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.

So you're telling me there's a chance!

After hearing reports of a striped red mullet being caught on Granton Breakwater, I decided to get out and try my luck. The angler who caught the striped red mullet has fished on Granton Breakwater for many years and this was his first one. One other friend also caught one there many years ago, so clearly they are a potential catch, albeit an extremely rare one. So, I was under no illusions about my chances when I visited the venue last week. I had two sessions, neither producing a striped red mullet. Fishing small baits on the bottom, I did catch a lot of pin whiting, a few juvenile grey gurnard and a couple of mackerel. The breakwater was very busy and there were lots of people fishing of various ability levels. I witnessed a few leads being cracked off and flying away towards the horizon, and several cans of lager being cracked open too. When “the mackerel are in”, I’ve got to be honest and say it’s not my favourite place to fish!

My mate Ryan came down and joined me for a couple of hours during the first session and as we chatted away, he told me that a friend of his had caught a couple of dragonet in St Abbs Harbour. Quite unusual I thought. Having fished St Abbs Harbour quite a lot over the last decade, or perhaps even a little longer, I’ve never caught or heard of anyone else catching a dragonet there. I just assumed that they were common dragonet, but when I thought I better check and Ryan sent me photos of the fish in question a couple of days later, I was shocked to see that one of them was actually a reticulated dragonet! I jumped straight in the car and headed down there!

St Abbs Harbour has been very good to me over the years, most recently producing my first Scottish topknot. 

My first session was pretty productive in terms of the number of fish and species I caught, but no dragonet were in amongst them. The following morning I headed back down armed with some fresh ragworm. When I arrived, the tide was out and there wasn't much water in the harbour, so I decided to kill some time targeting three spined stickleback. It didn't take long to find a few fairly large specimens in a small rockpool. Tying on a tanago hook, baiting it up with a tiny piece of ragworm and twitching in front of them produced a couple pretty quickly.

First up was this large female.

It was followed by a very colourful male.

Heading back around to the harbour, I rigged up a running ledger and began casting it out onto the cleaner areas out in the middle of the outer harbour. I wouldn't really describe these areas of the harbour floor as sandy, it’s more like fine gravel with a few patches of rougher ground and weed. Slowly twitching the tiny bait back towards me along the bottom, the fish weren't biting as much as the previous day. Eventually I caught a long spined sea scorpion, a common blenny and a nice flounder.

St Abbs Harbour is a great venue to target flounder on ultra light tackle.

As the tide continued to fill the harbour, the fishing slowed down even further, and I went an hour or so without catching any more fish. Eventually, I cast out and just after my rig hit the bottom, my rod tip registered some interest. Leaving the bait for a few seconds to allow this to develop, I wound down and felt the weight of a small fish thrashing away. As it came to the surface, I recognised the shape almost immediately. It was my first ever dragonet from St Abbs Harbour.

A small dragonet, but which species? At first glance it looked like a common dragonet.

In my photo tank, the fish just sat on the bottom and didn’t want to flare its fins, so I had to lift it out to gently extend the second dorsal myself. 

The second dorsal fin had ten rays and a distinctive diagonal pattern to the markings on it. I'd caught my first Scottish reticulated dragonet!

I was over the moon, but couldn’t quite believe I’d caught one after spending such a short an amount of time trying. It felt a bit surreal if I’m honest. Quite a contrast to the umpteen sessions I’d put in to catch the topknot! I continued fishing for a bit longer, but it remained pretty slow, so after catching another two long spined sea scorpion and a second flounder, I called it a day, heading back up to Edinburgh happy enough! I really didn’t expect to catch another new Scottish species so soon after my first Scottish topknot. Chasing fish, particularly rarer species, when you hear about them being caught often leads to disappointment in my experience, but on this occasion, racing to the scene of an unusual capture had really paid off! The reticulated dragonet that Ryan’s friend had caught was a male, much more colourful than my fish, with much taller dorsal fins too, so there are at least two of them in there! I’ll leave them for other anglers to target for the time being, I’m going to get some sabiki out and try to catch a sprat next! Who knows how long that will take!

Tight ines, Scott.

Persevered.

I’d not seen my mate Ryan for quite a while, mainly due to poor weather conditions repeatedly ruining our plans, so at the beginning of July, when the latest heatwave began, we headed down to St Abbs Harbour to wet a line together. Still not feeling great, I had no expectations for the fishing, and really just wanted to catch up with my mate and enjoy the nice weather. Any fish caught would be a bonus really. Ryan was keen to catch a sand goby, so we fished tiny pieces of ragworm on the bottom over a sandy area I’d caught them from in the past. Sadly, this didn’t produce any, but we did catch a lot of small flounder instead. 

Small but perfectly formed. My first flounder of the year. 

