Missing the boat?

After Sunday's superb skate trip aboard "Reel Deal" with Willie and Gordon I headed out locally on Tuesday to try and add yet more, but much smaller species to this year's tally. I had two targets in mind and arranged to fish a few marks around East Lothian with my mate Mikey. First stop was Eyemouth Harbour where I was hoping to locate a fifteen spined stickleback. The water in the harbour was the clearest I've ever seen it but alas there was a distinct lack of fish. I had to resort to fishing in an isolated pool of water trapped amongst some boulders to open my account. The fish had spines but it wasn't a stickleback. 

This little brute charged out of a crack to wolf my piece of Angleworm.

Next on our little tour of East Lothian was Dunbar Harbour, again I did a spot of stickleback hunting whilst Mikey focused on flatfish. The tide was about half way in and whilst the bladderwrack on the walls was partially covered I couldn't see any of my target species to lower my rig in front of. There were dozens of two spotted gobies though so I amused myself trying to catch them using a micro fishing float rig. They were being quite fussy though and my tiny pieces of mackerel and squid had to be twitched by lifting the float ever so slightly to get them biting. 

Not quite small enough but the closest fish yet to fitting on my one yen coin.

After I caught a couple I joined Mikey pestering the flatfish and we caught a few small flounder and plaice. By early evening I still hadn't spotted any sticklebacks moving around in the weed and the flatfish were being less aggressive with their bites. With the sun getting fairly low in the sky it was time to head to our final mark, Ravenshuegh Beach. My target there was the lesser weever and the conditions once we walked down to it looked great, the sea being flat calm with small waves gently rolling in. I went with half a set of herring hooks, four small hooks with small blobs of fluorescent paint at the top of their shanks and baited two of them with tiny strips of mackerel and the other two with slithers of squid. Mikey meanwhile decided to fish Angleworm on a split shot rig. Twitching our rigs back towards us bites were few and far between to begin with as we wandered along the beach but once it got dark we finally got a few. When I  connected with one it was a small fish and reeling it in I had high hopes but it wasn't my target species and instead I beached a palm sized flat fish. Shining my head torch on it I did get a little surprise though when I discovered it was a plaice, quite an unusual capture for the area. 

The first plaice I've caught from East Lothian outwith the little corner that produces them in Dunbar Harbour.

After a while the few bites we were getting petered out again so we ended the session. I haven't seen a fifteen spined stickleback for a few weeks now and I'm wondering if I perhaps have missed the opportunity to catch one? I've also had about half a dozen attempts at catching a lesser weever on marks I know hold them. I don't think they are present in great numbers but I'm also not sure if they are resident all year round or only move inshore when the water temperature rises in the summer? I have a pair of waders on order that I plan to use in my efforts to catch both these species so I'll have a few more attempts but my thoughts are beginning to turn to switching my focus to conger eels and three bearded rocklings, two species that I can definitely expect to catch over the coming colder months. 

Tight lines, Scott.

Two out of three ain't bad.

When I got back from Menorca and updated my saltwater species tally for the year I noticed that I had reached ninety five species and had a though. Perhaps I could realistically hit a total of one hundred if I did a bit of planning, got a few breaks with the weather and a slice of luck? Looking at potential targets that I haven't caught during 2014 (or haven't ever caught for that matter) I came up with a shortlist of species that I could try and catch and have subsequently decided these will be my focus for the rest of the year. Three of the species on this shortlist, two spotted goby, golden grey mullet and thick lipped grey mullet, I had caught previously around East Lothian so on Sunday I took advantage of a calm spell in the weather and headed off to try and catch the three of them. First stop was the rather nice Ravensheugh Beach at low water to try and catch a two spotted goby from the rockpools at the eastern end.

Ravensheugh Beach is also known to produce the odd turbot, another species I've not caught this year, so I may return in the near future.

Making my way to the rocks at the end of the beach I tied a #18 hook onto the end of my line and squeezed on a single 2g shot a few inches above it. On the hook went a tiny sliver of squid and I began working my way around the various rockpools. To start with I couldn't see any two spotted gobies but after catching a few long spined sea scorpions I was exploring my third rockpool when I finally spotted two of the little fish. 

No sign of my target in this fairly deep pool but a nice big boulder in it provided a place to hide for...

...several of these super aggressive little predators.

