Crossing borders.

Last weekend, I had a couple of after work sessions with my mate Ryan. Poor weather conditions had wrecked his fishing plans during the previous week on his days off, so as the weather was nice, off we went. On Saturday, we met up with four other species hunting anglers at St Abbs harbour. Jack, Josh, Cal and Leigh were all up visiting Scotland from down south. Having travelled all around Scotland during their trip, trying to add a few species to their lifelists, they’d done just that, and were visiting St Abbs on their way back south for one last go at adding one or two more. 

When they arrived, I gave them a few pointers on where they could potentially catch butterfish, viviparous blenny, Yarrell’s blenny and tadpole fish. Ryan and I then set about trying to catch a few fish ourselves. Ryan wasn't after anything new, but wanted to add to his tally in a species hunt he's taking part in with some of his other mates. He was after a plaice or a short spined sea scorpion, but the tide was almost fully out and as a result, things were pretty slow. 

A shanny kicked things off for me after a pretty uneventful start.

There were plenty of flounder around, but unfortunately no plaice for Ryan.

A rather chunky long spined sea scorpion I caught. It's short spined cousin evaded capture!

As it got dark, and our headtorches became neccesary, I probably spent more time talking to the visiting species hunters than I spent fishing. Sadly, none of them got any new species, but they'd clearly all had a great time travelling around and fishing various different venues in Scotland. It was good to meet up with Jack again and to meet Cal, Josh and Leigh in person for the first time too, having talked to them all online at various points over the last few years. I'm sure I'll cross paths with them all again in the future, most likely when I head down south for a cross border species raid of my own!

The following evening, Ryan and I went fishing after work again. This time we visited Burntisland Harbour, a venue I've not been to for many years. This mainly due to the installation of an extensive network of fencing, designed to keep the public out. After hearing reports that access to the breakwater and the area near the sailing club was once again possible, and that lots of locals were regularly fishing there, we were pleased to find out that this was indeed the case, via several large holes and missing sections in the security fencing. Our main target for the session was a Yarrell's blenny, but as the tide was fully in, it took us a little time to locate a very specific spot on the bottom, that has for me, produced them more often than not. With several years having passed, I didn't know if the species would still be present, but fish are creatures of habit, and on Ryan's second drop into the deep hole on the bottom, a hungry Yarrell's blenny hit his tiny ragworm bait and was quickly wound up.

Mission accomplished! Ryan was over the moon to catch this Yarrell's blenny.

I may not have been taking part in any competitive species hunts myself, but that didn't mean that I didn't want to catch one too, so I set about plundering the bottom feature myself. After catching a few juvenile cod, poor cod, goldsinny wrasse and corkwing wrasse, something substantially larger picked up my tiny piece of ragworm and pulled my rod tip round as it swam off along the base of the harbour wall, engaging my drag as it realised something wasn't quite right and charged off. Fishing with a tiny hook and very light line, I took my time playing the fish and didn't apply too much pressure. Just enough to slowly raise the fish up through the water column and to steer it away from a set of ladders that could have swam behind to break me off. After a very decent scrap, a large ballan wrasse came to the surface. We had neglected to take a net with us, and I didn't want to risk lifting it up the harbour wall so Ryan scrambled down to the edge of the water to lift it out for me. After it made a few more attempts to swim off, down through the bladderwrack next to where Ryan was waiting, it was finally landed successfully.

What a cracking bonus ballan wrasse! A great fish on very light tackle!

We fished on for a little while longer, to see if I could catch a Yarrell's blenny of my own, but feeling pretty tired, we decided to call it a night and to head off for some tasty fish and chips before driving back to the capital. After a few "last casts" before we did pack up to leave, I caught a small shore rockling.

Not as cool as a Yarrell's blenny, but still pretty cool as far as I'm concerned and a nice species to finish the session with.

So, Ryan and I had a couple of very enjoyable short evening sessions. We really should make more of an effort to do these after work, especially when the weather is nice. This weekend, Ryan and I will be doing a cross border raid of our own, when we head down to Cornwall for five days of species hunting. I'll mainly be focusing my efforts on catching species that I've never caught before in the UK, Ryan will be doing the same and has more potential targets than I do, but he'll also trying to add as many species as he can to his 2026 tally. We'll be meeting up with several other species hunting anglers whilst we are there as well and we're both really looking forward to it!

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.

Something to look forward to.

I had a short session on Sunday evening with my mate Ryan, scratching about at Newhaven Harbour. Rockling were the target species again, but for the majority of the night the resident whiting had other ideas. They were straight onto our black lug baits as soon as they hit the bottom, sometimes before they got there!

We caught plenty of small whiting, but it wasn't exactly exciting.

