Return of the Mojo part 1

I’m not going to lie; I had lost the spark to get out there recently. Having lost two close friends over the summer and with domestic projects taking up time and money it’s been hard to get motivated. On Saturday, at the last minute I decided to take Monday/Tuesday off but before then, I travelled down to Moniave with my mate Billy .We visited our mutual friends, drank too much, ate well and had a great time catching up. Just what I needed really. On arriving home I checked the forecast and got my kit sorted for Monday, for once the forecast looked great, no wind and blue sky, excellent. What was even better was that I was fishing in Ayrshire, no two hour drive each way, 30 mins from my door, tip top.

As I launched on the beach visibility wasn’t great but it would burn off wouldn’t it? I hit a waypoint on my GPS about 500 yards out and got down to reaching my spot just under two miles away. I hadn’t launched here before but considered it to be a better option at LT rather than the last time I fished this mark. The distance travelled would be longer but easier at both ends of the trip in terms of entry and exit.

The fishing initially wasn’t spectacular but I was picking up a few fish on slow spun ragworm, my favourite presentation for Pollack, deadly if they’re not in the mood for lures. I was sure I should be doing better so I tried a Bass Assassin chartreuse/lime lure trolled to cover a little more ground. They liked this, numbers improved, as did the visibility, for a little while at least.

The vis was going downhill rapidly and the sound of foghorns in the distance increased and got closer.

The fish were still on the bite but I wasn’t totally comfortable. Having had a decent enough day I changed out my battery to one with full power to mitigate any problems with my plotter for the return journey and made a start back to the launch site.

30/40 yards maybe?

As luck would have it I came across some nice returns on the Lowrance. I was past the worst of the potential obstructions so decided to have a few casts. The next hour and half was probably the best local fishing I’ve had, ever. It was a fish every other cast, 2/3 pounds, great sport. I then got kelped by two better fish. I took two waypoints at each end of the spot where the fish seemed to be holding and re-rigged with a white SG eel and began fan casting the area. The average size increased, some real quality fish for this area . It was magic, screeching drag, fish taking almost at the kayak and going back down 20ft, taking on the drop, all sorts.

Unfortunately I lost 6 images from this part of the day, the light, the fog and the hassle of changing the position of the kayak to account for the position of the sun. I've also used a filter, poor I know but it's the best I could do to get anything from these fish which is a pity.

I rocked up on the beach to find it like a scene from the John Carpenter film. I asked a dog walker if she had spotted a silver car parked (checking her hands for hooks and knives first) obviously she hadn’t, she was shouting her dogs name, it had disappeared. Lesson learned, take your launch waypoint at the very start of the trip and plot a track kids. 500 yards out won’t cut in conditions like this.

Back on the Bass next. Would they play ball?