Tay day Salmon

The lads from the club had a day on the Tay on Friday. Stuart organised this with gillie Colin, good day plenty of laughs along the way as usual.I got into a fish within minutes of starting pictures taken by Eddie as I was playing the fish. Unfortunately when Colin put the fish in to the net it slipped back out and left a hook in the net and the fish was gone. This resulted in some lighthearted abuse from me as well as some incoming from the rest of the guys in our party directed at yours truly.Rodney managed this super fish a 12 pound spring Salmon. The method ?? A Decoy Bachi jig head he borrowed from me used with a black and red firetail jelly Pollack lure.....

Coast to Coast today

Went to an east coast hot spot today to try for the first Bass of the year. It was -3.5 in my driveway and the NW that was forecast seemed to be on plan for later today. Anyway when I arrived the wind was there as well as 4-5ft swell and lots of dirty water. I tried a couple of lipless vibration baits which were probably the only option...no joy. I met some decent lads who were down to target Bass on the fly. We had a chat exchanged some banter and headed off our separate ways... nice to meet you, will check your blog out.

I then headed  off somewhere north  for for two hours at new mark Rodney put me onto after gaining some knowledge from an old timer who is no longer with us. Neither of us had fished it to date but I think that may well change . No doubt its a decent prospect as I had two follows where I had to sweep the rod left to keep the lure working before both fish turned away and these were better than decent fish at that. I also had two separate boils at my lure as well as seeing a fish splash. It was only 40 minutes away and given this was about 1pm today in bright conditions I think you will see some posts with some nice ST caught from it soon.

South Uist

If you fancy something different or can cast a fly check out South Uist. The cost of travelling by ferry has come down somewhat due to RET- road equivalent tariff.

There is some super Seat Trout, Brown Trout and Salmon to be had. The sea angling is just about not done at all. I used to spend my summers up here as a kid and have had holidays up there all too infrequently where I scratched at the surface of the potential. The east coast is deep and the west coast has some fantastic sandy beaches which now hold Bass. There is a cracking tidal race on Benbecula where my cousin Ian and I caught Tope from the shore. Its just really interesting water which screams Bass to me nowadays. Unfortunately the last time I was up there in January was for my aunt Audrey's funeral . She will be sadly missed by us all and I have a lot of good memories of her doing her best to look after both me and Ian as she constantly tried to make sure we were fed watered and washed as we tore about the local beaches an lochs without a care in the world... good times.

If you have your head on and can deal with the weather and environment you will get your rewards.

John Kennedy & Ian Kennedy South Uist- Google them if you want to catch Sea Trout, Salmon and some special Brown Trout fishing. I have included a link from a visiting angler that I just came across.

http://www.fish-wild.co.uk/articles/features/1201-eight-days-in-south-uist

Ian pictured above didn't catch the fish above but did ghillie it... be warned if he has a rod in his hand and you take a break he has the annoying knack of catching fish like this. Good angler and good tier of flies and with the exception of his father probably knows as much as there is to know about the loch fishing up there.

Soft plastic nonsense

This is one good reason to have breathalyser software on your Paypal

Over the last few months I've been buying a few bits and bobs here and there so when May/June comes the spending will be done and the fishing can begin in earnest. I just hadn't realised that so much had been lying around in a variety of small packages in the tackle emporium that is " the garage" Wide gape hooks, weighted jig heads, Wave Worms, Hart Absolute's and the Xlayers, Illex Gambits and Nitros from last year to make up the numbers. To be fair most are pretty cheap which is just as well.

The good news is I've not bought any more hard lures and wont be...don't need them. I will be back out next weekend if the weather's right I will hopefully have something to post.