09/08/2012 - Port Seton Harbour

Port Seton Harbour on arrival

Water - Darkish cloudy
Weather - Lovely, very light breeze
Where - Harbour wall (west)
Time - 1930-2130
Method - Silver flashed hooks, toby and Pollock live & dead bait
Total - 4
Species - Pollock

On my first sortie to the shore in this neck of the woods I didn't get quite as far along the coast as Port Seton Harbour. However a mate who'd fished it previously informed me that the water off the harbour wall is deeper here and therefore makes it more likely to be able to reach fish. He'd previously taken Mackerel without bait.

Looking up the Forth Estuary to Inchkeith Island

The weather (including forecast) was excellent and high tide was about 2040. With aforementioned buddy working til 1730 this made the conditions and availability fit nicely.

The sea was almost flat calm as we could see on the drive down. On arrival there was one dude fishing off the other (east) harbour wall, leaving the west wall to ourselves.

Cockenzie under the clouds

I began with weighted lures (silver foil flashes) chucked as far as I could having been reassured they catch fish here (they don't, in my experience, at Granton). I put a toby on my second rod to 'double' my chances.

Quite early there had been a couple of splashes in the harbour entrance, most likely of some fish breaking the surface. By the time I had my spinner set up, my mate had been at his for a while although he kept connecting with seaweed. I resorted to jigging my toby off the side and soon began getting a little bit of interest from what turned out to be small Pollock. After a while I decided to use these as bait and attached them to the lure rod and chucked them out again.

Not much bigger than plankton

A Pollock with chunks out of it

The newly baited rod attracted some attention. A couple of pulls and plenty of little bounces, but no fish if/when I struck. The Pollock bait was taking a hit though with the usual cartoon bites taken out (The photo isn't the best as I had the rod in one hand, the camera in the other and the fish/bait was spinning and swinging in and out of shot). I'll need to devise a more intricate hook set up to increase hooking chances I think.

Quite late on, there was a flurry of fish breaking the surface in front of us with around 10-12 fish appearing from nowhere in maybe a 20-30 second spell. In this mini-frenzy, my buddy connected with a Mackerel but despite rapid relocating of my rods, they were away almost as soon as they appeared.

His fish was quite thin, but at 15.5 inches was almost as long as my four tiddlers put together.

Sun setting over the Forth

Nothing else was landed, but we left reasonably chuffed. It's always good to get off the mark at a new venue.

Arthurs Seat to the left

In the first sunset photo you can see a small rowing boat (dark blob), this had left the harbour and was doing some fishing a wee bit further out. I'll definitely have to get further down the road to getting myself some sort of fish seeking craft.

Solitary Mackerel (not mine)