The lesser of two sandeels.

My mate Ryan recently caught a couple of lesser weevers and a turbot from an East Lothian beach so on Monday evening after work I headed down to have a go myself. Conditions looked good when I arrived at about 21:30 and the tide would soon turn and start flooding. I started off with good old tried and tested, catches anything that swims, Angleworm on a drop shot rig. Casting it out, holding my light game rod feeling for bites, drawing it a few feet closer in and repeating this until the rig was under my rod tip before moving along the beach to cast it out again, I was sure something would attack it eventually. Nothing did however. After a couple of hours and with the moon rising into the dark night sky I admitted defeat and trudged back to the car.

On Wednesday afternoon I decided to try again but from a different beach and looking at the weather forecast decided that Gullane Bents would be a good choice. I arrived just after low water and headed west along the beach to a rocky peninsula I've fished from in the past with heavy bait gear. There were a few terns diving into the water catching sandeels so as I was armed with a light game outfit again I decided to try fishing a small metal very slowly close to the bottom in the hope the a buried weever or turbot might emerge and attack it. After an hour or so moving around trying to cover lots of ground with no interest shown in my lure I switched to Angleworm on a drop shot rig and worked the area again hopeful that its strong scent might draw one of my target species out of the fine sandy botttom. Rather frustratingly however this also failed to produce any interest either so I started slowly working my way back along the beach. Soon arriving at a nice rock formation that jutted out into the bay I went out to the end of it and started covering as much ground as I could. Eventually the tide began forcing me back towards the beach. When I got about halfway back I finally had a good firm bite and the fish hooked itself. I was fishing the metal again at the time so was slightly surprised to see a small flounder had taken it.

A small milestone. My first flounder on a light game metal.

Confidence in my chosen approach restored somewhat I carried on fishing the metal and once I had been forced back onto the beach I carried on slowly working my way east along it. After a while I had my second positive take and hook up of the session, on the drop just after casting out. The fish on the end barely put a bend in my rod so I knew it was something small. As I carefully reeled it in I thought it might be the poisonous of my two targets but as it came into view I could see it was in fact a sandeel. Quickly unhooked I was about to throw it back when I noticed it lacked the dark spot on the snout that a greater sandeel has so thought I'd better inspect it more closely. I was glad I did because I soon realised it was in fact a lesser sandeel.

Its protrusible upper jaw gave away its identity. The greater sandeel lacks this.

Quite a large lesser sandeel. Of specimen proportions actually.

The metal that caught both fish. A 5g Reins Palpuntin. It's a great little lure but it's also quite an expensive little metal that I'd be hesitant to fish near any snags. Perfect for use over clean ground.

Quite pleased to have unexpectedly added a species to this year's Scottish saltwater tally I carried on working my way along the beach. When I got to the far end I switched to Angleworm on a drop shot rig and worked my way back along to where I had first arrived on the beach. The sun, which had been fighting a losing battle with the clouds all day, managed to break through a small gap in them illuminating a patch of the sea.

A Scottish summer evening in all its glory.

I had a few more casts but when it started raining I decided it was time to head home. Another failure on the weever and turbot front and with only two bites over several hours of fishing it was hard going too. Catching the flounder on the metal was pretty cool though and the surprise lesser sandeel might prove vital in reaching my goal of fifty species from Scottish saltwater this year. I'll be back to try for lesser weevers and turbot again soon although I might try fishing baits for them next time.

Tight lines, Scott.

Subtle tweaks.

With sea trout in mind I headed down the A1 again yesterday. This time my destination was Eyemouth where the River Eye runs into the harbour. At the top of it a sluice gate diverts the flow into a channel that runs down the eastern side of the harbour. This means that lots of sea trout make their way into the harbour and can't find the channel, instead heading up the main harbour towards the sluice gate where they get stuck providing a nice opportunity for a species hunter like me to turn up and, in theory, easily catch a few of them. Trout being trout though I expected that should they be around I'd have a few of them throw my hook.