Having located the fish I was after, which is usually the hardest thing to do in fishing, I set about trying to catch one. Lowering my bait down in front of the tiny fishes they swam over to inspect it but didn't seem interested at all and after a while trying to tempt them I decided to move on and try and locate some more in other rockpools. I soon spotted a single specimen in the next pool poking its head out from beneath a large rock but again it didn't seem to be in the mood so I moved again. The next rockpool was a lot bigger and dropping my bait into the middle of it saw three two spotted gobies appear from the weed around the edges, swim up and start fighting over it. This was a lot more promising but I feared they might struggle to get the #18 hook into their tiny mouths. I normally use #26 hooks for these tiny species but I've run out and after a while I was cursing the fact I hadn't ordered more. Just when I was thinking about quiting and heading off to target mullet I finally managed to hook one and quickly hoisted it up out of the rockpool.

This small gobies are pretty easy to spot as they have a dark red back with light brown saddles. They don't seem to spook either so once located a bit of perseverance (and a suitably tiny hook) normally sees them caught. Note also the nice blue spots down the fishes flank. These appear much brighter when the fish is in the water.

Quite pleased that my efforts had been rewarded I headed back to the car and drove down the A1, stopping briefly to buy some bread and sardines to make up some groundbait to hopefully attract a few mullet down at Torness Power Station outflow. Conditions didn't look ideal when I got down there however, with a slight swell running and the water ever so slightly clouded up as a result. I decided to give it a go anyway and set about making up my groundbait as I waited for the tide to flood over the area I planned to fish. As I started setting up my tackle I spooned in some groundbait and after a while a few juvenile mullet began appearing and started nibbling away at the chunks of bread floating on the surface. Tackle wise I went with an 8g bolo float, 6lb mainline and a #10 hook at the end of a 4lb hooklength. Squeezing on a bread flake about the size of a 5p piece and casting it out I sat patiently watching for the float to register bites. Over the next two hours or so I kept the groundbait going in, rebaiting my hook regularly and my patience was finally rewarded when I got a cracking bite, my float shooting under and staying there. Fish on and it was much bigger than the small ones I'd seen near the surface. I was surprised it didn't make any runs but instead it just thrashed around for quite some time in front of me. After a nervous moment when I thought it was going to swim into the rocks I was fishing from I managed to get it in my net.

Mullet are hard fighting fish. They have a lot of stamina too and don't give up easily. Luckily this one was well hooked. 

I carried on fishing hoping that a golden grey mullet would be next to sink my float and complete my hat trick of species for the day. My float did go under a second time but unfortunately the fish threw the hook after a few seconds of persistent thrashing. It felt like a bigger mullet than my first though so in all likelihood it was another thick lipped mullet. Just after high water I ran out of groundbait and then slices for my hookbaits so I packed up and headed off. Two out of three ain't bad and I'm confident I can return when conditions are better and catch a golden grey mullet. I now have only three species to catch to reach the one hundred mark and just over seven weeks to get them. Neap tides this weekend should have seen me out on Sunday night trying to catch a five bearded rockling and a viviparous blenny during slack water from Anstruther's White Pier but the incredibly strong easterly winds currently forecast may make this impossible. I may have to wait until the weather calms down again to resume my saltwater species hunting.

Tight lines, Scott.

More micro fishing for gobies.

A few weeks ago I went to Ravensheugh beach with my mate Jake to target turbot. When we got to beach Jake saw some small fish in a rockpool. After a while we agreed they were gobies and tried to catch a few. Jake almost managed to get one but it fell off his #20 hook as he was lifting it up. After a fruitless hour or so searching for turbot on the beach at the mouth of a small stream I returned to the rockpool and after a lot of perseverance I managed to catch one of them. At this point I realised I didn't have my camera with me so I popped it into my empty water bottle. I then caught a second and then I caught a tiny dragonet. Jake then returned having worked his way along the beach a fair bit and back along again.

I worked the stream whilst Jake wandered along the beach.

We popped the tiny fish into a small rockpool to look at them and I took a couple of pictures using Jake's camera. Still unsure about the exact species of goby I had caught we headed off as Jake wanted to try for bass at Torness Power Station outflow.

At the time I thought they may be painted gobies due to the saddle markings. But it turns out they were two spotted gobies. You can just make out the spots.

Still not sure quite how I hooked this dragonet. It was about the size of my thumbnail!

A short walk back to the car and a drive down the coast and we were at the outflow. Once there Jake soon caught a few bass, first of all using a Hansen Pilgrim spoon and then, after losing that, on a Lunker City Ribster fished on a jighead.

One of a few bass Jake caught, much to the annoyance of others who weren't catching that many.

I meanwhile had been exploring and had spotted some more gobies in a large sandy bottomed rockpool and when we left I told Jake I'd like to get some smaller hooks and return to find out what they were. Jake visited twice in the last week and had managed to catch some two spotted gobies confirming the identity of the two I had caught and had also caught a small goby that we were pretty sure was a common goby.

