Motivation

I’ve had the image at the bottom of this post as a screen saver for a while now. For the avoidance of any doubt it's not a fish I caught. It serves as a little bit of motivation now and then. I know this fish was caught from one of the lochs I visit. In the dull moments or on the early starts I’m wondering if it’s still swimming around with a few of its mates of a similar size. You can but day dream I guess.

                                                                      To get from this

 

To this

 

                                                                               To this

                                     In a cold Scottish loch takes some doing for a Perch

                          A proper wild beast and not a pond fed porker, think I read it was 4.8

Striped thuggery

Not been out for a couple of weeks  but managed a trip yesterday afternoon and today. Sometimes I’ve felt like I’ve been plotting a map of snags here. For the most part that’s the game and there are not too many shortcuts to finding features on a big loch. The Perch were in isolated pockets here and there and a couple of Pike provided some excitement. Next time out I’ll try bringing them to me.

These were the best pair. Two of the sunken tree thug gang, bossing the branches and crunching crustaceans and my plastic.

First time  I've slipped  a fish in a weigh bag for a while, 3 pounds on the nose. I thought it might be more as it was so broad across its back.

                             
The first glimpse I had of this fish was when the dorsal popped up and it swam towards me on the surface. It was an outrageous shape, like a little football with  a big head and spikes attached. It too had a visit to the weighing bag coming in at 3.4. My target is a  4 pound fish before the winter kicks in so this was decent progress.Early to bed tonight, ten hours in the saddle today. The Hobie Vantage seat is awesome.

Not long now

Our trip to the Ebro was booked about 10 months ago. I've just really started to think about it this week and the hype is starting to creep in. Having been in the garage sorting gear out  again tonight I've  established that I have pretty much what I need, probably too much. They're will still be the odd purchase I dare say. A definite will be sun protection as it’s between 34-40 Celsius at the minute…..ooof!

As usual , the web surfing has started as I get closer to a trip. Hopefully Scott and I have a good one and we get in amongst the fish.

 

A trip to the Trossachs

I headed north for the first time to Lubnaig. I’ve fancied fishing here for a while as it seems to have had some reputation for producing decent Perch. It was a late start for me, first cast about 9.30am on a baking hot morning. I’m not really a fan of making a start at this time of day but I had to buy a permit so tied my start in with opening time purchasing this then getting on the water. I was looking forward with anticipation, as you do fishing somewhere for the first time. I initially had some issues with the Lowrance for the first hour and fished without it till I worked out what was wrong with the settings. In truth there was not that much to see apart from the very odd fish mark. The most interesting point over the day was a clearly visible thermocline crossing over a point transiting areas. The water was 100ft deep and the change was at 80ft deep for about 100 meters till the depth changed. I've not came across this marked as clearly before on any sounder, not that it made any difference to me on the day either right enough.

Brownie on a little HTO sp

I picked up the first fish on the drop shot next to a weed bed about 300 yards from where I started. This size of Perch set the tone for the day. I found plenty of them in one spot at two points in the day and the second time drop shotting worm bait. Having gone over the area again with a few different lures I didn’t get a touch. I tried a worm and it was all action. There was the odd fish here and there in deep water which I targeted but it was pretty poor apart from this one area. It was a nice spot, 20ft deep close to the bank with a little burn trickling in, nice fringe of weed in tight with some shade. You don’t need any electronics to find these spots. I could see why it seemed to hold the fish. It’s just a pity about the average size.  There were some really nice weedy areas but various approaches proved fruitless. The best Perch of the day came when I was heading for home about as fast as I could after covering about 7 miles.Having been looking at the sounder I was doing just shy of 4MPH, about twice the speed I normally would consider fishing. It might have gone ¾ pound. This was followed by another smaller one at the same speed; maybe I missed a trick on the day?

Looking south from the top of the loch, its a decent kick back to the launch site from here.

 It’s certainly a nice setting but having been from one end to the other it’s too noisy for my liking with everything from motorbikes to yapping dogs. Having had good numbers of Perch this padded out the reality that most were from one area, probably the same shoal and the size of these fish were smaller than I would have liked. I’ve no doubt that it has some nice Perch but it’s not the water for me.I might have another shot here if Scott can borrow a kayak. Other than that I think I’ll stick to the lochs which I know can produce better Perch and at the same time, enjoy some tranquillity. It was however some day to be on the water and better than working on a Friday.

Drysuit tan. Can you tell we've had a pish summer and I've not been abroad yet? Might need to get some Oil of Olay and some creosote for balance , these don't look right.