The Midas touch.

Last month, another of the UK’s globe trotting species hunters came up to Scotland to try to add a few more species to his already impressive tally. Having overtaken my own tally during a recent trip to the US, and closing in on six hundred species at the time, I met up with my mate Donny at St Abbs harbour where he hoped to catch a few “Scottish” species that are much more common up here. I arrived first, and while Donny and his mate Lucas had to wait for a tyre fitter to come and replace a couple of flat tires after Donny hit some raised ironworks on the outskirts of Coldingham, I started fishing and caught a few flatfish. 

There are plenty of flounder in St Abbs Harbour,..

…and the odd plaice as well. They’re a more recent arrival and are turning up at a few venues on the east coast now.

Donny and Lucas eventually appeared and got stuck straight into fishing straight down the side, hoping to catch species like short spined sea scorpion, butterfish, viviparous blenny, Yarrell’s blenny and coalfish. 

Top species hunters Donny and Lucas get to work. The sun was out but it was still quite chilly. Later on the temperature dropped quite abit as some clouds rolled over and Donny admitted that he’d underestimated how cold the Scottish climate would be and had some regret about wearing shorts!

Things were pretty slow, but we all caught a few fish and it was nice to be in their company, talking about species hunting with very passionate anglers who love that particular area of fishing. Donny and Lucas didn’t get any of their targets while I was there, but they were up for a few days and I was sure they’d get a coalfish at the very least!

Before I headed back up to Edinburgh, I caught a few dab,..

…a small ballan wrasse,..

…and a chunky shanny.

Over the next couple of days, and after heading in to Dunbar so that Donny could buy himself a pair of jogging pants to fish a bit more comfortably, they did manage to catch some of their target species. This despite some terrible conditions that restricted their venue options. As I publish this post, Donny is off travelling around Asia for a month. Currently in Malaysia, he caught his 600th species the other day.

Donny Midas with his 600th species. A Midas chiclid! How very apt!

If you want to check out what else he’s been catching head over to hisInstagram or alternatively you can watch some videos covering some of his previous adventures around the world over on his YouTube channel.

Tight lines, Scott.

Nine out of ten.

I made the most of some nice weather last week, heading down to St Abbs Harbour for a session with fellow species hunter Luke. We set ourselves a target of ten species just after we started fishing and ended up catching nine.

Some juvenile pollock were the first species of the day. 

Working a small piece of ragworm over the bottom produced a few long spined sea scorpion. 

Dropping my rig close to the edge of a kelp bed by the harbour mouth produced my first ballan wrasse of the year. 

Heading around the harbour, I caught this flounder. 

Whilst trying to catch a corkwing from a gully this chunky blenny appeared and munched my bait. 

We spent a bit of time fishing over a clean sandy patch, sight fishing for this nice plaice which we both ended up catching!

Tying on tanago hooks, we both caught some painted goby from a shallow sandy patch.

Back at the mouth of the harbour, Luke caught a few corkwing wrasse before I finally caught this nice colourful male.

Not long before we called it a day, we both caught some codling.  

During the session, we spotted quite a lot of fifteen spined stickleback and tried to catch them, but only one briefly showed any interest in a tiny piece of ragworm. I also spent some time sight fishing for a solitary dragonet, but despite repeatedly twitching a bait past it, it just couldn’t be tempted. Two sea trout also swam into the harbour just before we left, so whilst we didn’t reach our little goal, it was achievable. Regardless, it had still been an enjoyable day down in the sun-kissed Scottish Borders. 

Tight lines, Scott.

I got more than what I came for.

Over the years, I've met quite a lot of other species hunting anglers, and many of them have helped me out enormously. As a result my fishing knowledge has improved greatly and my success as a species hunter too. I now try my best to give back to this branch of fishing whenever I can. Knowing that I'm still keen to add more species to my Scottish and UK life lists, fellow Scottish and UK species hunters often get in touch when they hear about anything unusual being caught or even seen. This is exactly what happened on Monday evening, when I received a screengrab from a Facebook group chat discussing the recent sighting of some lumpsucker in Hartlepool Marina. Checking the weather forecast, it looked very good, so I found myself some cheap accommodation, booked it for two nights and drove down there the following morning. Arriving early in the afternoon, I had a look around and paid a quick visit to the bronze statue of the infamous Hartlepool Monkey to make a wish.

Hartlepool Marina on a pleasant March afternoon.

You can probably guess what wish I made!

