The Trophy Room

Although I am not a match angler I have entered or been entered into a range of competitions. 

As a youngster I used to send in details of my specimen coarse fish captures to gain Kingfisher Guild Certificates from the Angling Times. An Angling Times Top Ten badge was proudly worn for a while, this was the mark of a true specimen hunter at the end of the seventies.

My allegiance then changed to the Anglers Mail, and at one stage I used to send in photos for publication. In those days the Anglers Mail paid £25 for each photo it used. Believe it or not, a 5lb 9oz Welland Chub back in 1989 won me a reel as the fish of the week. How things have changed, even a six pound chub barely gets a mention nowadays!   

Various badges from Trout Fisherman and Sea Angler Magazines have arrived in the post and like the Angling Times Top Ten Badge have briefly adorned fishing clothing. I don't recall ever entering a trout, it being good publicity for day ticket fisheries.

My match career is limited, I have entered one trout fishing match. I travelled all the way to Bure Valley Fishery in Norfolk to find that the only way I could fish that day, was to enter a competition. I fluked a four pound rainbow first cast and walked off with a trout rod for the biggest fish of the day.

Despite this glittering array of awards I had never won a trophy until a couple of years ago when I was the weakest link in a two day RNLI competition aboard Colin Penney's Flamer III. Today I finally got another trophy to accompany it after accidentially winning a Portland and Surrounding Waters competition aboard Flamer IV.

 I have entered several matches aboard Flamer, simply because this has given me access to species rich areas that would not normally be visited during a charter trip. During Colin's matches I have landed several new species including the rare Red Band Fish and the Baillions Wrasse. Whilst I admire match anglers, I have no real desire to compete and continue to concentrate on trying to catch new species. I felt that I had a chance of Trigger Fish, Dragonets and Butterfly Blennies and fished accordingly. Unfortunately I failed miserably and yet again, the angler next to me caught the only Butterfly Blenny of the day. 

I was truly astonished when Colin announced that I had not only landed the most species but was also the points winner by some way. I don't really understand why, as I am sure that Steve Clements the runner up caught far more fish than me. However I would have happily swapped the kudos for Steve's  Butterfly Blenny and the weakest link spot!

Where is my trophy room, the downstairs loo of course!

Portland Species Competition!

Today, I was a guest angler amongst the regular Friday Species League crew aboard Colin Penney's Flamer 4. Although I not personally into match fishing of any kind, you can learn a lot from match anglers. The fishing today would be restricted to the areas in and around Portland Harbour, a species hunters paradise.

After a short sail we arrived at Colin's secret muddy mark where the rare red band live. These unusual fish live with their heads sticking out of the mud grabbing shrimps and the like. A set of mini sabikkis were baited with tiny strips of squid ready for the first of several short drifts. By the time we moved we had acounted for more than twenty red band fish between us. They are truly stunning looking fish being a pinky orange colour with electric pinky purple edging the fins. If Barbie was a fish she would be a red band fish. I also managed a goby or two including a Jeffreys Goby (it has an elongated 2nd ray on its first dorsal). Unfortunately I managed to drop it back in before getting the photo.

We spent some time drifting a range of marks including the harbour entrances. The rocky areas were wrasse city and a wide variety of species were caught including ballan, cuckoo, goldsinney and the rare ballions wrasse. Tompot blennies, gobies, mackerel, scad and pollack also showed.

Gurnards manly tubs showed, I only managed to catch reds........again! Several anglers caught dragonets which again evaded my hooks. Andy Selby from Weymouth Angling even managed a couple of red mullet, the first Andy had ever caught. Two trigger fish were also landed.

In retrospect I should have fished short flowing rigs to keep all three baits on the bottom, rather than a paternoster rig. I am back for a two day competition in October which will allow me to test out my hypothesis. Most of the anglers on board had homemade bait containers divided into sections and hung on the boats rails, which immediately means less time is spent baiting up and more time spent with a bait in the water.

The planned drifts over the wreck of the Hood had to be abandoned due to the presence of divers.

Our final mark was at anchor over a muddy patch where I targeted butterfly blennies and dragonets on tiny hooks baited with slivers of ragworm. I became a smoothound pup magnet landing four of them along with some dogfish.

Richard, the angler next to me landed the only butterfly blenny of the day. Again I suffered the indignity of seeing others landing dragonets and tub gurnards.

What an enjoyable day in good company. I added three species to my challenge total and missed out on five others (butterfly blenny, dragonet, red mullet, trigger fish and tub gurnard). In excess of tweny species were landed by the crew and I ended the day with 14 species, in fact too many to record as labels on this blog item (blogger has a limit of 200 characters)!

Captain Beaky and the Vibrating Fish

The breakwater that surrounds Brighton Marina is one of the best shore fishing locations in Sussex, giving access to deep water. The weather plays a large part in successful angling and after week of warm settled weather I decided to spend a couple of days after a garfish.

Following the advice of the staff at the tackle box on the Marina I decided to fish the western arm. The arm was already busy and by late morning there was an angler every ten yards back towards the shoreline. There were reports that scad had been caught pre-dawn along with mullet.

