An American species hunter in Scotland.

At the start of May I received an email from a young American species hunter by the name of Brandon. One of the things I really like about writing the blog is that it occasionally brings myself and other like minded anglers together. In his email he explained he enjoyed my blog, would be visiting Scotland at the end of May and was keen to meet up, so we could do some fishing together. I told him that I would meet up with him when he was in Edinburgh, and I'd help him catch a few new species for his life list. After I finished work last Sunday I picked him up from his Airbnb, and we visited the Water of Leith, as Brandon was keen to catch his first bullhead. Waiting for it to get dark, we targeted minnows for an hour or so. They weren't particularly active however, although I did manage to catch one. It was an opportunity to try out a small "photo tank" that I recently bought to take to Singapore with me.

My new photo tank works quite well I think.

Once it got dark we headed to my favourite bullhead spot and began searching the shallows with our head torches. The bullheads were out in numbers, and as usual, couldn't resist a maggot on a small hook dropped right in front of their relatively large mouths. Before long we’d lost count of how many we'd caught. Whilst Brandon took lots of photos of bullheads I began scouring the bottom for bigger specimens. A monster bullhead soon appeared, out from underneath an overhanging section of the bank. A new personal best bullhead was soon in my photo tank!

Brandon photographs the latest addition to his life list.

My new PB bullhead. Possibly. I didn't weigh it.

Our mission accomplished, we headed back to the car. After dropping Brandon off, I headed home, satisfied with a successful guiding effort. I was working in the morning, but we arranged to meet up the following evening again.

Whilst I was working on Monday, Brandon was out fishing on Granton Breakwater. He wanted to catch some wrasse and I told him that this was a good spot to try. The wind had a made it a pretty tough session, but he caught his first ever ballan wrasse, so he was happy with that. I managed to get away from work thirty minutes early and headed down there to pick him up. Off we went to Dunbar Harbour for a session targeting, to begin with, flounder and plaice. We arrived a little too early but as the tide flooded and the depth of water over the sandy corner we were fishing in increased, we eventually spotted some flat fish chasing our ragworm sections as we slowly twitched them along the bottom. My first fish of the evening was a small plaice, which was my first of the year. Plaice make up a small percentage of the flatfish I've caught in Dunbar Harbour of the years. so it was a slice of luck to catch one straight away. It was followed fairly quickly by a small flounder.

A small plaice. Another species added to my 2023 tally.

A flounder soon followed.

Soon afterwards Brandon also got lucky and caught his first ever plaice. After the sun had set and light begun to fade I hooked a big flounder that unfortunately came off just as it was coming to the surface. A short time later, Brandon hooked a big one too. Perhaps it was the fish I'd lost. It was certainly too big to swing up, so I grabbed my 5.9m landing net from the car and netted it for him.

A tiny plaice. Size doesn't matter to species hunters. They all count.

Brandon uses a Tupperware tub full of water to photograph his fish. This is a great tool for identification purposes and shows most of the fishes features very well.

A big flounder. Size doesn't matter to species hunters. They all count.

Once it was dark we spent a couple of hours fishing into some mixed ground at the back of the harbour. We were hoping that shore rockling, five bearded rockling or viviparous blenny might take our worm baits, but it wasn't to be and at midnight we packed up and headed back up the A1. The following day I was off work and Brandon had to be back in Edinburgh by 19:00, so we decided to make an early start to a day of species hunting.

After getting about three and a half hours sleep, I jumped in the car and picked Brandon up at 06:00. We drove west to East India Harbour in Greenock where we had a small list of species that I thought Brandon and I could catch around there. A common dragonet was our first target. Rigging up running ledger rigs and baiting small hooks with a little section of ragworm, we cast out as far as we could and slowly wound in. On my second cast I felt a bite and stopped winding. Waiting a second or two before lifting, I felt the weight of a fish and reeled it in. When a stunning male common dragonet appeared on the surface I was absolutely delighted!

I’ve wanted to catch one of these for years! Absolutely stunning! Just look at those colours.

Brandon caught his first common dragonet shortly afterwards too, so our session had got off to the perfect start. After a few more common dragonet and some dab from further out we began fishing over the rocky, weedy ground closer in, but surprisingly this didn't produce anything, so Brandon suggested we try fishing inside the harbour instead.

Dab are another species you can catch at range from East India Harbour.

