Light fantastic.

Over the last week or so I've read a few reports online from other anglers catching flounder using heavy tackle with the anglers concerned asking how to avoid deep hooking flounders. I offered some advice and decided to practice what I preach, heading out on Boxing Day to have a go for them on light tackle and using circle hooks. I drove down to West Barns, parked the car and crossed over the Biel Burn before strolling down to fish from its mouth at the end of Belhaven Beach.

This bridge is partially submerged either side of high water. This catches a few people out and results in either getting quite wet or a very long walk.

It was a lovely day with hardly any clouds and a slight off shore breeze flattening the sea. Perhaps a little too flat. I prefer to fish for flounders when there are a few small waves breaking as it stirs up the bottom and encourages them to feed but I gave it a go anyway.

Not the Bass Rock again! It's been on the horizon at the last few marks I've fished. I'd love to visit it one day.

My setup for the session was my Nories Flat Fish Program Rough Surf 88, Daiwa Caldia 3000 reel spooled with 15lb Sunline Castaway braid. At the business end I tied on about five feet of 15lb leader using a uni to uni knot onto which I slid a 1oz egg sinker followed by a bead and tied on a small swivel.

Get with the program. Light is the way to go for flounders. This 8' 8" rod is rated 10-40g and combined with braid the bite detection is very good. 

I then snelled a #4 Mustad Demon Fine Wire circle hook using a knotless knot onto a fairly short 6" 10lb snood and tied this onto the swivel. My bait cocktail of choice was a small section of black lug, which I doubled over and bound with bait elastic, tipped off with a small sliver of squid.

Snelling circle hooks will help them work properly by turning them into the mouth of the fish.

Casting out I found my lead was resting on the bottom. Flounders are attracted by movement and I would have changed to a lighter lead so that the current could wash it and my bait around a bit but didn't have any lighter leads with me so instead every minute or so I would turn the reel handle a couple of times to bump my bait along the sand and try and tempt any fish that were in range. My setup was very light and comfortable and holding it at right angles to the line I watched the tip for signs of activity whilst feeling the line also between my thumb and finger.

Holding your rod tip at a ninety degree to the line also helps with bite detection.

Fishing with circle hooks it is important to remember that you do not strike when you feel a bite. Instead you let the bite develop before slowly reeling in or lifting the rod tip, feeling for the weight of the fish which will hook itself as the shank of the hook is draw out of its mouth and the hook point turns into the lip. After forty five minutes or so of casting out in various directions and slowly working it back I felt a gentle pluck of a fish and waited a few seconds before slowly reeling in. My rod soon had a nice bend in it, the fish on the end nodding its head so I knew the circle hook had done its job and a nice flounder was soon on the sand ready to be easily unhooked and returned to the water.

Success! A nice flounder perfectly lip hooked.

Off it goes again to grow bigger!

I carried on fishing for another hour or so but had no more bites before I headed home. Still it was very satisfying that everything had come together as it had been a while since I'd fished for flounders on an open beach using this method. Circle hooks are great and really reduce the chances of deep hooking. It can still happen occasionally if you don't notice the bite though and this alone is a good reason to fish lighter particularly if you are a catch and release angler. However even if using Aberdeen patterns whilst fishing light for flounder it is still so much more enjoyable than the two heavy rods and a tripod approach and the additional bite detection provided should still reduce the chances of fish swallowing baits right down making unhooking difficult. I would even go so far as to say that the tackle I was using was still a little on the heavy side as the use of ultra light tackle really transforms flounder into a sporting fish so the next time I go I'll be going even lighter!

Tight lines, Scott.

Three is a magic number.

Reviewing my list of potential target new species back in July I noted that I could catch a few from the waters around the Mull of Galloway so I booked the services of skipper Spike and his boat "Go West" for a trip in late August. I've been out with Spike before and I knew another day out with him would be a great way for me to enjoy a day boat fishing whilst getting the opportunity to target a few new species. When I made the booking the three species I thought I could realistically hope to catch for the first time were red gurnard, tub gurnard and tope. I caught a tope whilst over on Jersey since then so a bull huss was promoted into the top three of my new species hitlist for the day. Having gone ahead and booked the trip I had to try and get a few of my mates to come along! A text was sent out and my mates Nick and Naz replied saying they'd love to join me.

