Back to the drawing board. Again.

On Wednesday last week I spent the day exploring St Abbs Head. Fishing for small unusual species was the aim of the game. I took a light quiver tip rod, some light rigs, small hooks and a box of ragworm with me to scratch about. There are lots of photos online of rare fish taken in the area by divers. Streaked gurnard, John dory, anglerfish, Norwegian topknot, Montagu’s sea snail, snake pipefish, lemon sole, to name only a few! I was hoping to get lucky. Very lucky! After waking all the way from St Abbs village to Pettico Wick, to check out that area for the first time, I decided to fish instead from the rocks down to the right below the lighthouse. The climb down is pretty dodgy with some steep sections, loose scree and a step over a large crack onto a large rock. I find myself thinking “I’m too old for this nonsense!” every time I go down there!

Pettico Wick at the western end of St Abbs Head. Picturesque, but it was pretty shallow and didn’t look that “fishy”, so I gave it a miss. 

To begin with I fished with a 10g metal jig and caught a few small coalfish. Happy to have caught some fish to avoid a potential blank, I switched to my light scratching rig, a running ledger with a small hook baited with a small section of ragworm. I fished with these rigs for several hours but lost almost every one I cast out. Eventually I dropped the rig down close in and caught a small ballan wrasse.

This small ballan wrasse was the sole reward for my mini species bottom fishing efforts.

I may have to go back to the drawing board on this endeavour. It won't be the first time I've tried this sort of fishing and failed miserably. I had dozens of sessions at Loch Shira trying to catch a Fries' goby and didn't succeed. At least whilst doing that I caught lots of other species! The problem I have is that the ground on most of the accessible marks I’ve fished around St Abbs Head is rough, and the current can be very strong too. This makes fishing with delicate rigs and sensitive tackle difficult as they don't stay in the one position, being moved around until they eventually find a snag. I also think the areas where most of the divers explore and take their photographs aren’t really accessible from the shore either. Hmmm...

Tight lines, Scott.

In before the lock?

I popped down the A1 a couple of times a fortnight ago with two of my workmates. The first trip to St Abbs Head with Callum was all about catching some ballan wrasse and Callum had his heart set on catching "A big one." having already caught a few smaller ballan wrasse on previous outings he'd had. After walking up to the cliffs from the village we started the session by trying a new mark that proved to be a little tricky to access due to the slightly damp underfoot conditions. Clambering about on damp rocks isn't a great idea down there and the new spot turned out to be fairly shallow and hellishly snaggy, so we headed back up to the path and I took Callum to another mark where I've caught a few decent ballan wrasse in the past. After making our way down a grassy slope and hopping down a few rocks, we found a fairly flat ledge, got comfortable and set up our gear. Fishing light tackle was the approach taken with plan A being dropping blow lug down the side at close range on one hook paternoster rigs. I had my bait in the water first and before Callum had even finished getting setting up I was asking him to net the first ballan wrasse of the day, a nice fish just over a couple of pounds.

As well as their colourful markings and eyes, I love their big juicy lips.

I've never really fished for ballan wrasse on the east coast so late in the year so catching one straight away was a most welcome and pleasant surprise, and made me reasonably confident that we'd catch more. About twenty minutes later Callum got an aggressive bite and hooked the culprit. A big fish quickly had his rod bent over, his drag clicker screaming and his heart pounding. After a few spirited runs towards the kelp the fish was beaten and when it came to the surface I was in position with the net to help Callum land a new personal best ballan wrasse. 

"A big one!" We didn't have scales with us but at 46.5 cm Callum's new PB ballan wrasse was probably just over 4lb.

A cracking fish with some beautiful markings. A fantastic capture on a light rod rated 3-18g as well!