Heading around to the mouth of the harbour, we caught a few small coalfish and pollock. Dropping a live prawn down close in amongst the kelp straight down the harbour wall, I caught a chunky corkwing wrasse. 

Wrasse don’t mess about when a live prawn appears in their vicinity!

Next up, we headed around to fish straight down the wall of the harbour’s large outer section. This produced several long spined sea scorpions, a few leopard spotted goby, a butterfish, a coalfish and several ballan wrasse. 

I had three chunky ballan wrasse in fairly quick succession. Live prawn presented close to the bottom doing the business again. 

To finish the session, we headed out onto the wall connecting the harbour to some of the rocks outside of it. I fished into an area I knew had produced a topknot in the past. After catching a couple of wrasse and a long spined sea scorpion on live prawn, I rigged up another, dropping my rig again, I felt a fish take my bait almost straight away. Lifting into it, it felt like my lead had got stuck, but I could also occasionally feel a small fish on my line too, occasionally shaking its head. After a while, trying to free my rig from the bottom, I was about to pull for a break when suddenly it came free. Winding up, it wasn’t fighting too much and felt a little odd. I couldn’t believe my eyes when the unmistakable shape of a small topknot came into view. I've seen a few people lose topknot lifting them out of the water, but without thinking, I quickly swung it up the wall and into my waiting net. Luckily it was well hooked! I’ve been after one of these rarely caught rock dwelling flatfish from a Scottish venue for quite some time, visiting three particular venues dozens of times over the last couple of years, so I was over the moon to finally get one!

I caught one over a decade ago on the Channel Island of Jersey, but this was my first ever Scottish topknot. 

What a cool fish! I love the way their markings make them look like a little masked bandit!

What a great way to end what had been a very enjoyable session. It was great to catch up with Ryan again as well. Since we started fishing together, he’s been by my side as I’ve caught quite a few species in Scotland for the first time.  Often wearing a very faded baseball cap, celebrating Hibernian’s 2016 Scottish Cup win. “Persevered” is embroidered on it, a reference to the 114 years since they last won the trophy, way back in 1902! I had certainly persevered too with my Scottish topknot hunt! I may not have been feeling great, but catching my one hundred and first Scottish species certainly gave me a much needed lift!

Tight lines, Scott.

Short, but sweet.

Back in August, I was contacted by fellow species hunter, Luke Ovgard, about fishing around Edinburgh, as he was going to be spending a weekend in the Scottish capital with his two brothers in October. Not a particularly great time of the year to go fishing, I warned him, but I agreed to meet up with him when he was here to try and help him catch something new. Luke has travelled all over the world and caught over 1350 species along the way, including many of those found around the coast of this part of Scotland, so he sent me a spreadsheet containing all the species he’s ever caught. Having a look through it, I spotted a few species he hadn't caught that we could try to catch. If the conditions were favourable, I felt that we could possibly encounter ballan wrasse, butterfish, leopard spotted goby, pollock, poor cod and Yarrell’s blenny. Luke arrived from Stuttgart, where he currently lives and works, last Thursday evening, and spent the weekend sightseeing in Edinburgh and exploring further afield, making it as far north as Fort William. I had a couple of sessions last week in preparation for ours, just to see what was around. For the first session, I collected some live prawns to use as bait. Netting them out, I found a couple of tiny fish in my net with them.

Probably the smallest wrasse I’ve ever seen. I believe it’s a corkwing wrasse.

In amongst the prawns was also a tiny sand smelt.

Over the two sessions prior to meeting up with Luke, I caught a few fish, but the conditions were far from ideal. The temperature had dropped, and it was very windy too, making fishing quite unpleasant. The sea was pretty rough too and was coloured up as a result. Given the effort required to catch hardly any fish, I was concerned that we might struggle.

At St Abbs I did catch a few coalfish, but it's a species Luke had caught already, on the other side of the Atlantic, in Maine.

At the inlet area at Torness Power Station, I caught a few juvenile cod. Luke had caught this species already as well.

Trying to catch a ballan wrasse proved to be a bit of a waste of time, with only this solitary long spined sea scorpion taking my ragworm section. Another species that Luke had already ticked off.

During the second session, I caught a solitary poor cod. The only fish I caught over the two trips that Luke hadn’t caught before!

We had originally planned to meet up on Sunday evening, but the highland road trip Luke's brothers had organised that day ruled that out. In the end, we met up early on Monday morning, only fishing together for just over two hours, the only time available before Luke had to head to the airport. Arriving at the inlet area of Torness Power Station, the wind had dropped off, had also changed direction and the sea was pretty flat. Whilst it was still very cold, we were pleasantly surprised by the amount of fish we caught. In amongst them, Luke caught his first ever poor cod and pollock, which he was over the moon about.

