Sunny Salen: slow day

I was happy to receive an invite from Sharpie to meet up with him and Nikki to dangle some hooks in Loch Sunart on Sunday. Always good company and the weather looked nice as well, what better than a trip over Corran Ferry to some of the best scenery in Scotland and a chance of all sorts of species. Well the good company and scenery were right but the fishing was not up to scratch despite best efforts.

Launching a Salen Jetty we first went up to Laga Bay with the hope of some conger eels, a couple of rods with big hooks each and a variety of, mackerel, squid, octopus and bluey down to the depths, then a couple of wee hooked rods each to see if there were any whiting, gurnard or the like. After a decent while with no bites at all when Sharpie was rebaiting one of his big rods my small one bent over and went off on a decent run. Certainly not a whiting, nice big bend and a heavy weight on the rod either a thornie or a passing lump of weed moving in the tide, my thought was weed as I could feel no movement on the line so was happy to see a thornie appear from the 400ft depth. I never weighed it but guessimated about 3-4lbs or so.

Unfortunately apart from a handfull of doggies despite moving around and trying varieties of baits rigs etc that was it fishwise for the day. I do wish I'd taken a photo of the smallest doggie I have ever seen, no bigger than my middle finger. By the look of it it must've pupped then taken my bait straight away.

Really slow days fishing a afloat but lovely day to be out and a bad days fisihiong still beats most things hands down.

LRF codling

Drop Shot Rig - Pink Knight Worm. 

Well just a quick trip report, I spent a couple of hours along the Arbroath cliffs again after work tonight. Such a beautiful day to be out in the fresh air and whilst not gin clear the visibility of the sea was much better than a fortnight ago, so I don't think it will be long before the lure fishing really takes off for the summer. Again as I am a LRF newby these early trips are more about accustoming myself with the gear and techniques. This time round I decided to tie a drop shot rig and use a TronixPro HTO Pink Knight Worm. I initially tested the action in the water to check how it moves and was impressed by the movement. I think this combo should account for a goodly amount of catches this summer.

LRF codling

Of the action I did have it was landed one lost one. I moved from my initial spot to fish a deep gulley about 12 feet across and was working the lure across the line of shadow and sunlight from the sun starting to go behind the top of the cliffs and quite quickly bang. Rod bent over and line zipping back and forwards. I might only have landed a wee codling of a half a pound or so but jeez that was some fun on the Ultra Light.

I also got a wee taste of what wrassing with it will be like as I had one hooked for all of 15 seconds before it spat the hook. Simply going nuts all round with the rod bent double. I can't wait to see what the summer will hold for this style of fishing.

Re-christening refurnished rods

Well after getting my old bashed rods back from Rossco all spic and span I decided to get out asap to see if they had some luck dust sprinkled on them as promised by Rossco. I headed over to one of my favourite spots on Loch Linnhe which always has a good chance of throwing up a few species. I tend to like to fish two hours down and two up here but with the time I had I could only manage to fish high down and leave about low so didn't really expect to catch much until the last couple of hours of my trip.

The wind was a bit stronger than forecast as I set up but still not too bad and apart from a couple of fleeting showers just after I arrived the sun came out and it was a lovely warm day, perfect to be out in fresh air fishing. The day went pretty much as I expected slow to begin with with the activity slowly increasing all day. All except the crabs that were very active from the offset. To cover as many bases as possible I had one rod with a pulley rig with a 5/0 and the other with a two hook flapper with 1/0 circles on it. My targets for the day were thornies and grey gurnards. First thing to shore second cast was a ball of the aforementioned crabs, one small edible, two green shore crabs and a spider crab. That was the form for the next three hours or so small plucking knocks of the crabs destroying my baits. First blood eventually went to the scratching rod when a Short Spined Sea Scorpion took the half squid head I had on. Not one of my targets but a new species for the year one rod re-christened. That was followed next cast by a decent sized but odd looking dab (second new species for the year). It looked like something had taken a big bite out of it in the past but the wound had healed up leaving a distinctive odd shape to the fish.