On Wednesday morning at 05:00 Nick picked Naz and I up and off the three of us went. Stopping in Stranraer on the way for breakfast I received a text from Spike to say we'd be fishing in Luce Bay due to the north westerly winds. Launching from Port Logan and fishing in the Irish Sea is probably better for species hunting but Spike reassured me we'd still be able to target a few different things and we soon arrived at Drummore where we'd be launching from. Spike was already there and after loading our gear onto the boat we were ready to launch.

A rather old and very rusty tractor is used to launch and retrieve the boats.

Soon fishing not far from shore, we made a few drifts to catch some mackerel to use as bait. A small box was soon full and we headed further out into the bay to target tope. Four baits were soon on the bottom and I was quite content to let Naz and Nick have any runs that happened on the two tope rods I had as neither of them had caught one before. I meanwhile fished a third rod with a two up rig to try and catch a few gurnards on mackerel baits. I opted to use #4 Sakuma Chinu hooks on the short 15cm snoods. I decided to try snelling these on to try and improve hook up rates. I soon caught a couple of dogfish and then Naz got a few knocks on his tope rod and caught his first bull huss. A good sign and when Nick caught one too I was confident that I would get one as well.

Naz's first bull huss.

A nice feisty bull huss for Nick too.

I then caught a double shot of grey gurnard, my first of the year. I handed them to Naz so I could get my camera and whilst I did that he put them both back. Just as well they weren't the red or tub variety! Luckily I caught a few more grey gurnard before it was my turn to catch a bull huss.

My third grey gurnard of 2013.

Busy catching gurnards, hoping that a red or tub would show up, I wasn't really paying attention to my other two rods and didn't spot one of them gently nodding away. As it was obviously not a tope Spike handed me the rod, the fish was already on and I wound it in. It didn't fight very much but I was still pleased to get my first new species of the trip.

I'm talkin' about sharkin'! Again.

We carried on fishing for tope, periodically changing our baits and increasing the amount of lead we had on as the tide started to pick up. I caught a few more grey gurnards and Nick had a second bull huss. After seven or eight more grey gurnard I caught a red gurnard, my second new species of the trip which I was very pleased about as they are the least common of the gurnard species in the area.

My second new species of the day, a red gurnard.

After about four hours with no tope runs we decided to head off to fish over a reef. The target there was pollock and we switched over to fishing soft plastics using light lure rods. There were plenty around and over the next couple of hours we caught and released about sixty between the three of us. Nick caught the biggest one and it really tested his light gear but he was able to bully it out of the kelp below the boat after some sustained pressure.

Naz's took this pollock on a Savage Gear Sandeel.

The biggest pollock boated.

The skipper then told us that despite fishing there for almost fifteen years he wasn't sure if the mark we were over held any wrasse so he dropped down my two up rig baited with small pieces of rag worm. Two ballan wrasse in quick succession soon cleared the matter up. Nick and I switched over to the same rig and caught a few wrasse too before we headed to our final mark where Spike told us we had a good chance of catching tub gurnards and also smoothhounds.

Once there Nick decided to ledger some crab to try and tempt a smoothhound and I focused on trying to catch a tub gurnard. Naz decided to lob out a small mackerel flapper to try and tempt any passing bass despite Spike warning him he'd more than likely catch dogfish on it. Having caught thirteen gurnards throughout the day on my two up rig, for some reason that looking back I can't quite explain, I decided to try a different approach and switched to mackerel strips fished on a two down running ledger setup. Spike meanwhile fished with one of my two up rigs baited with ragworm and when he caught the first tub gurnard of the day using it I quickly switched back and did the same! Time was running out though but when I got a decent bite I connected with the fish and it was the one I was hoping for.

My first tub gurnard was in lovely condition. A quite beautiful fish I'm sure you'd agree.

With only ten minutes to go I wanted to catch more of them but a shoal of mackerel arrived which made it hard for me, Naz as predicted by Spike had caught a couple of dogfish, Nick's crab hadn't attracted the smoothhounds and soon we wound our lines up for the last time to head back to port. Making a start to breaking down gear and tidying up the deck of the boat whilst Spike lifted the anchor he showed us some odd crustaceans that had been hanging on to it.

Woof woof. Who put the dog baits out?

How bizarre! Is it a juvenile spider crab perhaps?

"Go West" anchored just off shore waiting to be put back on her trailer.

