Shore trip to Loch Etive

Scott and I met up for our first joint trip of 2014 heading up to Etive on Sunday. The targets were the usual suspects for this venue, Spurs, Thornbacks and LSD’s but as always there is the chance of a few other species as well. We had been unfortunate with the weather in December as the intention was to add to Scott’s 110 all-round species tally for 2013 but weeks of gales and rain put an end to that idea. Scott set himself the objective of catching the three main members of the shark family available so I picked a likely spot where you can hit about 200 feet of water pretty easily. The challenge at this mark is the last 50ft which can be tricky due to the fringe of weed and the vertical gradient.

About 1pm we sent the one hook pulley rigs and fish baits out into the loch and waited for the touchdown which does take a little while here.   I started to get bites straightaway and soon had a Codling on a rainbow trout section.

Scott was having a few odd issues with his braid but after losing a rig he settled in and got his first decent bite. This resulted in a nice Thornback on a sandeel sausage. After a bit of huffing and puffing it was up and over the ledge. The first and maybe the one species I felt might be hardest to tick off the target list hit the rocks.

 I had two Daiwa Amorphous AWB's with me so I huffed and puffed as well , they're too soft tipped for this mark.

There was plenty of interest in our baits and I picked up a small Spurdog and Scott made another step towards his target with an LSD.

One more to go!

My first Spur makes its way back.

I picked up another Spur shortly after my first but got caught up on someone’s old braid main line, looked about 100 pound braking strain, a real problem. As I made my way towards the fish I nearly broke my neck as the vibram soles on my boots were hopeless on the black shiny rocks which made going anywhere  near the water’s edge a  problem. Scott got his Spur and the three species hatrick was in the bag a lot quicker than I expected...good news!

As the tide dropped I suggested a move as I didn’t fancy dealing with the rocks in darkness. I felt that the shallower mark close by would start to fish when the tide turned. Shortly after we arrived Scott had the biggest Spur of the trip which might have went about 5 pounds.

We were both getting a few bites here and there and I picked up another Codling, then my first Thornback of the session.

We had a few more fish after this. Scott had another Thornie and we also had Codling and micro doggies.

It was a really nice night to be out, the sky was clear and it was surprisingly mild.  I went over to have a chat with Scott, he was plotting star constellations with his mobile app but the only thing I was trying to spot was an owl which sounded so close it felt like it was nearly on my shoulder. I eventually found it in the trees when it swivelled its head around and its eyes lit up in my headlight. Pretty soon the bites dried up, the owl went on its way and we hit the road for three hour journey home, nice little trip. It was good to catch up with Scott again, we usually find a few fish when we meet up so we’ve planned a few joint sorties for later in the year.