This suggestion proved to be a great one. In the past I've never had much joy fishing inside the harbour but as soon as we took a look we spotted lots of wrasse moving around over the rocky bottom, including some pretty big rock cook wrasse. One hook paternoster rigs were dropped down and quite a few wrasse were soon being caught. Mainly rock cook wrasse and corkwing wrasse, but we also had some goldsinny wrasse and a ballan wrasse too. The rock cook wrasse and goldsinny wrasse were firsts for Brandon. He'd caught corkwing wrasse in the Mediterranean before but one of his was the most turquise coloured example I've ever seen!

Another very colourful UK wrasse species, the rock cook is probably my favourite.

Brandon caught this bright turquoise corkwing wrasse.

The Tupperware tub put to good use again. Look at those colours!

We didn't catch as many goldsinny wrasse as I was expecting. They normally make up the bulk of catches over the rough ground close in.

As the sun got a little higher in the sky, things really slowed down. We watched as all the wrasse that had been cruising around headed down into the gaps in between the boulders to seek shade. A few shoals of sand smelt turned up at this point, and we caught a few of those, another new species for Brandon. Before we began fishing on the outside again, Brandon caught a rock goby, a black goby and a two spotted goby. The last two being new to him.

The Tupperware tub is great for capturing the detail of fish's fins like those of this sand smelt.

Switching back to fishing the outside of the harbour the bites dried up almost completely, and I only caught three fish in a couple of hours, a common dragonet, a goldsinny wrasse and a black goby.

I'd have preferred to catch a rock goby as I'd already caught a few black goby this year.

It was the early afternoon by this point, and as the fishing had slowed to a crawl, we decided to switch to freshwater targets and headed back east to Magiscroft Coarse Fishery. Brandon wanted to catch his first gudgeon and it's probably the best place to catch them that I know. On the way we hit heavy traffic as we approached the middle of Glasgow. Brandon took the opportunity to have a nap.

A tired species hunter.

Before long the traffic started moving again and we soon arrived at Magiscroft. It didn't take us too long to set up some puddle chucker floats and catch a few gudgeon from a shallow peg on the venue's main loch. All mine were pretty average in size, but Brandon managed to catch a couple that were pretty chunky!

An average gudgeon. Size doesn't matter to species hunters. They all count.

A large gudgeon. Size doesn't matter to species hunters. They all count.

Having caught what we came for, as well as a few roach and perch, we then jumped back in the car and headed to the River Forth so we could spend an hour or so trying to catch dace. I thought it might be tough as the water levels were very low due to the lack of rain recently and this proved to be the case. We trotted maggots down the faster flowing water but all we caught were lots of minnow and the odd salmon parr.

An Atlantic salmon parr in my photo tank. Another species towards this year's challenge.

Soon it was time to go, so we packed up and headed back to the capital where I dropped Brandon off at his Airbnb. It was great to meet him and I really enjoyed both our fishing and our conversations about fish, fishing and species hunting. I hope our paths cross again in the future, and we'll hopefully keep in touch in the meantime.  I enjoyed helping him add ten species to his life list whilst we were together and also gave him advice that helped him add two more in the shape of the ballan wrasse he caught from Granton Breakwater and I also gave him information that led to him catching his first bitterling a couple of days after he left Edinburgh on his way to Manchester. Furthermore, whilst playing at being a guide, I'd also added another two species to my 2023 species hunting challenge, catching my first plaice and Atlantic salmon of the year. The large male common dragonet was probably my own highlight of our time together and is a capture I won't forget.

Tight lines, Scott.

A fresh start.

I visited Magiscroft Coarse Fishery last month with my mate Ryan to open my 2023 freshwater species account. It was a very windy day, but the fishery is located in a valley, so it was nice and sheltered. Maggots fished under a puddle chucker float were the basic tactics for the day and we both caught plenty of fish.

We both caught a some perch...

...lots of roach...

...a few small carp, including this cute little mirror...

...and finally, we also managed to catch a few gudgeon, one of my favourite small freshwater species.

Nothing complicated, it was simply a very laid back, fun day out, staring endlessly at our floats as our feet slowly froze! I'll no doubt be back over the summer to tick off a few more coarse species. Magiscoft also has a few barbel stocked, and as I've never caught one in Scotland before I'll be spending some time targeting them when I do.

Tight lines, Scott.

Push it to the limit.

On Monday I headed west to fish two different places with my tanago rod. First stop was the River Forth where my target was the humble minnow. Normally there are lots around down the edge but for some reason there didn't seem to be any around at all. There were however a few small fish taking flies off the surface slightly further out so I decided to find out what they were. After catching and quickly returning a few small salmon parr I caught a little dace.