The view down the harbour from the sluice gate next to the slipway. The channel that the sluice gate diverts the river into is over to the right and it runs parallel to the harbour but not all the sea trout that enter the harbour can find it. 

I rigged up an 1.3" Aquawave Shad on a 1.3g #10 Decoy Rocket jighead and fished my way up from the car park to the top of the harbour. A few small coalfish were tempted by its nice action as I cast it out, let it sink and then slowly retrieved it steadily.

Small plump coalfish. 

Once at the top of the harbour I soon had a few small sea trout coming from the bottom attacking my lure, their silver flanks flashing as they swam up, had a swipe, turned and quickly shot off. They were tail nipping though so I switched to a smaller lure. This saw me hook a few but I failed to land any of them. Trout have a reputation as being "soft mouthed" but if you ask me the exact opposite is true, the structure of their mouths is very bony and lacks the soft membranes that other species have or other soft places for a hook to easily penetrate. I really could have used a jighead with a fine wire hook to get a better hook set in their tough little mouths and I often think that when a trout thrashes the weight of a jighead allows them to easily throw a poorly set hook. A bit frustrated I decided to try something different. I removed the jighead and slid a 1g bullet lead onto my leader, tied on a #14 hook and inserted it into my lure placing it a little further back than the jighead hook had been.

The lure is the same, a Cultiva Pin Worm, a little lure I've used to catch small brown trout before. The two presentations at first glance looks the same but I would discover the bottom presentation had a few benefits.

Top: 1.3g #10 Decoy Rocket jighead.
Bottom: Free running 1g drilled bullet. #14 Owner Pin Hook.

Almost straight away I hooked a small sea trout on this new presentation. As I landed it and the little silver fish thrashed wildly and the bullet lead shot up my leader. My mate Martin swears by inline metals for sea trout and I can see why as they cannot use the weight to throw the hook. It was also nicely hooked in the bottom jaw. 

Got you!

This little change to the way I was fishing the tiny lure drastically increased my catch rate, I then proceeded to hook a few more and landed most of them. Every single fish was hooked in a similar place, in the gap between its tongue and bottom lip.

Well hooked. 

The weight of the hook and the fact the lure was free to rotate meant the hook was facing down as I retrieved the lure and obviously I had accidentally stumbled upon a great way for my little hook to find a chink in the armour of a trout's mouth. I ended up catching seven of the little trout before deciding to move to another spot further down the harbour to see what else was lurking in it.

The biggest little sea trout of the seven landed. A very nice looking little fish indeed. Cleanly hooked in the bottom jaw again.

Heading around the harbour the wind was howling so I sought shelter down on a floating pontoon and started fishing an Angleworm on a drop shot rig to see if there were any flounder or mini species near the bottom. I caught a few small coalfish but nothing else seemed to be present or interested.

Nothing fishy going on. Apart from the every present East Coast coalfish. I shall try again in the summer and who knows what might be down amongst all those pilings. Hundreds of coalfish in all likelihood but you never know.

After a while I decided to head back up the road but I took a detour on the way to visit Gullane Bents to try for flatfish. I had a quick walk down but the wind made fishing virtually impossibly with the ultra light tackle I had with me so after a dozen casts I went back to the car and headed back up the A1.

Another lovely golden East Lothian beach. I'll be back.

On the way home I made one final stop, visiting Mike's Tackle Shop in Portobello to pick up a permit for the Water of Leith. As per usual I somehow managed to spend a few quid on tackle that I didn't even realise I needed before I went in as well. You can never have too many lures I suppose right?

In the past I've fished this water with soft plastics on jigheads which was a bit naughty as it clearly states bait or fly fishing only.  This year I'm going to try chucking some grey dusters I tie around.

Trout can be frustrating fish at the best of times but at least with a fly their is no weight for them to use to throw the hook and as it faces down it should in theory find the sweet spot on their bottom jaw. Come to think of it perhaps my little soft plastic rigging revelation is something that most fly fisherman have been taking advantage of for decades? Oh well! 

