Firth of Lorne - Skate Trip

Up at 5 a.m. bleary eyed for the drive through to Oban to meet with the rest of the guys going out on the Creagallan.  The drive over was uneventful and nice and quick as there was so little traffic on the roads and none of the sunday drivers or caravans clogging things up, I got through to Oban early and was all ready and geared up when the others arrived. it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day.


Then it was off to see what the sea had in hold for us.

After an hour of fishing small baits whilst we waited for the tide we moved to the skate mark at the south end of the Island of Mull. 

Skate are big greedy buggers so it was 1-2 whole mackerel or coalies per bait. Mackerel for me one chopped into segments and fed up the line and a whole one onto the 12/0 hook.

And then the waiting game, 8 baits in the water and it was then playing the waiting game and time to capture a bit of the scenery. 

Not long to wait as shortly The Silver Fox's ratchet started to slowly tic, tic, tic, then stop. Only to repeat about a minute later. Classic skate bite. Foxy left it till a third slow take of line. Time to see what was on the other end. And after a false start fish on and by the look on foxy's face and the bend in his rod it was a decent skate.

After watching how hard it was to take 50 feet of line back onto the reel and then loose it all again plus some was making me start to wonder if I really wanted a hook up of my own. It was a battle for foxy to get his catch of the bottom 500 feet below and it was some 55mins before we all got a glimpse of the beauty he had hooked.

A short couple of mins later it was ready to be landed.

A tired but happy foxy with his new PB 208lb Common Skate. Which was quickly measured, tagged and released back to the deep.

Unfortunately I never caught my own but it was a brilliant trip and one I'm keen to repeat. it was quite awesome seeing fish of these size landed and hopefully I won't have to wait too long to land one of my own.