Dace are a lovely looking fish. I think I'll go back again soon with my float rod and centrepin to spend a day specifically targetting them.

My next stop was Magiscroft coarse fishery near Cumbernauld. Before using my tanago rod I fished maggot under an insert waggler out close to an island using a light float setup. My first two casts both quickly produced small mirror carp. Then, after a few roach and perch, I caught a few more carp which led me to believe the pond had been stocked with them recently.

Good fun on a very light float setup.

Lots of pristine roach too.

After a while I decided to switch to my tanago rod and dropped my pole float down right under its tip. With single maggot on a #26 Gamakatsu 6315 hook to 0.75lb nylon at the business end I was soon pulling out lots of small perch and the odd roach.

I employed a chop stick style grip on my 15g rod.

The main reason for my visit was to hopefully catch some gudgeon. They're a cool freshwater mini species and it had been a while since I'd caught one. Eventually, my persistance paid off when one beat the small perch and roach to my wriggling bait on the bottom. As gudgeon go it was pretty big and on my super light rod I'd go as far as to say it even put up a bit of a scrap!

A cracking gudgeon.

Keen to catch some more I carried on fishing close in but for a while all I caught was more perch and roach. Then, suddenly, my float shot under as something larger began chrging about the swim in front of me. My tiny rod was bent right over and I was worried about my hook bending out but after a few minutes playing the fish, dropping the rod to give it some line when I felt it necessary, I managed to tire out the fish and another small carp was drawn into my net.

This little fully scaled mirror really pushed my tanago rod to the limit.

I fished on for a while and caught a few more perch and roach but sadly no more gudgeon. I'm really enjoying fishing with my tanago rod at the moment. It's a very direct and fun way to fish. The small carp I caught on it has forced me to rethink what it's capable of. I'll be out using it again soon, targetting some saltwater species on a trip to Loch Etive and Oban with a few of my mates.

Tight lines, Scott.

F1 Sunday.

The conditions on Sunday meant that I decided to head away from the coast for a few hours for my fishy fix. I perhaps would have preferred to visit one of west Scotland's sea lochs but to be honest as I didn't have company I decided to stay closer to home and made the one hour drive to Magiscroft to drown maggots instead. Not being too fussy about what I would catch when I was told that lots of F1 carp had been stocked into the Woodside Pond I decided to head to that and was soon setting up. There were lots of other anglers fishing already but not many fish were being caught and I also found things quite slow to start but fishing the bottom with single maggot on a #22 hook to 2lb nylon I eventually caught a few small roach before a slightly bigger fish took my bait. It was no match for my 13ft waggler rod but it put up a spirited little fight. 

I really like these little hybrids. They scrap quite well for their size.

The small roach kept coming along with a few more of the bullish little fish. I really wished that I had taken a much lighter rod though to get the best out of their little charges. I then caught my first perch of the year. 

Perfection in miniature. 

For the last hour of my session I moved over to the Birch Ponds to try and catch some gudgeon, another diminutive favourite of mine, but instead managed a steady procession of small roach. I think they dump all the silvers caught in the main pond matches into it as it is rather full of them. All in all a pretty chilled out day and the little perch has got me thinking about catching some more freshwater predators soon. I might have to go down south so I can have a crack at Zander as well.  I really like Zander and I know someone who is also fond of them too.

Tight lines, Scott.

Trying to find a sturgeon in a carp pond.

After hearing that a small diamond backed sturgeon had been donated to the Magiscroft coarse fishery and was now resident in its main loch I decided to head west on Wednesday to try my luck at catching it. After paying for my permit and seeking advice I headed off to the area where I was informed the fish had been caught a few times. As it was fairly windy and sturgeon are bottom feeders I elected to fish using a float ledger setup to ensure my bait was stationary and tight to the bottom. Unfortunately Magiscroft has a rule banning the use of meat so my bait of choice, a chunk of luncheon meat, was not an option and instead I fished triple maggot or double corn. Fishing this method the float can behave in a peculiar manner but when it shot away after about thirty minutes I knew a fish was hooked and a small common carp was landed about five minutes later.

Nice chunky fish.

After that I caught a succession of tiny perch and a couple of small roach, their bites indicated by the float lifting up and then staying there. This probably caused by them picking up the bait and swimming towards me dragging the small drilled bullet I was using along the bottom in the process. 

Triple maggot no problem for this greedy little chap.

Or this equally greedy roach.