There was very little wind, but it was quite cold, and it rained lightly constantly, making things a little unpleasant. Casting our rigs in towards slightly rougher ground, I caught something that I knew wasn't a whiting as I wound it in. It turned out to be a beaten up long spined sea scorpion that was a little bit tatty around the edges and had a damaged tail.

A bit of an old warrior. Life is tough sometimes.

Over low tide, things went very quiet, and we didn't get many bites until it began to flood. Not long before we called it a night, Ryan struck into a decent bite and pulled in a rockling. Having caught a shore rockling during our last after dark session down in the Scottish Borders, he was hoping it was a five bearded rockling, but was disappointed when he lifted it up over the railings and realised it was a shore rockling.

Ryan's shore rockling was a nice deep reddish brown colour.

After catching a few more whiting, it was getting quite late, so we decided to call it a night after having a few "last casts". Rockling are probably my favourite target species in winter, but I've got to be honest, I'm not really a massive fan of venturing out at this time of year. Most of the time the conditions are, at best, pretty miserable, and at worst, downright rotten. Strong easterly winds the remainder of this week, mean I probably won't get out targeting rockling. Perfect winter cod conditions, but fishing for them just isn’t my thing! Luckily, I'll be getting a break from the cold Scottish winter next month when Ryan and I head down to Tenerife with our mate Nick. Should hopefully be a bit warmer down there, and whiting definitely won't be a problem! Not sure that I'll catch any rockling either mind you,although there is a spotted rockling found there so you never know!

Tight lines, Scott.

Starting again from scratch.

Another year has begun, and for us species hunters, it's time to reset our annual species tallies. Last year, I caught one hundred and ninety one different species of fish, including forty three new ones. Not too shabby, all things considered! On Saturday evening, I headed back down to Cove Harbour with my mate Ryan to spend a few hours in the freezing cold targeting rockling. A bit of a swell was still running following the latest storm, which made fishing with light tackle fairly testing, but before too long I had pulled out my first fish of 2026.

The five bearded rockling was also my last species of 2025.

As the night progressed, we caught a few coalfish and the odd small cod on our small black lug baits. Despite the conditions, the fishing was enjoyable, and in between bites we chatted away. We mainly talked about our recent trip to Japan and all the things we were missing about it. We also discussed some potential destinations for trips this coming year.     

There were plenty of these reasonably sized coalfish around...

...as well as some small cod.

Towards the end of the session, we both caught a shore rockling each. These are easily distinguished from their five bearded cousin as they possess two fewer "beards". They also grow a bit bigger too.

The shore rockling has three beards. So does the three bearded rockling, but in my opinion the two species look nothing alike due to their very different colourations!

Before we knew it, the time had come to head back up the path to the car and drive back up the A1 to Edinburgh. It had been another enjoyable winter session and I think Ryan and I will be out again for more of the same over the next few weeks, although we may fish more locally.

Tight lines, Scott.

All hail the rockling king!

I headed out on Sunday evening for a short session at Dunbar Harbour with my mate Ryan. We were joined by our mate Nick, who lives in Dunbar, and the three of us spent a few hours scratching about with small worm baits to see what we could catch. We were expecting to be plagued by juvenile coalfish, but oddly, there were hardly any around. After a fairly fruitless hour or so fishing inside the harbour, we walked around to its mouth and fished there for a couple of hours. It wasn't much more productive to be honest, but after one or two small coalfish and cod, Ryan caught a few five bearded rockling, and Nick and I pulled out some long spined sea scorpion.

The long spined sea scorpion can be caught all year round!

As our hands slowly got numb in the cold evening breeze, Ryan caught another five bearded rockling. Then another. Then another! He was on fire! Unlike most anglers, I really enjoy catching rockling, so with so many around, I was hopeful I'd catch some too. Eventually, towards the end of the session, I did get one.

What turned out to be my only "slug" of the night was this small shore rockling.

I don't care what anyone says, rockling are awesome!

Incredibly, by the time we called it a night, Ryan had caught nine rockling! All of them the same species, sporting five beards. I think that's the most I've ever seen caught in one session, an especially impressive feat given it was a relatively short one! Having been outrocklinged nine to one, I was glad it wasn't any kind of competition! Funnily, Ryan was a little bit annoyed that he hadn't caught a shore rockling, whilst I was slightly disappointed that I hadn't managed to catch a five bearded rockling. I may pop out tonight locally to try and catch one!

Tight lines, Scott.

Eastern shores before foreign shores.

