Anticipation of my first skate trip

Only a week to go before I'm out on my first trip in search of Common Skate. After a pretty poor Feb and March from the shore I'm looking forward to going out on a boat for a change and hopefully landing a decent skate :) By no means a given but you've got to think positively or there's no point going.

This trip is part of the Skate Tagathon which tags Common Skate as part of a study into their numbers and patterns of residence/movement. Here's hoping for some good weather over the weekend of 9th & 10th April. Hopefully there will be plenty of catches for the whole boat.

Tight Lines All

Long way Round

Well Friday saw me off on a long awaited trip to Lochaline on the Sound of Mull. Weather forecasts were all for wind and rain but the forecasts varied quite dramatically in the scale of the wind/rain.

With the promise of large varieties of species including common skate I set off on what was going to be a much longer drive than I expected. I got to Lochaline after an uneventful if slow drive (lots of roadworks fixing  pot holes) to find Jamie and John just setting up. Unfortunately the West Pier where we were fishing was piled high with logs which restricted the space for casting. The wind was strong but at this point not to bad, or so I thought.

I quickly set up anticipating a great day. The water here is very deep straight from the shore, 250 - 350 ft deep, and I had never fished in waters so deep before. The tide was just finishing the ebb and I was surprised at how long the weight/bait was taking to get to the bottom, almost a full minute and a half.  This gives the tide a log time to move your baits a long way from the area cast into.

All the time the wind was building and some of the gusts were really big and by the time Frankie and Sharpie turned up my tripod had taken a tumble and I had lost two eye inserts. With the high winds and strong tides there were snags and tangles a plenty. So when one of Frankies rods snapped we quite quickly decided discretion was the better part of valor and packed up to try and find some shelter at the Sheep Shed on Loch Sunart.

On arrival after a pretty gnarly drive (plenty of sharp blind summits and hairpin bends) we found that it was sheltered from the wind and not just in the shed itself. Rods out and we all quickly broke out collective blanks with some doggies. Unfortunately the fish also heralded the slight change of direction in the wind which was now funneling right down the loch and making seeing bites impossible. By this point we had missed the last ferry at Corran and were faced either with a long night in the sheep shed or a 40 mile detour on single track roads round Loch Linnie and Loch Elie.  But with fishing now impossible we decided to take the long route round and go to the tried and tested Priory Mark on Loch Etive.

So off it was to Etive and the promise of some seclusion from the wind. But unfortunately it wasn't to be, no bites no fish and with forecasts coming in of heavy snow I decided to break for home and get past the higher ground before the snow came, eventually calling it a day at around 3 a.m.

Well at least the trip broke my run of three blanks but  the 308 miles driven didn't really merit the poor return. I will be paying much more attention to weather forecasts and try not to be carried away with the prospects.

Role on the summer species

1st Trip of 2011 and a new PB

Bait -  bluey/squid/sand eel
Rigs - Pennel Pulleys
Tide - low >>> high
Place - South Shore, Loch Etive
After aborting a couple of planned trips this week I finally got out for the first time in 2011. I wanted to get over to Taynuilt to get my Penn Ruff Stuff that I recently bought 2nd hand and Conger11 had picked up for me over New Year.

Obviously being in the vicinity of Loch Etive it would have been daft not to christen it straight away, so off I went to a mark on the south shore. I got set up and had my two rods in the water for the back of 1 o'clock but didn't hold out much hope as it was a very bright day and I have personally never had much luck at Etive on bright days :( Still I don't get a huge amount of opportunities to get out fishing and need to take them when they do perfect conditions or not.

My baits were getting stripped quick smart every cast and my first three retrieves brought in crabs, as if I needed confirmation, two reluctant to let the remains of my bait go and one actually hooked (a first for me).

I planned to fish till 6ish and get at least 1-2hrs fishing after sunset and was setting all my hopes on this time as I did not have a single bite during daylight. about 5 o'clock I was freezing and pretty hacked off so I thought two more casts on each rod and call it a day as darkness had not brought any action with it. I had quite a bit of bluey left so i made up 4 big squid/bluey cocktails and through a sand eel on a couple of them for good measure. I thought if it was to be a blank I'd go down fighting.

Now I am no great shakes in the casting department and the Ruff Stuff is a longer and stiffer rod than I'm used to but with one of the big baits on-board I had my best cast of the day and sent out a good 20-30yrds further than I had all day (I hope this will be a sign of things to come).

