Scottish Raid part 3 : Flattie hunting in the harbours

Day 2 on my adventures with Schogsky and Hutch saw me and Scott heading for Dunbar harbour with Jake set to join us later on. Now both Scott and Jake have caught flatties on the lures already this year, so it was great of them to put me on a mark where they knew I had a great chance of catching some on the lures myself. After pulling up in the car park, Scott showed me round the mark and pointed out the hotspots so all was looking good. A size 16 hook armed with isome was the chosen rig and adding a few splitshots above the hook ensured it was tight on the bottom. Scott was soon showing me how its done getting off the mark with a LSScorpion and then showing me how easy it is to get amongst the flatties with a couple of flounder and plaice. It really was stuffed full of little flatties though and at any one time you could have had double figure amounts of them chasing the isome along the mud, quite a sight. I did finally manage one for myself, a small flounder which was shortly followed by a little plaice, 2 more for the lure caught tally, a great

 way to begin the day. As the tide rose the better fish started to move in and Scott landed a few better ones whilst I was aimlessly trying to catch something tiny, which I thought may have been something different. Unfortunately I didn't manage to tempt it so we'll never find out. Then came Jake into the harbour with an intent of getting himself a plaice for his species count. He didn't have to wait long either and after a single flounder he got what he was after. As usually is the case as well, this wouldn't be his only one and I think he went on to land quite a large number of them as well as more flounder. With the bottom now out of visibility we all started trying a few different areas. I found a nice little spot between some weed and dropped down to see if anything was around. Sure enough a small looking fish took interest and after a few missed lunges at my lure, it took aim and pounced on my jigging isome. On bringing it up it was clear it was a scorpion fish but it looked a little different so I called Scott over for a proper identification. He was more certain about what it was and said without doubt it was a short spined which is my 1st ever after the previous one I thought I'd caught turned out to be a long spined. Looking back at the pictures though it is fairly obvious, but at least this capture puts beyond any doubt that I

 have now got a short spined. We all then decided to move into the old harbour where the guys had told me the larger flounders lurk and also a good number of blennies and coalies. With exception to the large flounders though we got plenty of the other species. I lost count of the number of coalies Jake landed and Scott was also pulling in a good number of coalies with blennies thrown in. I must have been doing something different though as I could not for the life of me hook the coalies, the blennies however came in good numbers. As the time rolled on we had a quick look over the back wall of the harbour, but conditions put us off trying there so it was time for a move. Jake had to shoot, so it was back to just me and Scott with St Abbs being our mark of choice. I'd love to say we cleaned up there but it was quite the opposite, for unknown reasons the fish just weren't there and following an hour and a halfs effort we left without a single fish to our names. It is a lovely looking place though and I'd love to have another go when the fish have returned. Well that was it for Day 2 and it was time to head back to Edinburgh and plan our next days fishing.

Thanks for reading,
Tight Lines,
Ross