Yesterday evening, I headed down the A1 with my mate Ryan, to fish the inlet area at Torness Power Station for a few hours. It can be a sheltered spot to fish when an Easterly wind is blowing. Armed with some ragworm, we fished small pieces, on small hooks, using ultra light tackle. Plenty of bites from the start of the session saw us catching a lot of juvenile fish.  Poor cod, cod, coalfish and pollock that were all fighting over the bait as soon as it reached the bottom. These were followed by a small ballan wrasse for Ryan and then we both caught a few of my least favourite fish of 2024, the goldsinny wrasse!

Not another goldsinny wrasse! Thankfully, next Sunday, I'll hopefully be saying the same thing about Mediterranean rainbow wrasse when I'm fishing on Malta! No chance of any goldsinny wrasse there!

After an hour, light started to fade and I recieved a WhatsApp message asking my opinion on the identity of a clingfish. Putting my rod under my arm whilst I had a look at the photos I’d been sent and replied, I popped my phone back into my pocket and turned my attention back to my own fishing. Rod in hand again, my line had went a little slack and winding that up I felt another small fish on the end. Winding it up, I was pleasantly surprised to see a butterfish come to the surface. 

Not another butterfish! My twelfth of 2024! I never thought catching so many in a year would be possible!

We both caught a few more juvenile cod and also a few leopard spotted goby as it continued to get dark. As well as these fish we pulled up a few velvet swimmer crabs too that grabbed our ragworm and stubbornly refused to let go of it until they reached the surface, or were lifted up to have it coaxed from their claws. Once our headtorches were required I also pulled up a lobster. Instantly recognised by the thrashing of its tail. Following that the bites slowed right down over the area we’d been fishing over, so we moved a short distance and began fishing into a rougher patch on the bottom, made up of boulders covered in kelp. Ryan caught a couple of small cod and then pulled out a small shore rockling that had a lovely reddish brown colouration. 

Not another shore rockling! Ryan's second consecutive Sunday evening session shore rockling. I was jealous and wanted to catch one myself!

Determined to get a shore rockling too, I carried on fishing away and it didn’t take too long before I felt a couple of gentle tugs. Allowing the bite to develop, a few more pulls were followed by my rod being pulled down much harder. Lifting into a fish, it put up a spirited little fight but was soon wound up to the surface and quickly hoisted up onto the platform we were fishing from.

Yes! A shore rockling! My first of 2024. A bit bigger than Ryan’s, it was, in my opinion anyway, a much less attractive colour than his and also had extensive mottling all across its body. 

Not many sea anglers enjoy catching shore rockling, but Ryan and I sure do. They’re great fun on ultra light tackle too when you can feel them taking your bait! After a period of no further fish showing an interest in our ragworm sections, we called it a night, and headed back to Edinburgh. It had been an enjoyable short session. I’ve got some ragworm left, so I may pop out locally to use it up before I fly out to Malta on Saturday. My mate Chris has also told me where I can catch some lovely looking rudd from a small drainage pond about an hour outside Edinburgh, so Ryan and I might go and try to do just that later this week too. 

Tight lines, Scott.

My patience is now wearing a little thin.

Topknot. My new nemesis. I've put in a serious amount of time over the last few months trying to catch one. Slightly annoyingly, they keep popping up on my Instagram feed too, caught by anglers on the south coast of England.  Earlier this week, I had yet another couple of sessions after dark, dropping live prawns down the walls and into cracks in and around St Abbs Harbour trying to catch a highly elusive, rock dwelling flatfish. On the first trip I was joined by my mate Ryan. It was nice to have some company, creeping around in the dark on your own can be a little lonely, especially when the fishing is slow, which it was during both trips! We both caught a few fish, although Ryan trounced me on the species front, catching four I didn't in the shape of a ballan wrasse, a flounder, a shore rockling and a leopard spotted goby. 

Scanning the bottom with our headtorches, we saw this darkly coloured flounder moving around over sand, but it swam over some weed, disappearing. Ryan cast his rig over the area a few times and the fish eventually took his ragworm section.

Ryan pulled this shore rockling out from the base of a wall inside the harbour. Normally associated with mixed to rough ground in the open sea, it must have been inside the harbour under the cover of darkness to scavenge.

Returning a couple of nights later on my own, I again failed to catch my intended target and after several hours trying, I decided to try to catch a leopard spotted goby. Ryan's the session before was the first one I'd seen caught from the venue, and I wanted to replicate the feat! Shining my headtorch straight down the harbour wall close to where Ryan had caught his, I couldn't believe my luck when I saw one sitting motionless on a concrete shelf. Dropping a small chunk of prawn down, the fish ignored it to begin with, but after a brief pause I gave my bait a twitch and watched the goby spring to life and my bait quickly vanished.

It was the same size as Ryan's fish. I compared our photos a few days later out of curiosity. It was in fact the exact same fish!