Soon back on shore we packed our gear into Nick's car and thanked Spike before making the drive back up the road. It had been a long day and we were all quite tired although Naz, who had been up quite late the night before, was clearly more tired than Nick and I and slept most of the way home.

Naz does a good impression of a pollock whilst making sounds like a gurnard.

The three of us really enjoyed our day out in Lace bay. It was a great day's fishing in good company and whilst it was slightly disappointing not to get any tope runs all three of us caught some nice fish and I got three new species in one day. Snelling my hooks certainly seemed to improve my hook up ratios and used in combination with the Chinu hooks I can't recall any fish that weren't nicely hooked in the mouth either so that's another little positive from the trip and I'll carry on snelling my hooks from now on. Spike is a top skipper and the three of us are already talking about booking his services again next year although we may go earlier in the tope season when there are more around. 

Tight lines, Scott.

I caught ninety nine fishes and a viviparous blenny was one.

I thought I was going to get away from work yesterday but when a colleague went home early due to feeling ill that was knocked on the head. I had planned to head down to the borders last night to target three bearded rockling but finishing at 17:00 I decided to make the shorter journey to Dunbar and try in the harbour for a viviparous blenny instead. I knew that getting through the resident coalfish would be tough and it was made even tougher when I arrived and realised that I'd thrown my reel in the bag minus its handle! Oops. Despite this I rigged up a running ledger rig, snelled on a #6 Sabpolo Wormer hook, baited it with a chunk of raw prawn and still managed to catch a coalfish on my first drop and pretty much every drop after it. Spinning the bail arm round by hand to retrieve line was a royal pain in the backside and it was really slowing me down. In amongst twenty one coalfish I caught a common blenny and a long spined sea scorpion.

There are hundreds if not thousands of these ravenous little coalfish in Dunbar harbour.

Reassuring to know that other species could occasionally muscle through the coalfish to get to my bait.

At this point I was getting slightly annoyed with my disfunctional setup and if I wanted to speed up and get through the coalfish I had to get a reel with a handle so I sent a text to my mate Nick who lives in Dunbar close to the harbour to see if I could borrow one from him. He told me I could have his son's Shimano Nexave 1000 loaded with 8lb braid. Perfect I told him. What a life saver! I quickly went off to meet him and picked it up. When I got back down to my spot a boat had returned to the harbour and a large seal was being fed a few mackerel. I hoped its presence would get rid of some of the coalfish and make targeting the bottom feeders easier but it didn't have the desired effect.

Sammy the seal isn't shy and is a big lazy bugger too. He's clearly used to being hand fed and doesn't waste his time chasing down coalfish anymore it would seem!

I set up my gear again and was soon ledgering raw prawn on the bottom once more, if it got down that far that is! After coalfish number sixty nine I caught a second long spined sea scorpion followed by a tiny pollock. Then after three more coalfish I hooked a slightly larger fish that tried to tear off into the weed on the harbour wall. I managed to stop it getting stuck in there though and swung it up the harbour wall to discover it was a nice short spined sea scorpion. A very nice bonus reward for my efforts.

A bit bigger than the last two I caught and easily identified this time.

Thinking that I may not get my target blenny yet again despite catching over seventy fish I decided that I would leave once I had caught ninety nine fish as I thought it would make for an amusing post title. After a few more coalfish I felt a bite that definitely wasn't a coalfish and I let it develop for a few seconds before lifting into it. Like the short spined sea scorpion I knew I had hooked something slightly larger and more powerful than the coalfish I had been catching and when the long eel like fish appeared from the depths I got rather excited, carefully brought it to the surface and quickly swung it up the harbour wall into my hand.

At long last a viviparous blenny! My 50th saltwater species of the year.

A slippery customer indeed and quite hard to handle.

I did a little celebration jig, admired the fish for a bit before giving it a kiss and returning it. It was quite a buzz and moments like that are what I enjoy most about species hunting. Over the moon I sent a text to some of my angling mates to let them know my good news. I carried on fishing for another thirty minutes or so until I had caught a total of ninety three coalfish giving me my total of ninety nine fish so I could still have my Jay-Z-esque post title, even if I had to change it slightly, which I obviously was very happy about! I packed up with a huge smile on my face and Nick popped down to get his son's reel back, congratulated me and asked me what was next. Hmmmm. Good question!

Tight lines, Scott.