Having accomplished my guiding objective for the day I left Callum to target wrasse and turned my attention to scratching around on the bottom using small hooks baited with chunks of raw prawn to see if I could pick up something unusual. All I managed were about a dozen small coalfish however before a pod of dolphins swam by and after that all action, unsurprisingly, ground to a halt. After a couple of hours with nothing further being caught we headed back to the car. On our way back up the road we decided to pop into Torness Power Station's outflow to target bass and mullet, species Callum had never caught before. The water was pretty coloured up however, and sadly we didn't have any joy ledgering lug worm for bass or free lining bread flake for mullet.

The following day I headed to Coldingham Bay, St Abbs Harbour and then Torness Power Station's outflow with another workmate, Ruaridh. To begin with we scratched around using light gear and small hooks baited with raw prawn but at the first two venues things were pretty slow. At Coldingham Bay we didn't catch anything at all but when we visited St Abbs Harbour we did eventually manage to catch a few fish in the shape of some coalfish, a small cod and also Ruaridh's first ever blenny.

Ruaridh patiently fishing away.

Ruaridh's first ever blenny! I remember catching mine and whilst I've caught hundreds since it still seems like it was yesterday.

After trying a few different areas around the various parts of the harbour we switched to working lures along the bottom in an attempt to catch some flounders but this didn't produce any bites. I then decided to scale down and catch some sand gobies using tanago hooks and after catching a few I also caught a couple of tiny plaice as well on the tiny baits I was slowly twitching along the harbour's sandy floor.

The distinctive orange markings of an adult were absent on this tiny juvenile plaice but the bony nodules running along the head were not.

To finish the day we visited Torness Power Station's outflow. The water clarity had improved a lot over the previous twenty-four hours, and we decided to focus our efforts on catching mullet on freelined bread flake. This method was new to Ruaridh along with the frustrations of using it to try to catch our target. Things were made more difficult by the fact that neither of us had a pair of polarized sunglasses with us but eventually I managed to catch two thick lipped mullet that took my bread and pulled my rod tip over as they felt my hook and swam off into the current.

Frustrating and full of fight. Mullet are great fun.

Sadly, despite his perseverance Ruaridh didn't manage to catch one before it started to get dark, so we called it a day. To his credit he took the constant baiting up only for the fish to steal his bread pretty well and is keen to go back again for another attempt at catching his first mullet so a return trip will be made. Last week the weather wasn’t great for that but the mullet are there all year round so hopefully we'll get back down there at some point. That being said I'm not sure what fishing I'll be doing in the weeks ahead. I’ll have to do any fishing "locally" until the end of October due to the recent travel restrictions introduced in Scotland’s central belt but I have a horrible feeling that before too long some stricter travel restrictions may be put in place that will really  limit my opportunities. I really, really hope I’m wrong.

Tight lines, Scott.

Beauty and the beast.

Two weeks ago on my days off I organised a couple of trips with some of my fellow fishing addict friends. The first trip saw me heading to Bonawe Quarry with Col and Nick to target spurdogs. The first mark we fished was very hard going and tackle losses were high. We did manage a few fish but after a while we decided to move to another spot.

This dogfsh was as rough as the ground we were fishing. Not the shark I was after either.

At the second spot the ground was much more forgiving so as well as fishing our bait rods we also had a bit of light game fun which saw us catching a few small cod, poor cod, coalfish and pollock. One of my smaller pollock was a particularly nice looking little fish. 

A lovely little bar of copper.

We also caught dozens of grey gurnard, a species Col had never caught before so it was nice to see him catching a few. On the heavier gear a few cod were caught and I also managed a few more sharks but again the spurdogs failed to put in an appearance.

As well a second dogfish I also caught a couple of thornback rays. Their eyes are quite beautiful.

I love watching rays swim off, effortlessly using their wings as they slowly glide away out of sight.

Before we left we put the bait gear away and had half an hour or so fishing right up inside the quarry with our light game gear. This saw us catching more pollock, cod, poor cod and grey gurnards. Arriving back just before midnight I could have done with a lie in the following day but instead I headed out again with my lure maniac mate Dimitrios.