Returning to the area where I had been told the lumpsucker had been spotted, I set up two rods and fished fairly long three hook flapper rigs straight down the side of the Marina wall. With my hooklengths spread out at different depths I was hopeful that should my target swim past it would find one of my six raw prawn chunks! The water in the marina had a bit of a green tinge to it and I wondered if the nice weather had caused an algae bloom. Things were very slow for the first couple of hours, and I was beginning to think the trip might turn out to be a waste of time, when some interest was registered on one of my rods. Picking it up I felt a couple of very subtle knocks and lifting the rod I was pleasantly surprised to feel the weight of a good fish. It turned out to be a nice plaice that had taken my bottom bait. Not too long afterwards, this scenario played out again almost exactly, and with the aid of my extendable net, a second much bigger plaice was landed!

At 47.5cm this is the biggest plaice I've ever caught from the shore!

Over the next few hours my rods sat pretty much motionless. I was hopeful that darkness would bring some action, but things didn't really improve much. Occasionally, I was getting strange little indications, so I wound up one of my rigs and swapped out the hooklengths for some coarse fishing #26 hooks to nylon. Baiting them with miniscule flecks of raw prawn, I dropped them down expecting the next bite to result in a tiny goby or some other micro species I'd caught before, but you never know! More time passed, with nothing happening, not even the little taps, and to be honest I was contemplating calling it a night, when my tiny hook rigged rod began twitching away. Picking it up, whatever was on the end felt bigger than a small goby and was putting up a strange fight. As it came up to the surface, I got quite a shock when I realised that it was a rather big pipefish! My first ever, it turned out to be a specimen greater pipefish.

What a bizarre fish! Cousin of the seahorse, they have a bony armoured body, but are surprisingly flexible. While trying to get some photos it kept moving its long tail around in a circling motion!

With a long straw like snout, they slurp up their food. I'm not sure what they normally eat to be honest, but was certainly glad this one had taken a tiny piece of raw prawn!

A totally unexpected bonus species, I was over the moon to catch my first ever species of pipefish. It was also my 93rd saltwater species in the UK, so I now only require ten more to hit my target of one hundred. I carried on fishing for a couple more hours but nothing else was biting, so I packed up and headed along the coast to my accommodation, happy in the knowledge that regardless of what happened during the rest of the trip, it most certainly had been worthwhile visiting Hartlepool Marina!

The next day, I didn't get up too early and after breakfast I decided to visit the exposed intertidal rocks on the shoreline between Pilot Pier and Heugh Breakwater. I wasn't expecting anything unusual there, but it was a lovely day, and I was still in a high spirits after the previous day's specimen plaice and greater pipefish. Carefully making my way down over the bladderwrack covered rocks, I eventually found a few rockpools that looked quite promising and spending some time dangling tiny pieces of prawn into potential hiding spots eventually produced a few fish.

My playground for a few hours of rockpooling fun.

Slightly deeper rockpools with large rocks in them provide perfect hiding places for small ambush predators and highly territorial species.

I caught a few tiny long spined sea scorpions. They're super aggressive, and if present, quickly rush out to gobble a tiny bait.

Common blenny are a bit more cautious. They won't dart out and prefer the bait put inside their hiding place or at least right next to it, so they can grab it and retreat to safety. Once caught they like to bite you, which I still find very amusing.

Walking back to the car, feeling quite relaxed and enjoying the sun, I passed a mural featuring a local angler who seemed to be struggling to catch anything.

Andy Capp wasn't having much luck with the lumpsucker either.

After some lunch, I headed back to Hartlepool Marina for another session. Hoping that lightning would strike twice, and I'd somehow catch my second new species of the trip in the shape of a lumpsucker, it was very slow. Towards the end of the session, Bill, the local angler who had spotted the lumpsucker last week, came down to say hello, so at least I had someone to talk to for the last hour or two. It was great chatting to him and the info he shared on the lumpsucker and their behaviour was very interesting. A few have been seen and some of those caught over the last few years in Hartlepool Marina, in fact only one person that he knew of had caught one fishing blind. As we chatted away, my rods sat still, and by the time I threw in the towel the only thing that I'd landed was a solitary large common prawn.

Crustaceans do not count! I'd suffered my first blank of 2026.

The following morning, I met up with Bill and another local angler named Kev. Meeting up near the marina, we walked out across Middleton Beach to fish in some rockpools next to Middleton Pier that were about to be exposed over low tide. They were both fairly confident that we'd be able to catch viviparous blenny, a species I normally target in the open sea, so the prospect of catching them from rockpools was a fairly novel concept to me.