The bait was only in the water a couple of mins when I heard a big rattle from the ratchet, lifted into it and fish on :) I had only caught my first Spurrie a month earlier but this felt exactly the same but a lot stronger, my mind lit up thinking I had a biggie. Soon I caught the tell tale glint of eyes in the beam from my head torch and landed a Spurrie at least twice the size of my previous PB (1.5lbsish). I was lucky to get it as it spat the hook as soon as I landed it. My scales were going from 4lb to 4lb 2oz so I'll split the difference and call it 4lb 1oz a modest PB but well happy it being the first fish of 2011 as Spurs were my bogey fish last year :D

And I got to properly christen the Ruff Stuff on it's first outing with me, hopefully a lucky rod :)

Review of 2010 - my rookie sea fishing year

2010 has been a big year of change for me it started off, with my wife and I moving jobs and relocating to the Dundee area from Edinburgh and getting married in September.

With far more space and time on my hands I decided to take up Sea Fishing, something which I had not done for some 20 years. At this time my we were still only engaged and were planning our wedding, so fishing was a great excuse to disappear for long periods of time.

My early trips took me to the East Neuk of Fife where I grew up. Knowing the area, but not really having a clue what I was doing (still don’t but getting there), these trips were fruitless in terms of catches but were a welcome nostalgic trip down memory lane. For a beginner there is a huge amount to absorb hook types and sizes; baits; rigs etc etc etc. The list is endless and it took me a wee while to get my head round the basics as at that point I had no fishing buddies to get pointers from.

Finding fishing forums was a huge bonus to me, and I may even have given up without them. Lots of helpful posts to search, other newcomers to meet up with and make mistakes and learn with as well as loads of helpful folks who don’t mind pointing someone in the right direction.

I think I must have blanked the first 8 or so trips I went on, looking back naivety played a huge part in that, but when I finally caught my first fish at Eliot beach, a flounder half the size of my palm, I felt like I had landed a vast leviathan from the deep. Modest I know but I genuinely think I will never forget that feeling.

After this success my next few trips were to back to Eliot where by the end of June I had amassed a vast 4 species, still after seeing species hunting was a popular sub section of fishing, I set my self and challenge to try to get 15 species in my first year. I set this very randomly and at this point and I did not really know if this was too hard/easy. I also started to plan some trips further afield on different types of marks.

At the beginning of July I went on my first trip west to Loch Linnie with the promise of several species I had never caught. Now I am constrained through work and family commitments to fish when I can and seldom have the benefit of getting out when conditions and tides are at their best, this trip was a great example. Lashing rain and a biting wind it was hellish and freezing, but after driving 130 miles to get there I was determined to have a reasonable session. Persistence paid off and I left after a 4 hour session with two new species under my belt.

Due to work and preparations for our wedding it was almost a month before I managed to get out fishing again, I had set my mind to catching my first thornie and went back to Loch Linnie. It took me three trips, thankfully in glorious weather to catch one. I had had a frustrating time of it as I had seen dozens of thornies landed by fellow anglers before managing to get my own. I love this place I don’t think there are any specimen fish to be had here but the range of species to be had is great.

I had one trip left before our wedding. A meet had been arranged on another forum at Kirkton beach just north of Peterhead, which had been throwing up some nice sized Turbots. This trip can be summed up quite simply, disaster.

Half a dozen of us camping plus a couple of guys staying locally popping in to say hello. A few beers and some homemade cider later and the craic was good. Fishy tall tales and suddenly its dark and the evening fishing session is off for some more booze and bonding. The evening and night were lovely, little cloud and wind.

Things changed and the rain started around midnight. I went off to my pit around half one only to be woken by the screaming wind a couple of hours later. After not getting any more meaningful sleep and only a few prolonged dozes I realised that my face was getting wet!

Two seconds flat and I was wide awake, the bloody fly sheet had pulled the tent pegs out on two sides and the wind (still horrendous) had blown it over the top. Now feeling like I was inside a washing machine on a cold spin cycle, and only in my undies to boot (not a sight for sore eyes) thankfully it was very dark, I fought with the wind to bring the fly sheet back over and cover the tent again. My skin was so numb I wasn't even cold. A damp couple of hours and another two trips out to re-set pegs, I decided to get into the car and put on all of my fishing gear and get toasty.