After picking him up at Waverley train station I drove us down to St Abbs Head so we could spend the day fishing for pollock and wrasse with lures. At the first mark things were fairly slow apart from a few small pollock and coalfish. There were quite a lot of boats out either taking divers out or collecting lobsters from the many pots that are dropped in the deep water around the rocks. After a while a pod of dolphins appeared, something that I've never seen before down there.

It was nice to see them but their arrival seemed to kill the action off for a while.

Waiting for things to hopefully pick up again I began losing a few rigs to snags which was starting to get a bit frustrating. Dimitrios then thought he was snagged too. He quickly managed to get his paddletail lure free and moving again although with a bit of extra weight attached. At first he wasn't entirely sure if he had a fish on or perhaps some kelp but a fish soon slowly appeared from the depths and what a beast it was! 

Easily the biggest short spined sea scorpion I've ever seen being caught.

Dimitrios was quite rightly over the moon with this capture. I found witnessing it quite surreal and pretty hilarious. The size of the mouth on the fish was utterly obscene. After we stopped laughing we decided to try a second mark. Accessing it was quite tricky but we took our time and were soon at the end of a long rock skeer. Fishing away we both soon caught a ballan wrasse each.

My first East Coast ballan of the year.

Things then went a bit quiet again so Dimitrios started exploring the area a little more and soon found some fish again, catching a succession of nice pollock that put a good bend in his rod.

His elevated position gave him an advantage in the ensuing fights.

Soon it was time to make the climb back up, head back to the car and drive back up the A1. I hadn't enjoyed as much action as Dimitrios had but then he's a much more accomplished lure angler than I am and is much more patient when it comes to fishing certain methods at times when the fishing isn't very productive which usually sees him rewarded eventually. It had been a nice day out and seeing the dolphins and witnessing Dimitrios catch the big short spined sea scorpion had made climbing up and down the cliffs well worth the effort.

Tight lines, scott.

Cliffhanger.

I met up with my mate Col on Tuesday for a day's light game fun in the crystal clear waters of St Abbs Head. It was Col's first time up there and we started out on the large rock beneath the lighthouse. Col was keen to catch his first ballan wrasse of the year so fished a large Gulp Sandworm wacky rigged on a drop shot rig at close range. I started off fishing metals and had three coalfish on my first three casts. They seemed to wise up after that and after catching a few more I switched to a Z-Man paddle tail rigged weedless on a cheburashka lead. I worked this close to the bottom but reeling it up past the kelp on the rocks below me at the end of my retrieves was what resulted in yet more coalfish.

I've been using these lures a fair bit recently. The are very durable but nice and soft with a great action even when worked slowly.

Col then caught a coalfish too before we decided to move around the rock to try another spot. I switched to a small junebug stickbait on my weedless cheburashka rig and started dead sticking it on the bottom to try and tempt any wrasse that might be down there. After a while I had a solid take but I could tell it wasn't a wrasse and after a couple of dives a nice pollock was on the surface and quickly netted by Col.

Stickbaits are a classic wrasse lure. Less is more too I find. Just give them the odd little twitch. This pollock found it irresistible and hoovered it up.

A nice fish on light game tackle. Fishing vertically into deep water always gives you an advantage in the fight though.

Shortly afterwards both Col and I had a few very distinctive bites that we were both sure were from ballans. The type of bite that to me suggests a wrasse isn't feeding but is instead pecking at what it sees as an intruder into its territory that it wants gone.

Col gets comfortable and patiently feels for more short sharp taps.

Col's persistence eventually paid off when a few bites in rapid succession resulted in a hooked fish. I grabbed the net and his first ballan wrasse of the year was soon being unhooked.

This little burgundy ballan had a mouth crambed full of crushed up food so was obviously in feeding mode. Not sure how it managed to fit Col's Gulp in there as well, the greedy swine.

I then switched to a drop shot rig to try and get myself one too but stuck with my stickbait on a weedless hook. Neither of us had any further luck though and after a quiet spell we decided to head to the other end of the cliffs to try another mark. On the way back up to the top of the cliff however we spotted an area down to our right that looked like a great wrasse holding spot.

