Summer has arrived…

Getting up this morning and looking out of the window I was puzzled by the weather. There was very little wind and the sun was out. Excited by this rare occurrence I decided to visit a couple of local spots today armed with a few ragworm. First up was Newhaven Harbour.

Blue skies? Calm conditions? Oh my god!

Not sure how long the freak weather would last, I decided just to fish the last two hours of the ebbing tide at the mouth of the harbour, dropping small pieces of ragworm tight down the sides of the walls. Things were pretty slow, but eventually a few fish started having a go at my bait and I caught some cool mini species. 

Ragworm. Yummy!

My first viviparous blenny of the year. 

My fourth butterfish this week! This one did a spot of breakdancing as I tried to get a hold of it to remove the hook. 

Eventually it tired itself out!

As low water arrived, the bites dried up so I decided to head to the exposed boulders opposite the entrance to Leith Docks. Not much to report from there apart from a few tiny whiting. I tied on a 7g metal jig and had a few casts with that to see if there were any mackerel around, but if they were around they weren’t impressed by my efforts! 

Probably the smallest whiting I’ve ever caught!

Before leaving, I dropped my ragworm section down into some holes in the boulders I was standing on. This surprisingly didn’t produce any fish. Something did grab my bait though, and it felt quite strong, violently pulling my rod tip down a few times. Initially I thought it was a small cod or a wrasse thumping away, but it turned out to be a tiny lobster, using its tail to try and make its escape. 

Lobster are such strange creatures. Their bulky, powerful claws look ridiculous when compared to their thin, spindly legs. 

Their colours are amazing too. 

I persisted for a while, but with no fish biting I called it a day and headed home. A short, fun session and for some reason my head has gone a little bit red. I’ll be heading out again to Newhaven Harbour tomorrow evening to fish the last few hours of the flooding tide. I wonder if it’ll still be summer? Who knows, I might have to put some factor on!

Tight lines, Scott.

More sole searching.

On Monday I spent a couple of hours digging some lugworm. It’s been a few years since I’ve done so, and doing it again was a reminder of why I hadn’t dug any for so long! It’s not an easy task! Especially if you're not as young and fit as you used to be!

After two hours of digging I was fed up looking at these!

My efforts produced over sixty worms and wrapped in newspaper in my bait bag, I drove down to Dumfries & Galloway again on Wednesday to use them in another attempt at catching a Dover sole. I arrived early, so rather than head straight to the spot I planned to fish, I took the opportunity to head further south to take look at a second stretch of the coast for future trips. Walking along the shoreline I eventually arrived at a strange arch in the rocks at the top of the beach. 

This quite odd feature went right through the limestone rocks. It probably started as a crack and water and time have opened it up into an arch. 

Having got an idea about where I would fish should I return to that part of the estuary, I jumped back into the car and made the short drive north, unloaded my tackle and was soon setup and fishing on the rocky shore. It didn’t take too long for fish to locate the scent trail coming from my juicy worms and after missing a couple of bites, a small thornback ray was hooked, landed, unhooked and returned to the murky water. 

A promising start. 

I love watching them as they slowly beat their wings and gracefully glide off. 

In the hours that followed the tide came in and I repeatedly moved up the beach. The action was pretty steady, with perhaps fifty percent of my casts seeing my rod tip rattle eventually when a fish found my flapper rig. Thornback ray was the only species I caught until a nice bass picked up a lugworm and charged off, hooking itself against my 6oz grip lead and almost pulling my rod and tripod over. 

Spiky. A welcome change from thorny. 

As high tide came and went there was a lull in the action and I was expecting weed to become a problem, but it didn’t, so I carried on fishing until my lugworm were all used up. Once the tide began to ebb I caught a couple more thornback ray and lost a starry smoothhound a few metres from the shore when it thrashed violently and bent out my #6 Sakuma Manta hook. Having cast out my final three lugworm I hooked something that was a lot smaller. Was it the Dover sole I was hoping for? Winding it in carefully, so as not to pull the hook, a flatfish came to the surface and I was briefly excited, but as it got closer I realised that it was just a dab. 

The last and smallest thornback ray of the session. 

Not the flatfish I was hoping to catch!

