St Abbs Head 12th July 2014

There had been reports of some good fishing recently at St Abbs Head.
Conditions had been settled for a few days and there was some decent weather forecast for Saturday.  We decided to take a drive up and get a few hours fishing in while we had the chance.  We could only spare the time in the afternoon and so we arrived at a little after 1500 and headed down to our mark.

We chose a mark that we had seen anglers on in the past but could not figure out how they managed to climb down (That hooked point to the right in the pic above)  A few minutes explore revealed a relatively easy path down

The view from our first mark was spectacular.

There were 3 other anglers on the other side of this mark that were not having much luck.  They had landed a few mackerel between them on lures.
We spent the next few hours exploring the features of this mark.  We put baits on the bottom, fished lures and tried floats without any luck.  I had one good take on a silver minnow early on but the fish jumped the hook on the retrieve.

There was rain forecast for early evening.  I did not want to attempt a climb back up the cliff in the wet and so we made the decision to head back up a few hours before low water.

I found the climb up reasonably easy..... my angling buddy however didn't.....

Rather than waste the last of our bait we headed for our usual mark to the south with the intention of getting a few more hours fishing in before the drive home.

This mark had never provided huge numbers of fish for us.  It had so far however never failed to give me a decent Wrasse.  We fished the north side of this mark which saw us putting baits down a 40ft cliff into a gulley among rocks.  This area is always covered with sea birds and so you need to keep an eye on your line to avoid any collisions as they take off and land.

I attempted to get a Photosphere from this mark with my phone.  Apart from a few minor issues I was very pleased with how it came out (click to rotate the view or use the control dial)

Views: St Abbs by Alan Rodmell

My second cast was put up tight to a rocky/weedy outcrop and within seconds I had a fish on.  After a brief fight I had to lift this fish up the cliff face with my spinning rod (very glad I had 30lb main line) and I was very pleased to find myself with a beautiful Wrasse of maybe 2-2.5lb.

My next cast went in the same place and I lost a fish after a good bite.  The following cast got me a small red Short-spined Sea Scorpion...

Followed a few casts later by another briliantly coloured Wrasse of around 1lb.

This poor fellow was returned and as he was recovering from the ordeal on the surface a huge seal surfaced and dragged him under!

With time dragging on we headed back to the car at around 2000hrs.

Not a bad day considering the lack of fish.  We plan to head up here again in a few weeks and by that time hopefully the Pollock will be in properly and we can put all our lures to good use.