Submerged boulders and weed. Must be full of wrasse surely?

Getting down looked a bit tricky but Col was confident we could do it so we gave it a bash.

Col leads the way. Why follow a path when you can blaze a trail?

Getting to the rocks below was quite difficult but we slowly made our way down, wedging ourselves into a crack and easing down it and then carefully making our way down a steep slopping rocky section. Sadly however our efforts weren't rewarded and after losing some end tackle to snags we decided to climb back up which turned out to be even more tricky than the climb down. Loose soil and crumbling rocks that had slowed our descent seemed to be a lot worse and Col slipped at one point. Luckily he managed the stop his fall before he reached me and I dodged the falling rocks that had given way causing him to slip. The final few meters slowly working our way back up the crevice was simply hellish. Back up on the well worn path we caught our breath and reflected on our decision to go down. A lesson learned and I don't think we'll be going down there again at least not using that particular route.

Safely back in the car we drove along to St Abbs but the rock mark that I wanted to go to can only be accessed over low water so we spent an hour or so sight fishing for flounders in the crystal clear waters of St Abbs Harbour. It didn't take us long to catch a few.

Flounders love a tasty worm. Or a lure that looks like one. Col caught this one using a Crazy Fish Cruel Leech. If I didn't have way too many lures already I might have bought myself some.

Another flounder comes to the surface. Mouths of harbours are bottlenecks that flounders must swim through when they move from one part of the harbour to another. This makes them a great place to try and tempt passing fish.

This chunky chap had a big set of juicy lips.

It also had a few "birth marks" too. These spots are caused when pigments that are meant to be on their "backs" form on their "stomachs". I have in the past caught a flounder that was entirely brown due to this.

Before long the tide had dropped enough for us to visit the second rock mark. Making our way along to the start of the clifftop path we then took the slowly slopping path down to the shingle beach of Starney Bay before making the easy scramble over the rocks to the point on the bay's eastern side.

The path down was still easily negotiable despite a recent large landslip. No where near as risky as our earlier escapades so two adrenaline junkies like us took it in our stride.

Once out on the rocks we both fished Gulp on a drop shot rig to try and tempt any wrasse that might have been around. We didn't have any joy but eventually Col was rewarded with another species.

The sea floor where we were fishing has large sandy areas that sometimes produce the odd flounder as Col discovered.

Towards the end of the session we both switched to other methods. Col went with a small pink curly tail grub on a jighead and I jigged a light game metal fitted with an assist hook close to the bottom. Casting around I caught a few coalfish before Col hooked a nice fish at range. It turned out to be a cod but unfortunately while we were getting ready to land it the fish thrashed on the surface and threw the hook before slowly swimming back down through the kelp to freedom. After that I had a few more small coalfish and then a couple of nice pollock smashed my metal on the drop as it was just about to hit the bottom. Both fish gave a great account of themselves but the fight the second one in particular put up was awesome. Because the water was not as deep here the fish made a few charges to the left and right instead of the usual dives down. Col and I both watched the fish making these surges at an incredible speed. The final run to my right almost saw the fish go round the rocks into a gully where I don't doubt my braid would have stood no chance against the barnacles but luckily for me the fish ran out of steam, I turned it and once I got its head up out of the water it was beaten.

A truely awesome adversary. Having a bent rod and a screaming drag is one thing but seeing the fish charging around underwater made the battle even more epic.

I'm really enjoying fishing light game metals at the moment I must say.

I was buzzing after that fight but we left soon after as Col had a train to catch. It had been a great day out with some nice fish being caught and Col and I had learnt a valuable lesson about foolishly taking our lives into our own hands for the sake of a few fish. I'd also kind of forgotten how strong pollock can be too and my third one has renewed my respect for them and their pure raw power. They are an underrated species in my mind as are ballan wrasse. Both offer fantastic sport on the right tackle and I'm looking forward to catching them over the next few months. Before that though I have sharks in my sights and I'm off to Dumfries tomorrow for a session out in local skipper Spike's boat with my mate Martin to hopefully catch a few of them. I also have Monday and Tuesday off as well so if the weather is reasonable I might stay down there to target some other species from the shore as well.

