Getting back to normal

On my last blog post in May I mentioned I had fallen ill when I was afloat. This was the start of shingles/ PHN which saw me off work for two weeks. I’ve only just got back to normal over the last week or so. I had no idea on how painful this could be, my immune system clearly just decided to pack in for a bit. Frankly 2019 from a few angles has been a total shit show so far. Hopefully I can make up some time along the way for what’s left of the year.

While I wasn’t in great shape I managed out on the 22^nd of June for a few hours. I had a couple of small Bass and a few Pollack, great to be afloat again but it was a struggle. Last weekend was the Mull of Galloway kayak species hunt. Having been booked for this since November last year it was cancelled on the Thursday night due to the weekend forecast for high winds. Jamie and I headed down anyway.  We had a couple of pints with Tom on the Friday night. It was a real shame he cancelled it, but he made the decision for the right reasons. Saturday by this point looked spot on so we decided to head to Port Logan. We thought we might be able to tuck in at East Tarbert and get some Tope and Smoothies on the Sunday ducking the strong winds from the SW that were forecast.

It was predictable that we overdid it on Friday night, I was out of practice to be fair. This was the first refreshment I had since the start of May. We launched about 10.30am in calm conditions, for some reason I felt sea sick…. I had never fished here from a kayak before so it was pretty much all a school day.

Me in tight on a gully. The mirage 180 drive was really handy for backing in and out of these.

It was a very different propositions from tearing around at top speed in a boat as I have done on several occasions chasing the various species available. It was not without incident as the thunder and lightning started. This saw Jamie cut his anchor rope and me winding in over the top of a tangle in my anchor line to head for the shore at speed. We took a break for about an hour and half before heading back out. It’s not a nice feeling being as exposed as that on a piece of plastic surrounded by a few rods.

After checking my camera tonight I ended up on 12 species, I think Jamie had around the same. We didn’t go at it hard but had an enjoyable day. Before the event I reckoned you might need 20 species over the two days to be in the hunt. The boat event the week before was won with 28 species and the total number caught by all the boats was 40+, a lot to go at, but you also need some luck.

We were up bright and early on Sunday morning and drove down to East Tarbet checking the conditions on the way down from Sandhead. It was pretty grim and blowing 30mph+ We made the right call to give it a miss, it wouldn’t have been much fun and at best reckless to launch in that spot as it would be unforgiving if any mistakes were made. Never a dull moment, lets see what else the Scottish summer throws at us.