North Coast Species Hunt 28/6/15

Just a quick one [postscript - well, by my standards anyway : )]. Had a club comp. today and my first ever species hunt. I've done a lot of LRF fishing but mainly for small round fish as opposed to actually targetting minis so soon realised I had a lot to learn and I did.

Learnt a couple of hard lessons and dropped species due to rushing under match conditions and sloppiness but managed to get 6 species in total: poor cod, pollack, pout, rock goby, common blenny and tompot blenny. The last 4 were 1sts of that species for the season and ticked me on nicely in the quest for 30 shore species in 2015 to 24. The last - the tompot was a lifetime 1st.

Sadly I dropped a lot of points in the form of a decent 3b to a slipped knot (inexcusable). I also had a topknot that mouthed the bait but I hit it too soon. I've always had a penchant for these rare fish and would love to catch one, still gutted and surprised I came tantalisingly close. One was caught on the day by the overall winner.

wow a topknot - only seen one in an aquarium

Nice post guernica84. Interesting stuff taking part in those specis hunts. Some cool wee fish

Nice little collection there, too bad about the topknot, it can be a serious disadvantage to see rather than feel what is going on. Like Corbiere, I have only ever seen topknots in an aquarium. Know the feeling with the slipped knot too, I lost a nice grilse recently when trout fishing due to the cast parting at a knot.