Jake and I were reasonably certain he'd caught his first common goby and would later have this confirmed.

On Monday some new Gamakatsu 6315 #26 hooks to nylon arrived so yesterday we headed down again to catch a few more and get confirmation. Upon arrival I headed straight to the rockpool to get started. Jake went to try for a bass. The only rod I had with me was the "beast tamer". I was focused on goby hunting and nothing else!

My Ron Thompson Ice Fishing Pimple Lux 60cm Medium. 2 foot of goby stopping power!

Weapons of micro destruction!

Ultra fine wire hooks to increase my chances of hooking the tiny fish.

Tiny pieces of Power Isome and Gulp! Sandworm were the lures of choice. Split shot was placed a few inches above to help keep it down as it was fairly windy.

It took me a while to get them interested in my tiny chunks of Power Isome and Gulp! Sandworm but just after Jake came over to see how I was doing I managed to catch a two spotted goby, my 29th saltwater species on lures this year. Jake hadn't managed any bass but he then spotted a small flounder in the rockpool and soon had it hooked on a pink Ecogear Minnow SS. That's the first time I've seen one caught in a rockpool! I then moved along a bit to a spot where Jake had whipped the gobies up into a frenzy by jigging his brightly coloured lure around. After jigging my Isome around lightly amongst them I managed to catch a small goby. Careful examination would confirm it as being a common goby. A new species for me and my 30th saltwater species on lures this year. I was over the moon having reached my goal for the year.

Isn't he cute.

Rockpool flounder caught on the Rockfish UL.

Ecogear Minnow SS proved to tempting for this stranded flounder.

My first ever common goby.

Nine soft ray fins in the second dorsal fin along with other features confirms this as a common goby. Sand gobies have at least ten.

I had a small clear plastic tank with me that gave us an opportunity to study the gobies closely. We examined them carefully admiring their markings and subtle colourations before we both took turns with the "beast tamer" catching some more. Both of us ending up with one two spotted goby and three common gobies each.

Viewing gobies like this lets you see every detail.

Note the pale blue markings on this common gobies

The examination tank. This enabled us to take our time and confirm that all the gobies we'd caught were two spotted gobies or common gobies.

A few of the bass anglers took an interest in what we were doing too and had a look at our catches before I released them all again. Micro fishing is great fun and it's strange to think that it's taken us so long to investigate the gobies as we've spotted them there before. We just assumed they were sand gobies I suppose. In future we'll be investigating any gobies we spot as there are quite a few more species in the U.K. for us still to catch!

Tight lines, Scott.

Too turbulent for turbot.

I headed out during the week with Lillian to Ravensheugh beach in East Lothian to target turbot. Upon arrival though it became apparent that the conditions were not ideal for the ultra light setups we had with us. To try and salvage the trip we did a spot of rockpooling and I quickly caught a long spined sea scorpion. Lillian was struggling to find any so I explained the type of features to look for in a rockpool that may hold little greedy fish. Cracks, weed, gaps under boulders and shady areas are all good places to drop your Isome into. As I pointed out one such hiding place I caught another one. It had quite a nice colouration so I took a few photos.

"Peppered Rootbeer" flavour.

Like little grains of sand these spots are a key part of the fishes camouflage.

Unlike its brightly coloured underside!

Putting it back I thought the fairly large rock might contain more fish so I dropped my lure into the same spot again. Sure enough another long spined sea scorpion grabbed the little chunk of Power Isome and was soon hoisted out of the pool. Lillian was still finding it difficult to locate any fish so I suggested we headed back to the car and head somewhere else where I knew finding fish shouldn't be a problem. We were soon at Dunbar harbour and as I thought there were more than a few coalfish in it, eagerly taking the Power Isome on the drop or from the bottom if it actually managed to get down there. After watching me catch a few Lillian said that whilst she could feel them biting she couldn't hook them. I put my rod down and gave her a few pointers. Next cast she had a few more bites before manging to hook one.

Lillian gets a fish!

Blank off and feeling hungry, Lillian walked up to the high street to get something to eat. I had a quick go at flattie corner but it was high water and it never seems to produce any when the harbour is full. Today was no different. I then quickly headed over to blenny corner and managed to catch two small ones before Lillian returned with some lunch. Still pretty windy and cold we enjoyed our snack in the car before heading home.

Gutted to not get the chance to target turbot today but still had fun, caught a few fish and I'm chuffed Lillian had a go today and caught a fish! I'll soon have her catching bigger ones!

Tight lines, Scott.