They only come out at night.

Jake and I headed down to St Abbs on Tuesday night and met up with our fishing pal Richie to have a go for flounders, coalfish and anything else that was silly enough to swim and take our lures. Fishing was slow to say the least and some divers I spoke to as they came out of the water confirmed what we already knew, there was hardly any fish around. Undeterred we worked our way around the harbour using a variety of methods and lures and finally spotted a fish which Jake promptly caught.

Ever obliging. Greedy little buggers.

Richie and I carry on searching both in the harbour and in the kelp beds below the outer wall.

After reaching the end of the outer harbour we decided to try our luck from the rocks over the kelp beds. After a bit of rockhopping I spotted a few small fish as they came up from the kelp to have a go at my 10cm Savage Gear Sandeel Slug but they weren't much bigger than it and when I switched to a 2" Reins Rockvibe they lost interest. Jake and Richie came over and joined me and tried to tempt them but had no luck either. We all went over onto the rocks at the very mouth of the harbour and carried on the search. As light faded Richie hooked and landed a small coalfish and I switched to a small metal opting for a pink/luminous 5g Quantum Sea Mahi jig. After a few casts I felt a couple of bumps before striking the third, hooked a fish and quickly landed it before heading over to where Jake was so he could take a few photos.

Sunset over St Abbs.

My first coalfish of 2013.

Thanks Quantum Sea Mahi Jig!

Fish popped back we all started fishing at the mouth of the harbour and as the light continued to fade we started spotting coalfish swimming around below us and started targeting them. Before long I had a second and Jake and Richie also caught a few. Nothing big but good fun on the light gear we were all using.

One of Jake's fish caught on a drop shot rig.

Pretty soon it was getting quite late so we called it a night. Despite the slow start it was a pleasant evening spent in good company and no doubt we'll be back again soon for another night time session.

Tight lines, Hutch.