Bill & Kev patiently searching for our target species.

One of several long spined sea scorpion I kicked the session off with.

Eventually I caught a common blenny from a deeper hole.

The rockpool that Bill had caught nine viviparous blenny from during one session a previous year, sadly didn't produce any, and left us wondering if there were any around. The lads explained that recent storms had moved a lot of the boulders around and sand had also filled in some of the cracks underneath some of the larger rocks too, limiting likely spots somewhat. Working our way along the base of the pier, Kev found a dark recess and dropping a piece of isome in, pulled out the first viviparous blenny of the session.

I think this is the first viviparous blenny time I've seen caught from a rockpool.

As we carried on exploring all the nooks and crannies we could find, a few more long spined sea scorpion were caught. The deeper and darker the hole, the bigger they got. Some also had some beautiful spots on the back sides of their pectoral fins.

The colour variations in long spined sea scorpions are diverse, but these marking are pretty awesome too.

The biggest long spined sea scorpion I caught.

As the tide turned and began to flood, we doubled back and made our way back towards the shore. When we reached the spot where Kev had caught the viviparous blenny, I dropped my bait into the same spot. It wasn't in there long before a fish was pulling my rod tip down and the second viviparous blenny of the session was quickly pulled out.

My first viviparous blenny from a rockpool. A new way to target them that I might try locally.

Bill then encouraged me to drop my split shot rig down into a small but particularly deep hole. Rather than a gap in rocks in a rockpool, it was part of the foundations of the pier and the hole went down a few feet. Again, it didn't take too long for a fish to take my bait and pull my rod tip down. Pulling it out, I could tell it was a bigger fish and was quite surprised when a shore rockling appeared!

My first shore rockling from a rockpool too!

Three beards does not always make it a three bearded rockling!

By that point, the tide was about to cut us off, so we made our way back up onto the sea coal covered sands of Middleton Beach. It had been great fishing with Bill and Kev, I'd really enjoyed their company and had learned a new approach for targeting viviparous blenny that may prove to be useful in the future at similar venues.

Middleton beach is covered in a layer of sea coal giving it a jet black appearance.

Heading back to our cars, I thanked Bill and Kev for inviting me to join them, sharing their knowledge, and then we said our goodbyes. After some lunch, I decided to make the three hour drive back up the road. It had turned out to be a very enjoyable trip. The specimen plaice and the unexpected bonus capture of the greater pipefish made the tough fishing in the marina well worth the effort and the time spent rockpooling had also been very enjoyable too. I'd gone to try to catch a lumpsucker, but despite having failed to do that, it felt like I'd gained a lot more out of the trip. A new PB plaice, a new species, and I'd also met two local anglers who had given me valuable information and shown me a new way to target viviparous blenny. All that being said, the draw of catching a lumpsucker might see me returning to Hartlepool again very soon!

Tight lines, Scott.

In the right plaice, at the right time.

I was supposed to drive down to Pembrokeshire at the beginning of September to spend a few days targeting grey triggerfish with fellow species hunter Ben Price, but conditions were terrible, so we took the decision to postpone the trip for two weeks. In the meantime, I’ve had a few sessions down at the inlet area of Torness Power Station, fishing at the spot where the striped red mullet was caught recently. For the first session, I headed down there with my mate Ryan to have a go at catching my one hundred and third Scottish species. Fishing three hook flappers baited with ragworm on two rods didn’t produce that many fish sadly. After several hours, I’d only caught three in fact!

A tiny dab,..

…a nice chunky flounder,..

…and a solitary coalfish.

Despite the lack of fish, it was still an enjoyable session and we were rewarded with a nice sunset before calling it a day and heading back up the road. 

Barns Ness Lighthouse and the Bass Rock off in the distance. 

Over the following week I returned three more times for another three attempts. I couldn’t get my hands on any ragworm, so I grabbed a bag of frozen raw prawns from the supermarket and dug some small blow lug to use as bait. Sadly, all three sessions turned out to be just as slow as the first one. Over twelve hours in total, fishing two rods, only produced a few tiny whiting and some flatfish. Mainly small dab, but in amongst them I was rewarded with a nice plaice. 

At 30cm, this is by far the biggest plaice I've caught on the east coast. Their numbers here seem to be increasing. 