By about 7 a.m. the rest of the happy campers, not!, were starting to appear. The tent next to me had been having similar problems and whilst I was helping to peg it again a particularly bad gust took the tent, along with a teenager who went for a loop-de-loop. One guy rope held thankfully otherwise it would not have stopped before Aberdeen!

My homing instinct kicked in big time, knackered damn and cold fishing was not on my mind.

On 18th September Alison and I tied the knot at a lovely hotel in Edinburgh.

Our honeymoon was in Orkney but any thoughts of taking the fishing gear were well and truly blown out of the water. Still I did recce some places and the mix of rock/beach, deep/shallow water marks is impressive over a small area. I am also led to believe that there is not much shore angling undertaken as most is done by boat. 100% marked down for a future excursion.

Late September saw me being shown a few marks round Loch Etive, which is an amazing place, though not a happy hunting ground for me so far. In three trips I have never blanked, but I’ve only pulled out doggies and a solitary poor cod of about 2oz foul hooked on a 5/0 Manta Extra. I’m sure I’ll go back many times but so far it had got the better of me.

October saw me start to prepare for the winter cod season and I made a few preparatory trips to see marks in good weather at low tide. On one such trip I struck lucky at Arbroath cages catching my first (5lb 8oz) and second (3lb 8oz) cod. Very unexpected but none the less appreciated. I was a bit of a grinning idiot that evening and annoying my fishing buddies that they were blanking. Still those are still the only two cod I’ve caught despite a few trips since.

During December I had another couple of trips left before the end of the year and spent both of them going to Loch Etive to try and add one last species to my list for the year. I picked up Jamie from the Jedi (Scotland) S.A.C. at Taynuilt and we went to fish a new mark for me on the south shore of the Loch. Fishing was slow to begin with and picked up as the sun set. Quite quickly thereafter I caught my first and second Spur Dogs.

So by the years end I have caught 11 species so far in my rookie year; 1.Coalie, 2.Dab, 3.Flounder, 4.Grey Gurnard, 5.LSD, 6.Turbot, 7.Poor Cod, 8.Whiting, 9.Thornback Ray, 10. Cod 11. Spur Dog, not the 15 I had set myself, but believe it or not I never went Mackie bashing once and as such have missed an obvious species for the year. Next year I hope to add a few species of Wrasse, Pollock, Plaice at the very least and also have a couple of sessions targeting micro species with very small rigs.

On reflection taking up Sea Fishing has been one of the best ideas I have had in a while. I’ve met a lot of great folk, been out and seen some wonderful scenery, seen some amazing wild life and caught some fish. I think I’ve come a long way in a few short months and I’m already looking forward to next year.

Tight Lines all in 2011.


Squid Ink

Finally got my 'Spurs'

11/12/2010

Bait -  mackie/squid/
Rigs - Pennel Pulleys
Tide - high >>> low
Place - South Shore, Loch Etive
With the Shoreangler meet postponed due to weather and road conditions I thought I would take another trip west to Etive to try an get my first Spur Dog.

I'd arranged to pick up Jamie (from the Jedi's) along the way and he was going to show me a mark on the south shore I hadn't fished before. I met Jamie at Taynuilt Hotel just after half eleven and got to the mark 10-15 mins later.

We were fishing three rods, Jamie two and one for me. First few casts there was no custom for our baits other than the crabs stripping us out. After a about an hour Jamie got a nice run that had his ratchet going, it seemed like he'd lost it but very quickly after his other rod started going. As he reeled it in it quickly became apparent his two rods were snagged into each other and it was not clear which one the fish was on. We got the rods in and Jamie untangled them with no issues and found a nice sized Spur Dog of 8lb 2oz. Quickly and safely unhooked and released.

Over the next two or three hours Jamie had another 3 Spur's and I was on for a big blank and yet another session without catching a Spur Dog. It was just getting dark about 4ish and I thought this would be the period I was most likely to get lucky.

First cast in darkness and my own ratchet started going, my first thought was 'doggie, but at least the blanks off' but as I got it close to the shore I saw that I had by first Spur. Around two and a bit pounds, no biggie, but well chuffed with my first.

Jamie and I agreed one more cast and homeward bound. As I was packing away all the bits and piece my rachet went again and spurrie two was quickly reeled in :)

Lovely day and another species ticked off :)