Seal the deal

 My shoulder surgery was cancelled earlier in the week so myself and Jamie planned our second joint night manoeuvre of the year. The plan was to start at LT and fish the tide up to about 2pm then head home. The tides were pretty rubbish to be honest, the weather was OK but the wind was blowing so we went for an easy option hoping that the rain would stay off.

We started a little earlier than expected and straightaway a couple of seal appeared from the left and right, not a bad sign but these two were taking liberties. It seemed one would pop up in front of me just after I cast, also, just at the range I would expect the fish to be running. I started off on a metal lure, one of my Sea Trout favourites, it casts really well and has a nice action and helped me cover a fair bit of ground to the left and right of our whiskered friends. There was a decent amount of bait in the water with sandeels darting off as we waded into the water so we were optimistic there might be a fish or two about.

I hooked this little Bass and the seals were thankfully nowhere to be seen. I took a quick scale sample and popped it back. Jamie was keeping an eye on what was going on so he had a change of lure and got a couple of follows, but no hook ups.

A little while later when I hooked this fish and as I fully expected a head popped up and a bow wave appeared as the seal chased down its supper. I hooked the fish about 40 yards out so there was a better than fair chance the reels drag was just about to get a proper work out.

Anyway, I managed to beat the seal to it! If it had been a bigger fish odds on the seal would have been fed but after cranking the fish in for it’s own good it was released to run the gauntlet. Jamie sent me the pictures and it looks like the seal might have got closer than I thought. So lets hope its onwards and upwards through July and beyond for better numbers and bigger fish.

We switched over to our night tactics but despite a couple of knocks and the odd splash in the darkness there was not much to report.

A few bites

I travelled down to the SW on Thursday night and also took Friday off. The decent spell of weather was supposed to breakdown sometime on Friday night so I thought I might try and make the best of it.

As I arrived the sea was flat calm and the outside temperature according to car was 22.5.  I tried one  or two marks that involved  some deep wading, would the patches on the waders hold?  Actually, yes but the bad news, the seams on both feet had gone, great. I left there about midnight, one Bass but I would have been lucky if it made 30cm.

One fish in the morning again about 30cm then sunburn in the afternoon. Also got bitten by two Yorkies when I was putting my wading boots on, hilarious, those little dogs like to think they punch above their weight.

The weather on Friday evening was changing fast and when I started fishing at about 8pm the wind had increased and the rain started. I had a nasty cross wind to deal with and lots of suspended weed. I persevered with hard lures for 30 minutes but it was a waste of time. I had a dig around in my box and rigged up an SP on Gamakatsu worm hook with the weedguard, this is it pictured below.

This is a 2/0 and probably the sharpest hook in this size that I've come across

After a little while I had a nice take and landed this little chap.

I was pleased to see it as I was thinking about packing it in as the rain was getting heaver.

About half an hour later, same again.

It’s a little easier to take pictures even on a night like this when you’re not wading. A squall came through and I missed a fish but hooked up on my next cast with a fish about the same size as the other two. I decided about that time I’d had enough and checked the time.  I reckoned as a resident there might be time for a pint before bed!

And I was right! In fact I got to bed about 2pm and by the 4^th Pint I was trying to get the parrot to repeat where’s the xxxxx Bass?

Bitten by  two small dogs and parrot in the same weekend , certainly a first for me. After a nice fish to start with two weeks ago I'm back to the small stuff for the time being.

Sea Trout...a win for the home team

It was a decent night on the Tay estuary last night but not much sign of fish moving up and down the system.

I lost a fish on my third cast and then went through a period of inactivity till the light started to go about 9pm. I then briefly hooked two fish in two casts and had four fish follow the lure into the shallows turning away at the last moment as they tend to do sometimes. I changed lures a few times in the middle of this to see if another pattern/colour would induce a different response but all I could muster was this little chap. With no camera and just my phone with 10% battery life remaining , this was the best I could do for a picture.

 On balance a win for the home team tonight.

Summer's here and so are the Mullet!

Nico from my club sent me a picture of a Mullet for the club blog this week, it reminded that I'd not caught one for a while. So it was maybe time to put that right.

This is the smallest Mullet I’ve caught here at 2.9 pounds a nice enough fish just the same. A nice scrap as well. It took  porridge with some winterized mackerel oil done in the microwave to perfection and left overnight to go hard. I also had the tail end of some red Gulp hanging off the hook just in case the porridge got sucked off the hook. I missed three other bites, seems I’m a bit out of practice.

Wrasse and Eel spotting on Bute

I took a trip to Bute with mate and fellow blogger Scott Hutchison on Sunday. The weather was superb and despite being pretty tired after my Bass trip I decided to make the best of Lynne being away for the weekend to squeeze in another session, this time for Wrasse. I've never fished here before but Google maps provides enough information to go at when prospecting new areas such as this.

I spotted the finger of rock below on Google so we set off for it and started working our way along it. We split up and covered more ground.

Scott got hooked trying to winkle out some Goldsinny and Ballan Wrasse from a gulley on one corner of the rocks. He kicked off by catching his trademark species the mighty Common Blenny.