Tight lines, Scott.

Somewhere old, somewhere new, something flat and something blue.

On Monday I still hadn't decided where I was going to be fishing the following day when I got a text from my mate Nick about a spot where he fancied fishing on Gullane Bents. It is a rather nice stretch of coast I've walked along before and I too liked the look of it as a potential fishing mark so we hastily arranged to meet up there on Tuesday evening to see what we could catch. With the whole day free however I went down to the more familiar and altogether less scenic inlet area of Torness Power Station in the afternoon to have a go for a Yarrell's blenny at a spot Nick caught one from a couple of years ago. I only stayed for a couple of hours, no fish were biting and the only things I caught were three lobsters who took a liking to my small chunks of bluey and got hooked on my #8 wormer hooks.

I've hooked one before but didn't land it so this was a first for me. I love the deep blue colour of their shells.

The third lobster was bigger than the first two and was big enough to keep but was completely clawless so feeling sorry for it and thinking that there wouldn't be much eating in it without the claws I tossed it back. Despite it's obvious handicap it was clearly quite a hardy, ravenous creature and was so fond of my oily fish baits that it fell foul of my hooks again shortly afterwards, being caught a second time. A quite bizarre start to my day's fishing and there can't be many anglers who have caught four lobsters in a row! Still rather bemused I headed off to Gullane Bents hoping to find some fish instead of crustaceans.

After a short drive and making a fairly long walk along the top of the dunes I was down on some exposed rocks at the tip of a peninsula with bays to either side of it. I set up a rod and cast out a plain lead to find that the water wasn't very deep and the bottom was mixed ground but not too snaggy. At this point I gave Nick a ring to let him know exactly where I was only for him to tell me that something had come up and he would no longer be able to come down. Slightly disappointed to not have some company arriving later on I promised to let him know how I fared and carried on getting ready for the session. Clipping on a three hook flapper I tied a rotten bottom between it and my lead to prevent rig losses should it find a snag. I then baited each #1/0 circle hook with a one inch section of black lug sausage and tipped it off with a strip of squid. Casting out not too far I sat down to prep a few more black lug sausages. I had just finished them and had started prepping some more squid strips when my rod tip rattled a few times. Picking it up and reeling in I felt a small fish on the end and the white underside of a flatfish soon appeared on the surface.

My first googly eyed dab of the year.

The bug eyes are always the first thing I notice but a semi circular curve in the dab's lateral line is also a key distinguishing feature.

Encouraged by this positive start I decided to fish my second rod. Unsure about what larger species would come into such relatively shallow water I clipped on a pulley rig to hopefully find out. Fishing a bigger bait I launched it out as far as I could to try and find some slightly deeper water. As the tide receded a few large weed covered boulders were exposed directly in front of me that would make retrieving gear and fish troublesome so I decided to move around the rocks a bit to where there was a gap. Before long the sun started to dip towards the horizon and low water wasn't far away either. 

The sun began to set over Fife. Time for the headtorch to come out of my bag.

As always on the east coast I was expecting darkness to coincide with coalfish becoming active if there were any around. Things went quiet though for a little while until my close range flapper rig rod tip twitched a few times signalling the interest of a fish. Thinking it was probably another dab I let the bite develop to give the fish time to take the hook into its mouth. When my rod tip moved for the third time I lifted the rod and slowly wound in to find another flatfish had taken one of my baits. 

A rather chunky flounder.

By this point I had used up all of my black lug so switched to bluey strips tipped with squid on my flapper rig. A few more flounders were landed over the next couple of hours with one even managing to get a fairly large bluey bait that I put out in my long range rod into its greedy mouth. The #5/0 circle hook still did its job though, placing itself nicely in the scissors of the flatfish's jaws. Quite pleased with a successful first visit to a new spot I packed up at about 22:30, headed back to the car and drove up the road. Obviously it is a good flatfish mark but I'm keen to return with Nick in the not to distant future to try and find out what other species it holds.

Tight lines, Scott.