Windy old day with Scary Mary

I had an invite from Scott to join him aboard Scary Mary for another sortie to Luce Bay. On this occasion  we were to fish the Drummore Tope festival, typically the weather played its part, day 1 one was cancelled and day 2 looked like it might be a struggle.

Leaving the harbour conditions didn’t look or feel too bad and after catching enough Mackerel for bait we got down to business setting up a chum bag and dropping the anchor into the building sea. Right from the off we had an increasing wind against an ebbing tide which made for a very uncomfortable start to the day, in fact, the whistling in the rigging of Scary Mary seemed to increase by the minute. I don’t recall every being seasick, Scott sucked on some sweets, we both hoped for the best in this respect as today would be a test.

Not a bad start, with a decent enough Tope opening the score for Scott for the day. Some time passed, the wind increased and the rolling sideways action and stumbling about got the better of us. We lifted anchor and headed inshore, the tide would change direction and when it did it would hopefully, let us sit in one direction, frankly it was a rank rotten day to be afloat!

 

We set anchor in some shallow rougher ground, with not much happening I had a rummage around Scott’s boat and cobbled together a make shift lure outfit. Apart from the occasional doggie coming to the bait rods I picked up the odd Pollack and Cod on a soft plastic and lead head combo. This kept my mind off the conditions; Scott had tanned half a bag of sweets by this point. I would imagine a trip to the dentist will be on the cards pretty soon….

We agreed it was time for a move offshore again but not before this smashing red cod took my Tope bait which was a nice surprise.

Arriving back in some deeper water we wondered if we would have enough time to salvage something from the competition?

Scott got on a Huss with some length to it.

I added another species with an ok Thornback and also a slightly better one not too long after.

When the bell rang we were glad to hear it and made a run for the beach.

 

As it happens I think we did ok given the conditions. I didn't hang around for the prize giving, Scott did, which was a wise decision , he picked up  3rd place in the Tope section and 1st in the Huss taking home a tidy selection of tackle- well done big chap! It sounds like I narrowly missed out on Thornback prize by 2 cm. It was good to catch up with Scott again but we need to organise better weather next time, that today was brutal!

 

Speaking of better weather, I managed to eventually meet up with Craig on a cracking evening recently. The objective was to hopefully get him his first Bass, we did try and I was fairly optimistic but unfortunately it didn't happen. I managed one small fish so the blank was off. Next time we're out I'll be in the fly rod as well. I'm determined to get him a fish or two before the season is over.