Tight lines, Scott.

Getting jiggy with it.

As is often the case the weather forecast for the weekend changed completely by the time it arrived. This presented a sun filled and dry window of opportunity on Sunday to head down to the borders and visit St Abbs Head for a few hours. My mate Nick was free and keen to join me so I picked him up in Dunbar just after 9:00 and off we went. I had four different marks in mind, numbered them all and asked Nick to pick a number from one to four. His selection corresponded to a mark I call "the rock". It is down beneath the lighthouse and is, as the name suggests, a large rock separated from the rest of the cliff by a narrow, water filled gully which you have to step over to get onto it.

St Abbs lighthouse and fog horn.

"The Rock".

My plan for the day was to mess about with some metal jigs rigged with the assists hooks I have been beavering away on my fly tying vice making. I had two setups with me, one light and one  ultra light but having caught some decent pollock in the area before I started fishing with the light setup. I forgot to pack some suitable lure clips in my bag for the heavier jigs however so I improvised and slipped the metal up my leader and then tied my assist hook on. This worked a treat and jigging the metal up and then letting it fall through the water it was being attacked by coalfish on the drop.

The jig was a bit big for the size of fish that were attacking it but was still reasonably effective. 

Nick meanwhile was after bigger fish and was patiently going through a few different soft lures to try and find one.

Nick wasn't interested in the coalfish. He wanted a rod buckling pollock.

I was quite happy catching coalfish and also tried free spooling, fishing on the drop by casting out, leaving the bail arm open and letting the braid go out through my forefinger and thumb. The object of this is to allow the lure to sink as close to vertically as you can to give a more natural fall. I kept my little finger on the bail arm ready to quickly close it over and strike at bites. This method was quite difficult to do and maintain contact to feel for bites so will require more practice but I still had some success and managed to catch a few more coalfish. To be honest though shoals of coalfish seem to be pretty aggressive and will hit most lures on the drop so it's hard to assess if using different techniques makes a great deal of difference where they are concerned. After a while and with the size of the coalfish caught being fairly consistent I decided to switch to a paddletail on a Cheburashka lead and joined Nick in his search for a pollock.  Fishing this using a slow steady retrieve didn't produce any bites though so after a while casting around from various spots I switched to my ultra light setup and searched the sea bed with a Gulp! sandworm on a drop shot rig. This produced another coalfish and a small pollock which both took the ragworm imitation on the drop before it hit the bottom.

This pollock didn't do any dives so I thought I had hooked another coalfish until it came to the surface.

Nick meanwhile was still searching out a bigger fish and hadn't caught anything by the time I switched back to fishing metals. Dropping from a 25g to a 8g metal which was better matched to the size of the fish present saw me catching a couple more coalfish on consecutive casts.

Tide approaching low water I climbed down onto a nice little ledge to be able to land fish more easily.

Nick then caught his first fish of the day but unfortunately not the big pollock he was after, instead catching a coalfish on a metal jig.

Nick's rod finally gets bend. 

Dark clouds then came rolling over the cliffs behind us, the forecast rain on its way we though. But it didn't rain. Instead we were treated to a light shower of hailstones. Not wanting to be down the cliff on soaking wet slippery rocks if the sky really opened up we quickly packed up and climbed back over the gully and up to the top of the cliffs.

When the sky turned from blue to grey and dropped a few hail stones on us we figured it was time to go.

I didn't think I would get out at the weekend so it was nice to be able to visit St Abbs Head for the first time this year. I really like fishing there as it's a stunning stretch of coastline. It reminds me of Cornwall and to have that kind of terrain and fishing an hour from Edinburgh is great. Catching coalfish on isn't particularly difficult but they do provide an obliging target to practice fishing metal jigs using different on the drop styles which is an area of my fishing I'm keen to explore and improve so I'll be doing more of it in the future so in that respect it was a fun and productive session. We didn't come into contact with any big pollock but when there are a few more sandeels around  Nick and I will be back to St Abbs Head to target them and explore the area more hopefully.