So, some pretty tough sessions that didn’t produce a first Scottish striped red mullet for me. I’ve subsequently been told about more of them being caught in the area by other anglers though, so I’ll just keep trying. Hopefully there’ll be some more around for a little bit longer before the water temperature starts to drop and I think it’s just a simple case of being in the right place at the right time. I was supposed to be heading down south again soon, but Mother Nature seems determined to sabotage that  again, which will allow me to have a few more cracks at adding another species to my Scottish tally. 

Tight lines, Scott.

The species hunting bug.

I’ve been species hunting for over a decade, setting myself targets, both short and long term, and having lots of fun working towards trying to achieve them. It seems to be a branch of angling that is gaining popularity, whether that be individual anglers doing their own thing like me, or people taking part in species hunting competitions, either with friends or taking part in sponsored events where there are prizes to be won. 

My mate Ryan has caught the species hunting bug this year. For a bit of fun, he’s doing a saltwater species hunt with a few of his mates, and they're now exploring new ways to fish in places they've never fished before, targeting as many different species as they can. 

Earlier this month, after spending a day with him locally during which he added lesser weever, short spined sea scorpion and three spined stickleback to his tally, we drove across the country to Stranraer, to see if we could add a few more species to his tally. I wanted to see if I could catch a new species too while we were there. Inspired by another species hunting friend of mine Mike, I planned to spend some time fishing with tiny sabiki to target juvenile herring, hoping that, like he did last year, I’d perhaps get lucky and catch my first ever sprat in amongst them. To begin with though, we targeted sand goby straight down the harbour wall using small hooks baited with tiny pieces of ragworm. We quickly caught a few of them, another addition to Ryan's 2025 species hunting tally.

This is a sand goby. There are two other closely related species that can be found in the UK, out in deeper water usually. They are the Lozano’s goby and the Norway goby. I’ve been reading up on them recently, trying to get a handle on identification methods for both, but I'm very confident I’ve ever caught either of them. I really enjoy learning about new fish species and building up my knowledge.

After initially catching dozens of them from the cleaner areas on the bottom, we started moving around, dropping our rigs closer to some structure. This produced some small wrasse and two additional goby species, but Ryan had already caught all the species we caught earlier in the year.

Fishing close to rocky patches produced a few fairly large black goby,…

…and the odd rock goby too. 

At this point in the session, we got a slight surprise when we turned around to discover we had been joined by a third fisherman, who had decided to get rather close to us. A rather friendly juvenile European shag had landed nearby and had slowly made its way over to where we were fishing. I've been doing a spot of birdwatching this year, so I took a break from fishing to take a few pictures of the bird.

Even efficient predators appreciate a free meal!

Shifting my attention back to fishing, I then switched over to a slightly heavier setup and a set of sabiki. Casting them around in different directions and working them back towards me to try to locate any herring shoals, I didn't get that many bites initially, but eventually I did manage to catch a couple of juvenile herring. They're not a species I particularly enjoy catching if I'm honest, as they don't react well to being handled, their scales being very delicate and coming off very easily. I quickly did the necessary checks to confirm that they were indeed herring and put them back. Ryan hadn't caught a herring this year, so I let him use my sabiki rod for a while, but he didn't manage to catch one, so we decided to move to a second spot. 

We were unsure if the area we wanted to get to would be accessible, but after a quick drive and a short walk, we discovered the long man-made structure was and started fishing from it. Ryan dropped tiny pieces of ragworm down the side to begin with, whilst I focused on catching a sprat again. I managed to catch another couple of juvenile herring, and as Ryan wasn't having much luck down the side, he had a go at slowly jigging the sabiki again. After a bit of patience, he eventually got a couple of juvenile herring, his first of the year.

Then as we were chatting, Ryan spotted a strange fish and pointed it out to me. I realised almost straight away that it was a pipefish! It was quite small and was swimming around slowly in an upright position just underneath the surface of the water. Sadly, it didn't hang around for long before disappearing out of sight. That's the first time I've seen a pipefish in the UK. There are six species of them found here, and I'd love to catch any of them. Next month I plan to go hunting for them!

Before we left, we moved along to the end of the pier and tried our luck there. My sabiki didn't produce anything, so I switched back to fishing down the side again. In amongst lots of black goby, rock goby and goldsinny wrasse both of us pulled out a few small pouting.    

Yet another addition to both our species tallies for this year.

