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 :)
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