I set up float tackle on the barbel rod, with a cigar shaped float taking a half ounce drilled bullet and set the depth initially to ten feet. A three foot hooklength of 12lb flurocarbon was used as garfish have needle link teeth which would wear through a light hooklength. Bait was a small strip of mackerel (about an inch by a quarter of an inch) hooked through the end only.

I fished the rising tide up to high water on the float and over the next few hours caught a number of garfish interspersed with a handful of mackerel. 


The fight is a series of leaps, head shakes and short searing runs that compare with mackerel. The gars slim, streamlined body gives them speed through the water, however the bulk of their resistance is at surface level. I imagine scaling down to a light avon style rod and six pound line would provide great sport.


There are a team of helpful bailiffs who collect money for day tickets, offer advice and offer to take your rubbish away! A chat revealed that I could expect to catch a sea scorpion if I fished for mini species in the edge. 


Rigging up with a mini two hook paternoster with size 10 hooks baited with an inch of ragworm or a tiny strip of mackerel I caught various blennies, wrasse, pollack, a sandsmelt and several sea scorpions. Sea scorpions are amusing in that when you touch their undersides they start vibrating like a mobile phone on silent!

I returned to my floatfishing for the last couple of hours of daylight and caught numbers of garfish, with the biggest weighed at 1lb 3oz. Some anglers nearby were struggling and I donated the mackerel and some garfish as they were fishing for food. Is Brighton full of East Europeans or are a high proportion of them anglers?

I decided to stay for an hour after dark hoping for a scad, otherwise known as a horse mackerel. Changing the float to one that accepted a starlight allowed me to fish into the night. After a couple of missed bites and a fish dropping off I landed my first ever scad, a small example of the species. The first thing  you notice is the metallic grey colouration and how bony they feel.

The following morning I decided to fish the western breakwater which was not so busy due to the long walk. I fished a second rod on worm more in hope than expectation.

 After catching several garfish I noticed that the water was becoming coloured due to the undertow. Mackerel and garfish are sight feeders and as expected bites ceased. Interestingly a change to my mini species rigs revealed that mini species also don't feed well in coloured water although a number of blennies, wrasse and sea scorpions did oblige. 

At the height of the tide I caught three "schoolie" bass in succession which brought my trip to an end.

Postscript: Checking Collins Pocket Guide to Fish of Britain and Europe at home I realised that I had photographed a long spined sea scorpion. Had I also caught short spined sea scorpions without realising? The easiest way to tell them apart is that the long spined sea scorpion has tiny barbules on the end of it's upper jaw.

Species Heaven!

Amlwch in Anglesey was developed as a port and shipbuilding yard to serve the mines of Parys Mountain at the height of the copper boom. This picturesque harbour is set within a deep ravine. 

For the angler this venue offers deep water at all states of the tide, useful as I would be fishing the flood right up from low water. The breakwater would also provide shelter from the driving wind and rain.

Terry from Telboy Tackle had advised me that a recent match was won with seven species.


I set up my stall for the mini species hoping for the smaller wrasse species that had so far eluded me. A barbel rod would maximise bite registration and matched to ten pound line would enable me to lift fish up to my lofty perch above the water. A cut down set of size 12 sabikkis would be baited with one inch long sections of worm.

The bait would be lowered alongside the wall where the fish would be lying in the scoured out base of the wall and amongst the weed growing out of the stone work.

Even though I had arrived at low tide I had bites right from the off, catching several small ballan and corkwing wrasse in various shades of green and brown, some tinged with red. Wrasse bites start off as a series of rattles before the tip pulls down as the wrasse dives for it's bolt hole. It is surprising how even a fish of less than a pound can hoop a barbel rod over!

The next bite was different, just rattles which resulted in a leopard-spotted goby. This species has only recently been re-discovered in British waters by scuba divers. This goby is vividly marked, the almost translucent body being covered in large orange and red blotches with fins tinged with blue.

This was to be the first in a series of gobies which included more leopard spotted and several rock gobies. In contrast to the leopard-spotted goby the rock goby is rather a drab fish with mottled colouring ranging from fawn to purply brown in the breeding male. The first dorsal is edged in orange.

I had bites almost every drop down rarely waiting more than a minute before the rattles started. As well as the wrasse I caught tompot blennies, pollack, pouting and poor cod over the next few hours.

I did catch one example each of the rock cook and goldsinney wrasse. The rock cook has a rotund appearance and can be identified by a distinctive pair of dark bars on the caudal fin. The head is marked with vivid blue lines  similar to a corkwing and the scales above the lateral line are edged in blue.

The goldsinney is a more delicate looking wrasse which is identified by a dark spot on the upper caudal wrist and another on its dorsal fin. I am not sure whether the golden yellow colouring on the side is present in all cases.

I would commend fishing for mini-species to any coarse angler on holiday by the sea, it really is good fun and the colours on some of these fish wouldn't be out of place on a tropical coral reef.

I packed up at 6.30pm with so that I could find my digs in daylight. Would tomorrows boat trip provide me with my first cuckoo wrasse?