Six hours of patiently watching my float for a more positive take came and went before I decided to call it a day. Obviously there is only one sturgeon in the pond and perhaps it's unrealistic to deliberately target it. That being said while it'll require a huge slice of luck I still think it is possible and I will be back to try again. Maybe a change of tactics or bait will improve my chances and trying to figure these things out is part of what I like about fishing and targeting new species.

On the way home I took an alternative route and stopped off at the latest piece of oversized art that has been installed at the side of a motorway to distract drivers. The looming metallic sculpture "The Kelpies" is inspired by the powerful Clydesdale horses that at one time worked the towpaths of Scottish canals and the fields around them. 

"The Kelpies".

The huge horse's heads now stand either side of a lock on the Forth & Clyde Canal and unlike a needle in a haystack or a single sturgeon in Magiscroft main pond they are hard to miss standing at an imposing thirty metres tall. 

Nearby in the canal there were plenty of boats, pontoons and water features for pike to hide under.

Their location on the canal was of course was my real reason for the quick stop, to check out another stretch to try another spot of lure fishing for pike. It looked quite good so I may be fishing in the shadow of the kelpies soon. 

Tight lines, Scott. 

A stick to beat someone with.

My mate Keith and I visited Magiscroft on Wednesday. It was a dry but very windy day so we once again sought shelter at the southern side of the fishery on one of the Birch Ponds. We decided to have one of our friendly competitions and settled on a highest combined carp length competition. As usual I set up and fished the same swim all day whilst Keith roamed around trying various spots. I began by chucking in a few balls of halibut crush groundbait containing some maggots and flavoured sweetcorn and fished double maggot on a #14 hook on the bottom using a float ledger rig. Keith opted to fish a single maggot on a #20 hook using a standard waggler setup. This soon saw him catch a load of roach before he hooked and lost a carp. I on the other hand wasn't getting many bites so after a while I decided to switch to a #18 hook and fish single maggot. This saw me start catching roach too and a skimmer. 

My second small bream from the Birch Ponds. 

By this point Keith was working his way around the pond and before long had hooked his second carp of the day. I headed over to where he was and after he carefully played the fiesty fish I netted it for him. 

Keith opens his account with a 13 1/2 inch common carp.

A few dozen roach later Keith caught a second common carp adding another 14 1/2 inches to his tally. The pressure was on and I was just starting to think I might end the day on zero inches when I finally hooked my first decent fish of the day and it was Keith's turn to net a carp for me.

I get back into the challenge with a 12 3/4 inch fish.

A chunky little F1 carp. 

Things went quiet for a while so I switched to a standard waggle setup and Keith headed off to try his luck on the Railway Pond. I persevered at my chosen peg but after a couple of gudgeon and my seventieth roach I decided to change to a piece of flavoured sweetcorn on the hook. Bites immeadiately dried up but having had my fill of roach I didn't mind and after adding a bit more groundbait my patience paid off when my float slowly slid under and I caught a second F1. Keith had the measuring tape though so I improvised, laying a stick next to it and taking a photo for later measurement but I knew it wasn't long enough to give me the lead. I new I was in with a shout when though when I caught a third F1 about fifteen minutes later. It was smaller than my second so I bent the stick I had used on my second carp and took another photo as proof of its length.

A third F1 but had it given me victory or had Keith caught anymore?

Not long after popping it back it was time to pack up and after doing so I headed around to meet up with Keith who had moved onto the main pond. When I caught up with him I asked if he had caught any more carp. No was the answer, just loads more roach, so I gleefully broke the news of my second and third carp to him, showed him the photos and got him to measure my stick. Victory was mine!

My total carp length : 39 1/4 inches.
Keith's total carp length : 28 inches.

So it's now 2 - 0 to me in the 2014 "not very serious course fishing competition" world series. I think next time we're having a smallest perch challenge. Should be fun and may come down to a few millimetres!

Tight lines, Scott.

Gudge match.

I popped to Magiscroft last Wednesday with my mate Keith for a friendly gudgeon catching competition. It was quite a blustery day but the Birch Ponds where the challenge was to take place were quite well sheltered. Fishing pinkies and maggots on #22 hooks under very sensitive wagglers it didn't take long for us both to catch a few gudgeon but Keith seemed to locate a shoal of tiny perch that were beating everything else to his bait so I took an early lead.

My first fish out was a roach. A few gudgeon soon followed.

