Wrasse me up when September ends

The back end of the trout season has been a bit of a disappointment to be honest with the rivers and burns now down to their bones,  and with the season soon coming to an end  I doubt I'll be fishing for trout again until next year now. Not that I'm too bothered as there's plenty of other species to target in the months ahead.

The dry and mild September has been great for Col's wrasse fishing exploits on the other hand so when he suggested that we go over to Burntisland on Sunday I jumped at the chance, I've had a couple of short visits there myself this summer failing miserably on both occasions so I was keen for Col to show me the ropes. We arrived an hour before low tide and our first job to do was dig some rag worm, Col has a garden fork conveniently stashed in the undergrowth so he doesn't need to carry it on the train all the time!  after twenty minutes digging we had more than enough rag to do us the afternoon.

ain't nothing like the real thing

Once at the harbour we fished away in the inside wall for an hour or so without much interest apart from the odd tap, then Col took the first Wrasse of the day, a little Ballan in what could have only been a couple of feet of water max followed by his first Goldsinny wrasse of the day

switching between fishing on the inside and outside of the harbour wall the familiar tap tap bang bites of the wrasse became more frequent as the tide came in,

Col was broken by this one only to catch him a little while later on and get his hook back!

a goldsinny and a ballan

Col was using a size 18 hook with Corkwing wrasse in mind

no fillings required here!

on the light gear even the little wrasse put up a scrap, every now and then a bigger one would come along, and most of the time they won the fight, you really have to keep them out of the snags to have any chance of landing them.

after getting snapped on the cast before i was pleased to keep my last ballan of the afternoon out of the snags

at the back of five we had to leave to catch the train home, i can see why Col's been so addicted  to fishing for them this summer, brilliant fun on the light gear.