By the end of a pretty tough evening, I was feeling just ever so slightly frustrated at my repeated failures on the topknot front. Keen to go fishing as the weather was glorious, the other day I opted to spend a few hours targetting mullet at the outflow of Torness Power Station. In particular, I wanted to catch a golden grey mullet, as I hadn't caught one yet this year. Donning my polarized sunglasses to eliminate the surface glare, below the surface I couldn't see any mullet swimming about, but decided to have a go anyway. Tearing up some bread into small pieces and throwing it in to try and draw in some mullet, eventually I spotted a few small fish swimming up the current into a pocket of slack water and taking the free offerings. Fishing a very small piece of flake on a #16 hook and using a few split shot to get my bait down, I felt the odd nibble and eventually caught a couple of fish in quick succession.

The first fish I caught was this thick lipped mullet. Easily identifiable from the rows of papillae on the lower section of its thick upper lip.

The second mullet was the one I was hoping to catch, a golden grey mullet. With a much thinner upper lip and a bright, well defined golden spot on its gill plate it was very straightforward to identify.

About thirty minutes later, I hooked a third mullet. It was small and having already added a golden grey mullet to my 2024 species tally, I didn't even bother using my net to land it. Swinging it up to hand however, it looked a little odd. Curious, I popped it into a bucket of water, so I could carry out further examination and take some photos.

The fish in question. It had a thin upper lip, but only a very faint golden marking on its gill plate. It was not as slender as a golden grey mullet either, being much heavier in the body. Furthermore, it also had a black spot at the base of its pectoral fin and an orange/gold shade to parts of the iris, both are features of a thin lipped mullet!

The shape of its head didn't look right for a golden grey either. The snout was stubbier and flatter across the top. The maxillary bone at the corner of the mouth was also larger than that of a golden grey mullet. In the golden grey mullet, this structure is very small.

Had I caught my first Scottish thin lipped mullet? In the back of my mind, I seemed to recall a simple test that I had read about that could be used to positively identify UK mullet species. Doing a quick Google search on my phone, I found details of the method in question. Folding the pectoral fin forward, it will not reach the posterior edge of the eye or at most will just reach the posterior edge of the eye on a thin lipped mullet. On a golden grey mullet, the pectoral fin when folded forward will reach well past the posterior edge of the eye, sometimes as far as the centre of the eye.

The pectoral fin folded forward didn't reach the eye! Along with the other features, did this mean my fish was indeed a thin lipped mullet?! It would be a new Scottish species for me if it was!

Returning home, I consulted the numerous species identification books that I own. Some, including the excellent "The Fishes of The British Isles & N.W. Europe" by Alwyne Wheeler, which has detailed dichotomous keys that can be used to positively identify fish within a known group to species level, also specified the pectoral "fin test" as the means of distinguishing between the golden grey mullet and the thin lipped mullet. At this point, I sent my pictures to a few fellow species hunting anglers and also to the National Mullet Club, asking for their opinions on the identity of my fish. The consensus was that I have indeed caught a thin lipped mullet! 

Curious to carry out the pectoral fin test on a golden grey mullet, I returned the other day to try and catch one. The session turned out to be quite a frustrating one. The wind had changed direction and a swell was running directly up the outflow. It didn't look promising, but I had a go anyway, this time fishing a two hook presentation to increase my chances. Feeding small pieces of bread, I eventually spotted one or two fish, so I persevered. After about three hours, this paid off when I finally hooked a few fish, three taking my hook bait in a fairly short period. All three somehow managed to eject my hook though, after being on for a brief period. They felt like bigger fish, too big to be golden grey mullet I felt, so I wasn't too annoyed. Another couple of hours later, I’d had no more action, and I was about to admit defeat and head off when I hooked a fourth, smaller fish. This time the fish was well hooked, and I had it in the net fairly quickly. It was the golden grey mullet I was after.

Time to put the pectoral fin test to the test!

As predicted! The pectoral fin when folded forward reached the centre of the golden grey mullet's eye.

Personally, I'm now extremely confident that I have indeed caught a thin lipped mullet, a quite unexpected and very welcome bonus catch that I'm happy to add to my lifetime Scottish species tally, taking it to ninety eight. With only two species now required to reach my goal of one hundred, and as the colder months approach, I don't want to take my foot off the gas just yet, but conditions will play a huge part in the fishing I can do, and the species I can target. Regardless of how my fishing plans develop over the coming months, I really need a break from topknot hunting! I’ve taken the opportunity to get just that with an impromptu, very last minute, week long trip to Malta with my mate Gordon this Saturday, and there's zero chance of catching one there!

Tight lines, Scott.