By the afternoon I had built up a fairly comfortable gudgeon cushion and whilst I was happy to fish close to a small island feature in front of my peg, Keith decided to move around the pond and try chucking his float into a few different swims. This soon produced a nice bonus fish for him.

I stayed put all day, clipped up and fished close to the small island.

A nice common carp.

This would turn out to be the first of three carp and while I continued catching lots of gudgeon and extended my lead Keith seemed to have forgotten about our little competition and was happily exploring. His efforts were soon rewarded again when he caught a rather nice perch.

Keith surveys a rather plump perch in very good condition. A new PB in fact at 13.5 inches and probably about 1.5lb. 

Having by this point racked up what I considered to be an unassailable advantage in the gudgeon match I decided to scale up my hook lengths and fish double maggots to try and land myself a carp or a nice perch. Alas this change of tactics only resulted in less small roach and gudgeon being caught. I did however land what I'm pretty sure was a juvenile bream. 

A quick count of rays in its anal fin led me to believe this small fish was my first bream from a Scottish water.

It was soon time to pack up and the results were as follows...

My gudgeon tally : 58
Keith's gudgeon tally : 17

...a pretty comprehensive victory!

A trio of my match winning gudgeon. 

Regardless of the result we both enjoyed a good days fishing and I'm sure the gudgeon match would have been closer had Keith decided to focus on catching them but I think he was fairly pleased to catch a few carp and the nice chunky PB perch. All just a bit of fun anyway and I'm looking forward to more not very serious course fishing competitions with Keith over the summer months.

Tight lines, Scott.

Tickled pink.

Last Tuesday I had to sit in the flat waiting for a few packages to arrive as well as an engineer to repair my Dyson vacuum cleaner. Exciting stuff and not how I wanted to be spending a day off really. Luckily all three arrived before noon and one of the packages contained a couple of pints of pinkies that I'd ordered online. I was keen to try fishing with them for the first time to see if they would improve catch rates in the cold weather and also in preparation for freshwater mini species hunting in the summer. I decided to pop to Eliburn for a few hours in the afternoon to hopefully catch a few fish on the waggler. Fishing a puddle chucker a rod length out things were slow to say the least and after two hours staring at a stationary float I opted to move. It took another hour before the orange insert tip finally went under and I started catching some fish. Before it got dark I had caught a few roach, perch and a couple of bream/roach hybrids.

It's just as enjoyable catching stillwater fish but they're usually not a patch on wild loch ones in terms of appearance.

The following day I was off work too and after checking the weather forecast I headed to Magiscroft for another afternoon's waggler fishing. It was quite overcast with the odd light rain shower but I was looking forward to another day's stress free fishing. When I arrived I headed to one of the Birch Ponds at the back of the complex. Unlike the day before bites were coming from the first cast and were pretty continual throughout the session. Single pinkie on a #22 hook proving quite effective on the resident roach, and much to my delight, a succession of gudgeon. 

A gang of gudgeon.

The humble gudgeon is a little freshwater favourite of mine and the population in this pond seems to have exploded from nowhere. Despite having fished the pond several times in the past I've never caught one from it but I ended up catching forty of the pretty little fish. I spoke to the bailiff when he came round and he told me that this was due to their six year life cycle causing their numbers to increase rapidly and then drop again in a repeating pattern as the adults die off and the juveniles that replace them develop. Quite interesting and not something I've really given much thought to before. A couple of other anglers who were also fishing seemed to be struggling and packed up and left half way through the afternoon. I can only guess that my pinkies, small hooks and sensitive insert float made a difference in the conditions. I caught over one hundred fish including a few tiny perch only a couple of inches long before packing up and heading home before it got dark.

On Tues this week I popped back to Magiscroft again and used up the remainder of the pinkies. The quality of these small maggots was very good and none of them had turned into casters. I can't say that maggots I buy from some tackle shops are anywhere as good so I'll certainly be ordering freshwater baits online again. Despite the weather being quite miserable and strong winds blowing I managed to tuck myself away at the back of the Birch Ponds again and enjoyed another busy afternoon catching gudgeon, perch and roach. Due to the poor weather I had the place to myself but was joined for most of the day by some ducks. They swam around in front of me, gobbling up any pinkies that went astray and landed in the shallow water in front of me as I catapulted them in around my float .

Grubs up.

These short sessions really are quite relaxing even in poor conditions and tide me over nicely until the weather improves again. My mate Keith is a big gudgeon fan too so I can see us heading through to Magiscroft soon and having one of our friendly coarse fishing competitions which I'm sure will be a good laugh.

Tight lines, Scott.