So, another sole pun has been used up. Fingers crossed I manage to actually catch one before I run out of awful puns to use in my post titles! I’ll be heading back down to Dumfries & Galloway soon to try again, although next time I might try my luck at a different venue. 

Tight lines, Scott.

Tails of the unexpected.

Well, it looks like the glorious weather we’ve all been enjoying so far this “summer” shows no sign of improving! Faced with strong easterly winds and miserable wet conditions this afternoon, I decided to yet again head to the inlet at Torness Power Station.

Back again. Not the most scenic place to fish but needs must sometimes!

This time however, I put all thoughts of catching a topknot to one side, mainly because there was no way I was clambering about on the slippery wet sea defence boulders. Making a brief visit to the outflow area, I collected some live prawns and headed around to fish them down the side of the lifeboat platform, where I was afforded a bit of protection from the cold easterly wind. Bites came from the first drop and I soon caught a few small ballan wrasse.

A nice dark green ballan wrasse. 

In amongst the initial onslaught of ballan wrasse, a single goldsinny wrasse took my live bait. After a while, the wrasse stopped biting, and things went quiet for a short spell. The next species to eagerly munch a prawn and get itself hooked was a leopard spotted goby, which was a pleasant surprise. I’ve caught them from rockpools on the east coast before, but this was the first time I’d caught one from the open sea on this side of the country.

In my experience, leopard spotted goby are much more common on the west coast of Scotland.

Next up was a procession of tiny cod. I've no idea how they managed to get the little prawns into their tiny mouths, but somehow they did! After the wave of tiny cod I caught another unexpected species in the long slippery shape of a butterfish. I was over the moon to catch one!

One of my favourite UK mini species.

After another slow period, there was another increase in activity. I caught a few more ballan wrasse, and much to my delight, I caught two further butterfish and another five leopard spotted goby. Clearly, I had located a small area that held a good number of both these mini species.

Ballan wrasse come in a plethora of colours!

After unhooking this butterfish, the largest of the three, the slippery devil didn’t want to cooperate and have its photo taken in my palm. They’re called butterfish for a reason. 

After a few hours, I had used up all the prawns I’d collected, and whilst I had some dehydrated ragworm and a packet of mini isome with me, I was pretty wet and cold so I called it a day. I'd caught over twenty fish from a very concentrated area, probably no larger than a square metre of the rocky sea bed. Catching the butterfish was a real highlight of the session. They are such a cool fish! I'm very pleased that I seem to have located a fantastic spot to target them in the future. Well worth venturing out in the poor conditions for!

Tight lines, Scott.

Northern sole.

Dover sole is normally a species I’d associate with the estuary systems of southern England. At least that’s what I used to think. Last year I was told a few of them had been caught in the estuary systems of south west Scotland. Heading down there to try and catch one has obviously been on my to do list ever since, but last Friday evening was the first time I’d actually driven down there to give it a go. My mate Ryan was keen to head down there with me so after picking him up we drove down in the evening and fished the last three hours of the rising tide and the first hour of the ebb. I fished ragworm on a three hook flapper rig, trapping small weights on my snoods using float stops to pin them to the muddy bottom we were fishing over. Sole prefer a stationary bait presentation. Ryan wasn’t interested in catching sole, so he opted to fish two hook flapper and pulley rigs baited with crab and squid to target shark species. For the first hour of the session the current was ripping by in front of us and weed was a major problem, but both eventually began to ease off and this made fishing much more straight forward. Ironically, despite fishing smaller baits on much smaller hooks, I was first to catch a couple of thornback ray. 

I think it was the first time I’ve caught a ray on ragworm. Usually I prefer a frozen launce rapped in squid when targetting rays. 

As light faded, bites started coming fairly steadily and despite a few rather annoying midgies appearing as the wind dropped off, it turned into a very enjoyable session. 

The legs of an old pier next to us may have been rotten but the view certainly was not. 

Every time my rod tip registered some interest I was of course hopeful that it was an elongated brown flatfish greedily munching on my ragworm but every time it was a thornback ray. Meanwhile Ryan had caught a few thornback ray too, as well as some starry smoothhound and lesser spotted dogfish. Eventually, I caught a lesser spotted dogfish of my own, my first of the year. 

I don’t care what the haters say, when they’re not trying to rasp the skin from your arms, dogfish are awesome!

Ryan’s biggest starry smoothhound of the night. 