Tight lines, Scott.

A swell time.

Hoping to get another fix of powerful pollock action I went down to St Abbs Head on Sunday with workmates Stewart and Adil. It was overcast but dry and we arrived to find a light swell running. Not ideal conditions for catching pollock but we were still keen to try. With Stewart and Adil sharing a rod and taking turns to fish we starting off fishing Savage Gear Sandeels, one of my favourite lures for pollock. Searching the water we had no luck locating fish and lost a couple of lures to the kelpy bottom before I switched to an HTO Shore Jig, replacing the assist hook with a treble.

Adil and I fish whilst Stewart watches for rogue waves.

Casting out, a few Guillemots near where the lure entered the water disappeared. Reeling quickly to get it away from them I felt a few of them attacking it before the inevitable happened and one of them got itself  hooked. It would have been a real struggle to land it but with my line wrapped around its wing I eventually got it close enough for Adil to try and scoop it up with my telescopic landing net. However when we eventually got the bird into it and Adil tried to lift the net up from the water there was an almighty crack as the handle snapped. The two pieces still barely joined together Adil managed to grab the top section and handed it to me. A towel was then used to keep the bird calm and under control whilst I quickly untangled it and set it free. My 4m landing net now down to under 1m I knew we might struggle to land a big pollock but we'd just have to worry about that if it happened.

The tide now flooding and taking care not to cast too close to any more guillemots I caught a few coalfish when I changed from a straight retrieve to a bit of jigging, ripping the lure up before lowering my rod tip slowly to feel for bites as it dropped back down again. Adil switched to a metal too and soon hooked a coalfish. His celebrations were premature however as when he got it to the surface it managed to throw the lure and the tension in his rod tip propelled it up into him narrowly avoiding his "tackle". Quite lucky not to be injured Stewart and I found this near miss quite hilarious. Once he stopped laughing Stewart then had a turn fishing and soon caught a few coalfish. After I had caught a dozen or so I decided to try using the assist hooks but this resulted in hardly any hookups so I put the treble back on.

Coalfish will attack lures "on the drop". Jigging metals is therefore an effective way to catch them.

Adil taking the second rod again finally hooked and landed his first coalfish of the session and then I hooked a fish at range that put up a fairly good fight. I thought it was a small pollock at first but it turned out to be a big mackerel that was quickly dispatched so Adil could have it for his dinner. By now it was early afternoon and still keen to find some pollock we decided to climb back up and go and try another spot.

Adil and Stewart take their time climbing back up the rocks.

Soon back up on the cliff tops a short walk along past the lighthouse and we were soon making our way down to the second mark. A walk down a fairly gently sloping grass bank followed by a short climb down the rocks took us to it and we were soon perched on a rocky ledge above the water. We tried a few different lures but there seemed to be even less fish here with only a few coalfish being caught and the loss of the only two metals I had with me that were fitted with treble hooks meant that catching them became more difficult.

Fishing away it was soon Adil's turn to get a laugh at our expense when, despite being fairly high up above the water, Stewart and I managed to get a bit of a soaking when waves broke on the rocks below us and the spray from them came up and caught us both out.

Drying out and with soft plastics on jigheads being fished on both rods it had gone quiet for a while when my pearl white Reins Rockvibe Shad was taken by a big pollock fairly close in. It immediately headed for the kelp below, stripping line from my almost locked up drag two times and managing to get into the thick weed beneath me. Applying pressure it had just started to come up through the weed when it thrashed violently and everything went slack. I reeled in to find the fish had thrown the hook leaving a torn and mangled lure hanging from my jighead. Pretty gutted to have lost a nice fish at my feet but hopeful that more might start biting we soldiered on but that was the last action of the session and as early evening arrived we called it a day.