Luke's first ever pollock.

I was really enjoying his company, and while we fished away we had a great conversation about some of the species we’ve caught, some of the places we’d fished and some of our future species hunting plans. Before we knew it though, it was time to pack up. Focusing on the fishing and our discussion, I hadn’t even taken any photos during the session. It had been great to meet up and when I dropped Luke off, he surprised me with a parting gift, a copy of his book “Fishing across America”, which I am currently reading. I really hope our paths cross again in the future. If he visits Scotland again, which I've suggested he does and next time during the summer months, I’m sure we could travel around Scotland for a few days catching lots of fish! It would be a pleasure to fish together again, and hopefully I could help him add a few more species to his already very impress tally!

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.

Searching high and low.

Last Friday afternoon I resumed my search for a topknot, splitting a fairly long session over two venues. This first I visited was the gantry over the inlet area at Torness Power Station. Armed with some live prawns, I fished over a steeply sloping concrete surface, trying to drop my bait in underneath the weed line where I believe there’s a very slim possibility that my target could be located. It was a very windy day, which made bite detection difficult from my elevated position, with the strong gusts picking up my line and pulling my rod around a bit too. Things were pretty slow to begin with, but after a while the wind dropped off ever so slightly and this coincided with some wrasse beginning to bite. 

Even with its relatively small mouth, this goldsinny wrasse made short work of a prawn. 

After catching a few smaller fish, something much bigger grabbed my bait and did its best to get into the kelp. After a short battle, that tested my fish fighting abilities on ultralight tackle as well as my knot tying, a chunky ballan was brought to the surface and my 5.9m extending net handle was put to very good use. 

A bit of a lump! Would have struggled to land this without my net.

At over 40cm, this was the biggest ballan I’ve caught in a while.

I carried on fishing away until my bait was all used up, catching a few more ballan wrasse in the process. A couple of small coalfish and cod also took my prawn, but no funky flatfish sadly. After collecting a few more prawns, I drove south to St Abbs Harbour for the second half of my session, arriving just as the sun was beginning to get fairly low in the sky. 

St Abbs Harbour/Campervan Park as light just begins to fade. 

Waiting for it to get dark, I headed to the mouth and then worked my way around the inside of the largest section of the harbour. Just outside the entrance, I fished with prawns to begin with, but my supply was being depleted rapidly by large shoals of juvenile pollock and coalfish. To conserve my bait for my target species, I switched over to a soft plastic. 

My bait for the evening. Too good to quickly waste on juvenile pollock and coalfish.

Quite a few of the greedy little fish aggressively attacked my HTO Knight Worm. 

Moving around to fish down the walls inside the largest section of the harbour, I switched back to prawns again. Dropping my rig down and keeping it in close to the vertical surfaces, hoping that it would land near a bug-eyed flatfish, they instead were swallowed whole by a few long spined sea scorpion.

You've got something stuck in your teeth mate.

Once it got dark, I put my headtorch on and began searching down the walls and in the exposed rockpolls outside the harbour. Scanning slowly, hoping to suddenly spot the reflection of a topknot's beady eyes, the strong light from my narrow beam was not returned, so I began speculatively dropping a live prawn into likely looking holding places. After a while, I climbed down onto some rocks and started shining my light around. I spotted some small fish, but wasn't too sure what they were. Luckily I had my tango rod in my backpack and put it to good use catching some of them. They turned out to be fairly large three spined stickleback.

Three spined stickleback are anadromous, meaning they can live in saltwater, returning to freshwater to spawn. 

I then spotted a fifteen spined stickleback, a much trickier target, but I love a little micro species challenge so decided to turn my attention to catching it. Lowering my tanago hook baited with a miniscule piece of raw prawn down, I was expecting a frustrating time trying to catch it. In my experience, they are usually quite fussy eaters and take a bit of patience to get them to bite, but much to my delight on this occasion it quickly ate my offering.

God, I love tango hooks! They make the impossible, possible! This is only my third ever fifteen spined stickleback!

Quite pleased with my unexpected stickleback species interlude, I turned my attention back to hunting for a topknot. Exploring different areas over the next couple of hours, things were very slow, and eventually I'd gone a couple of hours without catching anything at all. When I started taking photographers of the large sea slaters that were crawling about all around the top of the harbour wall where I had ended up, I knew it was probably time to call it a night! 

Creatures of the night. I might be joining them again soon.

So my search for a topknot continues. For the foreseeable future, I think they'll remain my main target species to take my lifetime Scottish tally to Ninety-eight. I think some of the rocky venues around Greenock and Gourock may hold more topknots, so I think I may charge my headtorch up and head through there for after dark sessions once the days get a little shorter. I'll also be trying through there during the daytime as well in the meantime!

Tight lines, Scott.