A flounder from Fife

Bait -  kipper/lug
Rigs - flappers - 2, 1 & 1/0 hooks
Tide - 2hrs over high tide
Place - Wormit


With the weather looking reasonable and the wind not too strong, I asked my dad if he fancied a couple of hours on the banks of the silvery tay looking for significantly smaller flatties than last week! The plan was to get there just before high tide and fish a couple of hours either side of it. We thought we were a bit late but as it turned out I had got the tide times wrong so we had arrived exactly at the point of tide we had planned. This isn't a spot I'd been before but I'm determined to get a few spots nearer to home for quick ad hoc sessions. We went to the nice wee pebbley bay just past the Fife side of the Tay rail bridge. Nice space for several anglers and when we arrived there were 4 folk already set up so we drove to the end of the road, turned and parked up. Easy fishing out the back of the car and a nice change to humping gear to marks.

Gear out and hooks in the water quick time all baited with kipper as I'd been told that kippers were 'the' bait of the moment so I'd bought some the day before as I was intrigued as to their effectiveness. Nice sunny day but there was a chilly stead breeze from the west so it wasn't as warm as we'd hoped.

Still it was a nice chance to have a natter with dad and once the baits were out out came the coffee  Just as was thinking of reeling in and re-baiting I got a decent bite which promptly resulted in my first flounder of the year. 

 

It was a feisty wee bugger and after a quick pic it swam off strongly. Unfortunately that was it for the session. We were there another hour or so before the high tide chased us off the beach. We could have fished on from the roadside but decided to pack up and head off.


Nice wee mark and I plan to be back soon and hopefully for a longer more productive session.

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.

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 :)