Swanning around on the Pier

At the Southern end of Swanage Bay in Dorset, lie two Piers, including the old original Pier now just a sparse collection of vertical piles.


The original Swanage Pier was constructed in 1860 and built primarily for shipping the local Purbeck stone to London. Horses were used to pull carts along the narrow gauge tramway which ran along the Pier and seafront linking Swanage to the local quarries.


In 1874 local entrepreneur, George Burt started a steamer service between Swanage, Poole and Bournemouth. With the Pier now being used for day-trippers as well as stone cargo, it soon became clear that the Pier was unable to cope with the ever increasing traffic and that a new and longer Pier was needed. This was opened to traffic in 1897. 


The new pier suffered decades of neglect in the second half of the 20th century and was nearly completely destroyed by the wood eating gribble worm. With the help of lottery grant funding and an innovative sponsor a plank scheme over one million pounds was raised for the restoration. This restoration has been completed to the original victorian specification and if you ever visit this magnificent  pier take time out to read the plaques on the planks. 

Tidal forces digs out the sand adjacent to the pier supports creating a deep gutter or trench, seaweed's become attached to the exposed bases of the supports and mussels, crabs, shoals of sandeels, small pout, shrimps and sand worms like rag and lug mass together and create a full larder from which passing and resident fish sustain themselves. 

Fish like structure so why do most anglers use the pier as a platform to cast out into the open sea?

I arrived early Saturday morning and was greeted by a rather lively sea, not ideal for species hunting. I also discovered that the pier closed at 5pm which limited me somewhat!

I set up a barbel rod with a two hook flapper with size 12 sabikkis (I has read that they were deadly for species hunting) baited with one inch ragworm sections. I fished the inside the pier from the lower deck. Over the next three hours or so rarely waited more than ten seconds for a bite and gained quite an audience, as I caught loads of small ballan and corkwing wrasse, several tompot blennies, immature pouting and a solitary sandsmelt. A couple of hours fishing mackerel strip on float tackle produced a number of pollack around the pound mark.

I returned sunday morning, the sea if anything was rougher and it rained through much of the day. However it was not until the tide started flooding that the bites started. I fished two rods, one cast to the right of the pier onto broken ground and the other on the outside edge of the pier with the mini species rig using slithers of mackerel for bait. 

The result was similar to the previous day but with decreased numbers of wrasse and increased numbers of pound pollack and immature pouting. I also had a second sandsmelt and a solitary tompot blenny. 

With a couple of hours to go I noticed that the sea had appeared to have cleared and went all out for a garfish on the float set 6-8 feet deep. I failed to catch a garfish but enjoyed wonderful spot from mackerel which on the light tackle fought harder than trout of twice their size. The colours of a mackerel fresh from the sea are amazing with iridescent greens and blues set against a silver backdrop.

Beware the Blenny!

As this was a family holiday apart from my sharking trip, all my fishing was in short sessions lasting from 1 to 4 hours.

A visit to the tackleshop suggested that I could expect to find bass from the rocks in front of the Tom Sawyer pub and that sandeels were the best bait.

Wednesday evening saw me wandering along the river on a flooding tide searching for sandeels. Half an hour spent jigging mini sabikkis saw me land a dozen sandeels.

Still using a carp rod matched to 10lb line I float fished a sandeel just off bottom in the gulleys between the emergent rocks that form this part of the coastline. Twice the float went under, the first I missed and the second was a small pollack of around a pound. After dark I legered mackerel sections only twenty yards out. Again I had two bites, missing the first and landing a lesser spotted dogfish from the second bite.

The following evening I joined the holiday makers on a three hour conger trip. One conger was landed between ten anglers, not suprising as the bait supplied was hardly fresh and it was a spring rather than neap tide.

On the Friday I travelled to Mevagissey for an early morning session and fished the harbour wall.

The first hour was spent fishing a sliver of mackerel in the hope of a garfish. A single pollack resulted. A switch to a running leger and an inch of ragworm saw a procession of small ballan and corkwing wrasse responding before I hooked something that didn't fight.

Checking my Collins Fish of Britain and Europe confirmed my that I had caught my first tompot blenny. It bit me!

A change over to the float, a 5SSG loafer float fished at 4 foot saw me land another small pollack, miss several bites and hook and lose something that screamed off at a rate of knots before coming adrift! I suspect that it was a mullet or bass.

Earlier in the holiday my great-nephew Jacob had caught two blennies on a crabline. Jacob was so proud of his catch that they were brought over in his crabbing bucket to the pub for formal identification. I failed miserably as I needed my book to confirm that these blennies were Common Blennies also known as Shannies.

Jacob briefed me on his secret spot and I spent about fifteen minutes on my final evening stalking some fish that were swimming along some submerged concrete steps. Several missed bites later I hooked my first shanny. They really are aggressive fish homing in on the ragworm section as the bait was slowly lowered onto the step. In one day I had been bitten by two species of blenny, apparently blennies feed on barnacle penises, luckily I was bitten on the finger!

Postscript: I discovered that the record for a tompot blenny is little over 5oz caught from Mevagissey in 1995. I had missed out on claiming a british record today!