The view to the east from our rocky ledge. More ground begging to be explored.

On the way back up we passed this rock covered in Guillemots. Casting metals near them whilst they are on the water is asking for trouble!

It had been a good days' fishing and we'd all had a right good laugh too. The lack of pollock and losing the only one biting was disappointing but the swell and cloud cover meant conditions weren't ideal so it was good that we all caught something. None of us work on a Sunday so I'm sure we'll be back over the coming months to try again for some hard fighting pollock.

Tight lines, Scott.

What goes down must come up.

I popped down to St Abbs Head last Wednesday and did a bit more exploring. It was a glorious day so I decided to have a walk along the clifftop and spotted what looked like a nice mark down below that looked fairly easy to access so I had a wander down.

Another new mark?

Sure enough getting down was quite easy and once there I found an elevated position on the rocks to fish from. The water around the mark was very deep and I think this spot will be great for a spot of lure fishing for pollock and wrasse in the summer.

Clear blue sky and the sun shining brightly over the next set of cliffs to the east.

Fishing was quite slow and I tried a few different baits starting off with crab before switching to mackerel and black lug/squid cocktails but when I did get a bite it was a very aggessive one with the culprit smashing a strip of mackerel fished on the top hook of my one up one down rig. It turned out to be a greedy little codling.

A nice reward.

It was such a nice day that I was quite happy just sitting there with my rod in my hands, feeling for bites with my eyes closed, enjoying the warm sun beating down on my face. No more bites came but I wasn't too bothered to be honest it was just so nice being down there. Sadly my enjoyment of the day came to an end when I had to make the climb back up. It's the only down side to descending the cliffs to the various marks at St Abbs Head but on such a nice day it was a small price to pay for such a relaxing session.

Tight lines, Scott.

Team building exercise.

I popped down to St Abbs Head again at the weekend. The forecast was for a dry start to the day with light rain in the afternoon starting at about 15:00. Two of my mates from work, Stewart and Josh, came with me. With the chance of rain we headed to one of the marks that's easier to get down to so we would be able to get back up quickly if required. I took three rods down but we ended up fishing only two, one chucked out with a variety of large cocktail baits on a single hook and the other at close range with a small mackerel strip, also on a single hook. All action came on the latter and before long we had all caught a coalfish each.

Josh's first ever fish.

Stewart's second fishing trip but he is still a bit freaked out when holding fish.

We were all having a good laugh and both Stewart and Josh were picking things up very quickly. Early in the afternoon a group of kayakers paddled past. They looked quite surprised to see us down there. I'd love to own a kayak and fish from it. My flat in Edinburgh means I have nowhere to keep one though. Anyway, we carried on fishing, Stewart cast in and handed the rod to Josh to hold so he could feels for bites. After a while he told me that the lead had got snagged. I took the rod, had a go at freeing it and managed to dislodge it. Reeling up I felt a little extra weight and thought it was maybe some weed but a nice long spined sea scorpion was on the hook. Josh claimed the fish was his. Stewart disagreed. I laughed.

Claimed!

A specimen. Nice team effort.

A few more coalfish were caught before the sky turned grey and the first few drops of rain fell as forecast at about 15:00. We quickly packed up and headed back up to the top.

Stewart wisely takes his time on the uneven path.

On the way back up I had a look at another nice looking area I'd love to explore but it was hard to see how to access it though. Maybe there is a way down but it would be so much easier getting to these types of marks on a kayak. You could spend a lifetime exploring and fishing St Abbs Head on foot or afloat and still barely scratch the surface.

No way down? Better explored afloat perhaps?

Driving back down from the lighthouse I stopped to take a photo of the cliffs to the west of Broadhaven Bay. No doubt there will be some superb marks along them too. The coastline reminds me of the south west coast of England.

A slice of cornwall on my doorstep.

I really love fishing St Abbs Head. It's quite simply stunning and it will be even more of a pleasure when the days are longer and warmer too. Might even stay down there during the summer for a few days!

Tight lines, Scott.