Sennen Cove last year too.

With no sign of any other species after over an hour of poking around I decided to call time on my hunt for Montagu's blenny and headed south to try for garfish again. Fishing beneath the Minack Theatre had been suggested to me by a tackle shop owner but speaking to Luke the night before he thought it would be better fishing from Logan Rock to the east of it so that's what I did. I parked the car at Treen and walked down to the mark. Crossing a few fields I was soon greeted with stunning views to the west of Porthcurno beachs and the Minack Theatre.

Wow! Simply stunning.

Logan Rock. The flat ledge down next to the water caught my eye so I headed around Logan Rock towards it and figured out a way down.

Mind the gap. Access down from the top via this crevice was fairly straight forward.

Once I got down it became apparent that fishing form the bottom platform may not be a great idea. Waves were smashing into the rocks in front of me and coming up over it. I decided to stay on the next platform up above it and this was still an awesome place to fish from. Using my Yoshikawa Jig again I worked the top few feet of the water and soon hooked a fish but I knew straight away that it wasn't a garfish.

I was getting good at catching Launce on the Yoshikawa Jig.

A short while later I hooked a big fish close in which immediately started stripping line. It came off after about five seconds though and I would guess it was big pollock probably. Keen to explore other spots I headed back up an continued working my way around the rock looking for other areas I could access. I spotted a nice bay on the southern side and climbed down to it. After fan casting across the bay a few times in search of garfish without success I then worked the lure a bit deeper over the kelp beds next to the rocks on my right and was soon catching pollock.

Another good spot that involved a bit of climbing. Worth it though.

Casting fairly close to the rocks on the right I soon hooked a few small pollock.

Good fun on my ultra light gear.

A small boat went past and the occupants looked quite surprised to see me where I was and gave me a wave which I happily returned. I then climbed up again and went down the eastern side. This was by far the easiest place to get down to and I had a couple of chucks there but time was getting on and I wanted to go and meet up with Jake and his mate Dan. On the way back up to the top I was met by the ponies who are resident on Logan Rock. They do a fine job of keeping the grass trimmed.

Who needs a lawn mower?

I drove back to Mevagissey and met up with Jake, Dan and Dan's girlfriend Krystal who were beavering away in full competition mode on the harbours outer wall. They told me that the fishing had been very slow which I found quite surprising given the session I had enjoyed a couple of nights earlier. I joined in and only managed to catch one poor cod. A stark contrast to my last session there and we were perplexed as to the reason why as the conditions and tidal state were very similar. We then went over into the inner harbour and Dan caught a goldsinny wrasse. I decided to try fishing on the bottom but the only thing I managed to catch was the gutted and filleted remains of a large ling. Jake brought his landing net over which promptly fell apart when he tried to lify the carcass up the harbour wall. A good job it did this with the remains of a ling in it and not a potential competition winning fish I told him. Luckily he was able to climb down a ladder and retrieve the net and my fish.

Disgusting. Dan helps me hold the rotten remains.

After this quite bizarre catch and a quick release for the harbours crabs to enjoy we decided to head off for some food and meet up a bit later up on nearby Vault Beach to try for bass.

Vault Beach at dusk.

When we arrived it was dusk and the tide was pretty much fully out. The water was full of weed and after a few cast it became pretty obvious we were going to struggle to catch anything. Jake, Dan and Krystal had fished the rockpools at the end of the beach earlier the previous day and decided to try there instead. I wasn't keen on fishing there in the dark though so I wished them luck in the species hunt and headed back to the B&B.

On Saturday morning I met with up with Luke and off we went in search of some wrasse. After a bit of a walk we were soon looking down a rather steep slope towards the spot we intended to fish. At the bottom Luke told me we had another near death experience waiting for us.

Going down wasn't too bad. Coming up was a killer!

Another near death experience as promised. Luke loves them I think. Particularly if they involve cliffs and ropes.

When we eventually got down the mark looked superb. Crystal clear deep water close in and a few kelp beds and boulders to explore. Despite the fact we were there to target wrasse though I started off by trying for garfish but all I managed to catch was a succession of small pollock.

Once down there it looked wrassy.

Very wrassy!

Very pollocky too!. Every time my metal passed a kelp bed these little pollock would attack it.

All that sea to fish and Luke drops down the side. Best place to try for a wrasse.

Luke caught a few wrasse and then hooked a big one and called over for help landing it. I ran over the rocks and grabbed his net and got it ready. Soon safely in it the wrasse was a cracker, a beautiful dark brown and orange specimen with turquoise spots on its fins.

What a beast. Luke caught it on one of the Lunker City Ribsters in watermelon I gave him.

At 51cm this was a potential Cornish Lure Festival longest wrasse competition winning ballan for Luke.

Seeing this fine wrasse I quickly decided to forget about garfish for the time being and switched to wrassing too. After a few missed bites I had soon got into the action and my first ballan of the session put a rather big bend into my rod and almost made it into the rocks before I finally bullied it up from the depths and landed it. Not as big as Lukes but still another rather portly dark brown fish with lime green spots and an orange and white underbelly. A big plump set of juicy lips too.

My new Nories Flatfish Program Rough Surf 88, Daiwa Caldia reel and 20lb Sunline Castaway setup christened very nicely.

Lovely Cornish wrasse!

Both very happy with the two big wrasse we'd caught we kept fishing and Luke proceeded to pull out a few more ballans. I meanwhile was getting plenty of bites but they seemed to be a bit half hearted and I struggled to connect with them until I finally hooked my second wrasse of the session much to the delight of a racing pigeon who had taken a much easier route to the mark than we had and was perched watching us fish.

Our new feather friend sat and watched us wrassing for a while.

By this point a few hours had passed and with Luke keen to head to Mevagissey to try and catch a few species for the Cornish Lure Festival species hunt we bit the bullet and started to make the killer climb back up to the top before getting our breath back as we walked back to our cars. I really enjoyed fishing with Luke and wished him luck in the various competitions he was taking part in that weekend before I said goodbye and began the drive to Dorset for the third part of my south coast fishathon. I had a very early start the following day so when I arrived in Weymouth I quickly grabbed something to eat, checked into my B&B, set my alarm for 02:30 and had an early night.

Tight lines, Scott.