It had been quite an enjoyable day trip to Stranraer and worth the long drive to get there. We'd caught some interesting species, made a feathered friend and seen a pipefish! Next month Ryan and I are hoping to head down south to fish Dorset, Devon and Cornwall. If we go, I'm confident we can both catch some new additions to this year's tally, and I might hopefully catch a new species too!

A week or so later, I met up with another convert to species hunting, welsh angler Ben Price. For years Ben was a specimen angler, targeting large fish around the Pembrokeshire coast, where he lives. A few years ago, he decided to give species hunting a go, and it's safe to say he's now addicted! A reader of this blog, he was so inspired by some of my posts about the fishing around Scotland that last year he decided to visit and had a very successful trip. Some of the fish he caught up here helped him to win the Angling Trust's 24/25 Elite Species Hunt with an incredible total of seventy six species! 

Spending a week up in Scotland again, after spending several days on his own up in the highlands, where he added butterfish, coalfish, cod, flapper skate, sea trout, tadpole fish, and two spotted goby to his tally for the 25/26 competition, he headed down to Edinburgh. It was good to meet up with Ben again, and the two of us spent a couple of days fishing around Edinburgh and East Lothian, trying to catch reticulated dragonet, short spined sea scorpion, topknot, viviparous blenny and Yarrell's blenny.

One of the venues we fished was St Abbs Harbour. Ben was blown away with the place and we caught quite a few fish. Whilst fishing with tiny hooks trying to catch a reticulated dragonet, we caught quite a lot of small flatfish.  

St Abbs Harbour has a health population of tiny plaice in it.

In amongst all the juvenile plaice and flounder, I also caught this tiny dab.

After catching several long spined sea scorpion, Ben caught a short spined sea scorpion, which was one of his target species. He then spotted a small group of dragonet in close, and we both managed to catch quite a few of them. Carefully inspecting each one, they all sadly turned out to be common dragonet. Still, this was a first time capture for me on the east coast of Scotland. Whilst targeting them, I also caught a painted goby, also a first time capture for me on the east coast of Scotland.

My painted goby with its distinctive dorsal fin markings and pale saddles.

Casting out into the middle of the harbour again, we caught a few more tiny flatfish, and then I caught another dragonet. This one turned out to be the one Ben was after, a reticulated dragonet. Sadly, like a lot of fish in the area, it was riddled with black spot disease. Its eyes in particular were badly scarred because of this.

My second Scottish reticulated dragonet. Not the most photogenic example of the species.

I was hopeful that Ben would catch one too, but after a while we threw in the towel and turned our attention to the area where I caught a topknot earlier this year. We both knew that it was a long shot and predictably, even if there was one down there, the resident wrasse had other ideas, our ragworm didn't stay down there very long before being munched by one.

A nice male corkwing wrasse. One of several wrasse we caught.

Soon it was time to head back up the road to Edinburgh, Ben had one last late evening session targeting viviparous blenny before making the drive back down to Wales the following morning. Next week I'm heading down to Pembrokeshire to meet up with him again. He's going to hopefully help me catch my first grey triggerfish in the UK, something I'm really looking forward to!

On Saturday morning, I received a message from Ryan, telling me that his mate had caught a striped red mullet. A few hours later, I received a message from Ben, telling me that someone in Scotland had caught a juvenile lumpsucker. Inspired by these captures, on Monday, I headed down to where the striped red mullet had been caught. Having caught the species a few times in the past in both the Mediterranean and also from Swanage Pier in Dorset, I'd love to add one to my Scottish species tally. Collecting some live prawns on my way to the venue, I found a tiny fish in my net with the prawns after scooping them out of a rockpool.

The tiniest corkwing wrasse I've ever seen!

Armed with my bucket of live bait, I had a pretty slow session fishing two rods and only caught a few dab and whiting. Unsurprisingly, no striped red mullet were around or if they were, they weren't tempted by the prawns. I think perhaps they'll be more partial to a nice worm bait, which is what Ryan's mate caught his on, so I'll be baiting up with them during future attempts.

I might be a dab hand at this species hunting lark, but sometimes persistence and luck are what's required!

So, I'm well aware that catching a striped red mullet in Scotland is a real long shot, but as I know about two that have been caught this year fairly locally and also that two were caught last year as well, they're clearly around, so I'm going to keep trying to catch one throughout September. Anyway, I just can't help myself. It's obvious that I too still have the species hunting bug, and I don't think there's a cure!

Tight lines, Scott.