After keeping calm on the beers the night before, day 2 dawned early and had us all on the slip waiting for the boat at about 8 a.m. The crew was the same as the previous days apart from Jamie being replaced by Neil. Colin the skipper must've been up early as he appeared early and we we off and sailing by about 8:15 a.m. again the short trip to the same area where we had picked up the previous days fish. Another glorious day with less wind but a tad colder though by the pics we look like we could have been in the Med or Caribbean.
Big baits in 500ft was the rule of the day and again the anchor rope was not Jason's friend, two snags with it and a third with Brian had me dubbing him the 'Anchor Magnet' Still it wasn't really a laughing matter as Jay had to drop and reel in his gear against snags three times in under an hour and was pretty knackered by it after landing his skate late the previous day. 
Sundays trip fell into a fairly similar pattern to the day previous. Good spirits and banter on the boat un-matched by fishing action during the morning. Baits were coming up untouched even by the smaller species this time and though nice and warm to begin with as the wind increased and the cloud cover came over it became decidedly chilly. Everyone on the boat was getting a bit flat to say the least but as slack tide approached, when two of yesterdays catches were taken, everyone re-charged their baits and waited intently watching their rods hoping that the whole of yesterdays pattern was repeated.
We were not to be disappointed, firstly Brian's rod went and he graciously gave skate virgin Neil the rod. Neil quickly set to bullying the skate up off the sea bed and was making good progress when first Mark's rod gave a couple of nods and line was taken off the reel and secondly my reel gave one then two screaming runs. Three hook ups at once on the boat and all three to skate virgin's. It was a tad hectic on the boat with all the other gear getting taken up and the skipper deciding what order they should come up etc. What was happening on the boat and with the two other guys with skate on I'm not at all sure blow by blow but Neil managed to get his skate, of 166lbs, up fairly rapidly in just over 30 mins.
At this point Mark was being taken backwards and forwards up the boat by his fish and I was starting to worry I had exactly the same situation as the day previously as I was being taken on exactly the same runs on the opposite side of the boat. If that had happen two days in a row I might have given up fishing never mind skate fishing, but thankfully no we were both getting taken towards the stern and with a wee duck under and through the lines started to move in different directions. I was so relived there were two separate fish on :) I had a good fighting fish that went on a few big dives. I'm not sure about Mark's (I was otherwise engaged) but after about 40mins he landed a belter of a fish that went to 210lbs beating his brother Frankies PB, by 2lbs, set a year previously. Much to Frankies great delight, not.
Two cherries popped one to go, my own! Five minutes later a flash of white and my skate was visible coming up from the depths. Up and over the stern and I had done it and with a decent looking fish, once my eyes focussed again :) It was Cheshire Cat time all round the boat with three skate landed in 30mins totalling 572lbs once my own of 196lbs was added to the tally.After the initial excitement died down all the baits went back down and we fished on for another 1.5 - 2 hrs or so but bar one dropped run on Frankies rod there was no more action and we were soon heading home to reflect on an excellent weekend all round. Six fish landed totalling 1130lbs to six different anglers five of which were first timers, one of whom was me.
I'll be back to try to break 200 next time.
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