During the last hour I was tempted to switch out my rig and bait to try to catch a starry smoothhound myself, but I had ragworm left to use up and a new species to add my Scottish tally. As high tide approached the bites slowed right down and weed began to be problematic again. On my last cast my rod tip rattled and lifting into the culprit I knew it was too big to be a Dover sole. 

My last cast produced a nice thornback ray. 

I never grow tired of admiring their eyes. Stunning!

Despite failing to catch my intended target, it had been a good session. A new venue fished and I’m sure with a bit of persistence I’ll eventually get my first Scottish Dover sole. Like I said at the beginning of this post, I know that at least three have been “accidentally” caught at three separate south west Scottish estuary marks by anglers who were targeting other, larger species. I actually think there may be a few of them down there, it’s just that anglers aren’t specifically targeting them or using the required sole specific tactics.

Tight lines, Scott.

"Insanity is...".

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

I thought this famous quote was made by Albert Einstein. However, a quick search online to confirm this revealed that actually there's no evidence at all that it can be attributed to him. Regardless, the phrase could be applied to my fishing of late. Visiting the same places. Trying to get lucky and catch species that are very rarely caught. Instead, catching the species that you would expect to catch. Does this approach make me insane?

Last month I headed back to St Abbs Harbour again, to try and catch a topknot again. The result was the same, again. I didn't catch one! I did catch some flatfish during the session, but not the one I was after, and only after I abandoned fishing down the harbour walls and turned my focus to the harbour bottom’s sandy areas.

My first flounder of the year was darkly coloured and savagely took a live prawn.

My second and third both took a whole pink mini isome, and had a much paler, what I'd probably describe as honeycomb, colouration.

After catching the flounder, I switched my focus back to fishing vertically down the harbour’s walls again. This only produced one long spined sea scorpion however. I then jumped back in the car and headed off to fish at the inlet area of Torness Power Station. Again. An hour or so there, hoping to catch a topknot, produced the usual suspects, mainly coalfish but also a few goldsinny wrasse.

I find hooking mini isome through the tip is just as effective as threading the hook down into it, but prevents fish pulling it round and spoiling the presentation. 

This goldsinny munched a live prawn. I’ve had great success fishing with them recently, and I’m confident if I present one within striking distance of a topknot, it will take it straight away. 

A few days later I fancied another session, but the wind was blowing pretty hard, limiting my choice of venue. In the end, I decided to visit the inlet area of Torness Power Station. Yet again. With a strong feeling of déjà vu kicking in as I drove down the A1, I decided to grab a loaf of bread en route and began the session by targeting some mullet at the artificially warm outflow over high water. This was a good decision as there were a reasonable amount of them around. With a bit of patience, an essential ingredient when fishing for mullet, I managed to hook three thick lipped mullet. Being on my own and struggling with my long net handle from my elevated position, I only managed to land one of them.

The one that didn’t get away! I think I average about a fifty percent hook up to successfully landed ratio when I’m on my own, so by my own standards it was a slightly below par performance. Having a friend on net duties obviously helps massively.

As the tide dropped, the mullet disappeared and so did I, back around to the inlet to try and catch a topknot. Again. I tried fishing down in the gaps in the sea defence boulders first, but that surprisingly didn't produce any fish at all. Fishing from the gantry was much more productive. Live prawns and then small pieces of ragworm produced a few coalfish, a couple of goldsinny wrasse and a solitary ballan wrasse. A few years ago, the inlet area also used to throw up some very large corkwing wrasse. Thinking about this, I can't remember when I last caught one there.

A nice change from the goldsinny wrasse. I’ve no idea where the big corkwing wrasse have gone. 

Last Sunday, during a trip to St Andrews with my girlfriend Lillian, I got permission to do some scratching about in the rockpools there. Hoping that something weird would turn up, I was sadly disappointed, with only a single blenny popping out of a crack to munch a tiny piece of ragworm.

The only fish of a short and very unproductive rockpool raid. 

So, I've had a few sessions at familiar spots, catching familiar species. All very predictable, but it was good during those trips to break it up by forgetting about catching new species and targetting the flounder and mullet. I’ve realised I can’t just focus on new Scottish species all the time. If I did, I'm pretty sure I’d eventually go just a little bit insane! 

Tight lines, Scott.