Now, he's got a soft spot for these little creatures and I can sort of see why. When I look at them I just think Bass &  livebait. He gave me a sideways look later in the day when the subject turned to my plans for his little mates sometime this summer, sorry Scott!

I took a walk over for a  chat and a catch up and then headed off to try a new section of rocks.

Jake and Scott put me onto these Lunker City Ribsters last year, handy little SP this. The Wrasse in Kerry loved them so I tried this colour as well as a laminated two tone version on an Owner 10g finesse jig head. I started to find little pockets of fish but as usual lost more than I caught on this method. A lot of the time the fish were tearing off holding on to the end of the bait or missing the hook altogether.

I think it was this fish above that took me about 10 minutes to catch.It followed the lure up the rocks and across the white barncle covered splash zone many times before I eventually hooked it

The above fish was the best of the bunch I landed.

Not big fish but good fun.It's also difficult not to look like a goon sometimes with a selection of gems here as I tried to keep my head from being burnt.

Scott was having a bit of a nightmare and was struggling to land a Wrasse. As the tide dropped off the bites stopped for me as well and it was time to head home.

As we walked back across the rocks the gulley behind us had emptied out. In fact the top end of it looked to only really get flooded on big tides being filled with weed and algae. As we passed it Scott spotted a little bit of movement amongst the weed. On closer inspection it was an Eel and the more we looked into the water the more movement we saw. Now it would have been easy to keep walking but Scott decided to have a crack at catching this Eel for his species hunt as well as salvaging something from the day.

This man wont be beat!

Straight away he got some interest on the jig head and Gulp worm. The Eel seemed  pretty agressive and had a go at the lure the minute it got within range but spat the hook and then ran for cover. We spotted a few more Eel's and Scott stalked them in the sunshine.

So, here is the Eel stalker...  and another species and a nice little bit of angling to be honest.

A nice day out with some laughs and some fish with superb weather. There are a few other spots to try so we will be back and the Wrasse should be a little bigger later in the summer.

Birthday Bass

A tough couple of tides over Friday and Saturday for Jamie and me. We both drew a blank on Friday night  and got to bed about 3am.

We set off after a hearty breakfast in search of sun tan lotion and maybe a Bass.

We struck out on the lotion but came up with a couple of decent fish....eventually.

64cm to the fork and a nice fish for my birthday, about time as well.

A few hours in Dundee

Last weekend’s blank was still in my mind when I started fishing on Wednesday night mainly due to a massive leak discovered in my waders the minute I started wading. This was thanks to sliding down a barnacle covered rock in search of the first Bass of 2013, anyhoo I’ll be trying to put that right this weekend….


As I made my way along the beach I was followed by some feathered friends.

I think they must have thought I was after Mullet as it seemed they were looking for some bread, three hours later they were still with me, they must have just liked the company.


I had a succession of small Coalies about 8 inches in length. I’ve seen this before here and the Sea Trout seem difficult to catch when they’re around. Not sure if it’s the competition or they just don’t like to mix. It was proven to be the case again tonight and it took me a while to eventually get on offer.  I had to walk along the beach to some skinny water to get away from the Coalies.

This fish took on a long cast of about 45 yards after I saw some black headed gulls picking up some morsels at range. I presumed they might be getting on some small fish or eels scoured out by the tide.

It was a lively scrap and I had to retie the leader which was badly frayed. I’ve had this happen a good few times this year, as well as jumping the fish have got down and tried to remove the hook on the bottom. I made a pig’s ear of netting the fish and in the end the only thing that kept it attached were its teeth which got stuck in the net!   After rigging up again I made a similar long cast, this time the fish hit the lure right at the end of the retrieve. A smaller fish this time but more than welcome.  

So two Sea Trout in two casts after 3 hours fishing. I’d had enough and made my way back to the car wet  yet again...

The week ahead

Dont know the last time the Windguru forecast for Luce Bay looked like this ? OK the directions a bit here and there but some high pressure might help things along.

Another blank

 I started off at a mark at an old mark thats a little out the way and requires some effort to walk into. I've some good memories from here, it still holds my record for the most Bass caught in a session. The signs were good as I caught site of the sea the first thing I saw was a Gannet and then eight in total working an area about 200-440 yards offshore. This was always the case here on or around hight tide and on the drop.The fish however were missing.

Fast forward through a relocation to 1.45am. The moon's crescent came over the horizon. at first it looked like a ships sail that was illuminated.The fact that I thought this told me I needed a Red Bull and having given up the smokes 6 months ago there was not much keeping me awake. As it got a little higher in the sky for some reason I felt more optimistic. About 20 minutes later I went to pull the lure from what I thought was some weed and I was into a fish , 5 seconds later it was off. It was a very slow take and with my hands pretty cold my reactions were a little slower than they could have been.

In at 6am and in two trips probably 10 rod hours down the line and nothing to show for it, thats fishing. Well early Bass fishing with lures in Scotland for me anyway.