Next up was another slightly bigger SSSS I do like these ugly wee brutes but with the action seemingly all on the scratching rod I was considering swapping the pulley rig targeting thornies just to re-christen the other rod as well. One more cast I thought then I'd do that, good decision :) I swapped out the squid/mackerel combo I had on with a whole herring fillet whipped into a tube and cast out. I only had an hour and a half of fishing left before I had to start for home so this cast was make or break as far as thornies were concerned. After another half hour I had an unmistakable thornie bite. four or five turns on the ratchet followed a minute later by another four or five turns.



Another minute and I start to slowly tighten the line and feel the weight of the fish. Fish on and it seemed a decent fish by the bend it put in the rod.  It came in fairly easily but wasn't quite as heavy as I'd hoped and there was also a sizable amount of weed on the sinker. Still it was a nice female fish and weighed in at just over 4.5 lbs. She sat in the shallows for a few more pics before turning and powering off back to the depths of the loch. With that I decided to pack up one rod away and my box tidied up there was just one fish to come when I brought in the other rod to pack away and found a perfectly formed wee dab on the line. Not a busy trip by any sense but both rods catching on their debut after refurb and two species for this year's list.

Thanks again to Rossco for a brilliant job on the rods, I'm well pleased :)

First LRF trip - Arbroath Cliffs

Well a day of nice weather deserves to be used so off to the cliffs I duly went armed with my Light Rock Fishing gear for a first test of it all properly. I had hoped to walk to the end of the cliffs and slowly make my way back to the carpark going up and down for a few casts here and there. That thought was quickly knocked on the head as if the rocks weren't busy with like minded souls they were covered with sun bathers. As I was passing the Needle's E'e I saw the rocks empty so dived down there fearing I'd go along and back with nowhere else to fish.

First blood to my Rockfish.

The water was a lot more coloured than I had hoped but at the very least a few hours getting to grips with the LRF techniques would put me in good stead for the rest of the summer. It is amazing how much of a picture of the bottom you can get skipping a 2.6g jighead along with 5 lb braid. As I had not had a sniff. I moved round the rocks a bit further as the tide went down. Third cast on the new bit, nibble, nibble, hit. Yes fish on and I certainly found out that I had the Ultra Light Rock Fish. Bent in two and I could feel every single thump the fish made. As this was the first fish I have caught on this rod I had nothing to compare it to so never knew if it was a coalie, rockling or a small codling but I had never thought it was Freddy the Flounder that must have followed me from Riverside Dr. I was chuffed my first LRF caught fish was a lure caught flounder of about 27cm.

I stayed to soak up a few more rays but caught no more. Here is hoping for a lot more of today's weather all summer long so I can rock hop to my heart's content as I think light rock fishing might just take over my summer :)

Bank Holiday flattie bash

I was going to have a trip West or North this weekend but the changeable weather made me decide to save my petrol tokens for better weather and have a local bash on Bank Holiday Monday when the wind had died again. With high tide being just after 1 p.m. I decided to head to Riverside Drive again and fish 3 hours up.

Light wind only, overcast and no rain thankfully when I parked up behind the university pitches. The usual two rods, one close in and one a bit further out. 2 and 3 hook flappers with prawn and herring as bait. Wee tweaks on the rods from the first and hooks coming back bare for the first few casts. Probably the usual Tay culprits of crabs and tiny flounders. I only had to wait about half an hour for my first fish a wee flounder.

That  was followed next cast by another one about the same size then a couple of crabs. By about 11 a.m. another four folk had started fishing as well and the odd person stopping to have a chat made the time pass whilst it was still a bit slow and the bites died a bit. This only lasted about half an hour and between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. I had a really busy period with bites every cast and fish most casts. As I had a caught a few I decided to put a clipped down rig on one of the rods and fire a bait a bit further to see if anything was feeding further out.  All the flounders to this point  were in the 16 - 19 cm so I was hoping to get something a bit bigger at least. I couldn't see most of the other folk out fishing as they were behind me most of the time so not sure if many other fish were being caught and I only saw the guy in front of me get one flounder and a pin whiting.

My far out rod went quite quickly and I landed my best of the day, a still modest 24cm flounder. This was the only fish of the day on herring with all of the rest taking prawn.  I never got a pic of it either as it flapped off the wall and back into the water when I turned to get my camera. Still no harm done plenty of flounder photos about. Things died of as the tide turned and I packed up a couple of casts into the turn with one final flattie coming in to make my total a round dozen. Nice day off, out fishing and kept busy even if the stamp of fish was small.