A good Friday

Despite just being back at work on Monday I took a half day, it was a good call.  I'm loving fishing weightless at the moment. My old Century HPR is just a great rod for this type of approach, it's a joy to use.

Nothing off the top yet which is odd. I tried the Autowalker, casts well, love the action and I did lose a fish on it. I also had my first Bass on the FBM this year, pictured below.

I managed to hang the lure up and I didn't expect to get it back. When it came free I cranked it in as fast I could to check the leader and this little fish wolfed it. A further 2 Bass and a stray Coalie  followed in 6 casts retrieved at top speed., whatever works I suppose...

Shambles

For business, for the economy, for outdoor pursuits. I said at the start of this our FM would never walk any of this forward, despite her statements it would be considered. As we move into phase 1.5 the virtual borders continue. I'm classed as a tourist in my own country if I wish to travel responsibly more than 5 miles. It's increasingly difficult to understand where the guidance which is riddled with contradiction comes from.  Some good work has been done and I feel for those that still have to shield, but Sturgeon is moving at a snails pace. A lot of it makes no sense and the little smirks  where we are fed the odd crumb of freedom is sickening to watch.

Thankfully I'm back at work, my employer is not based in Scotland, just as well really.

Ambush anti climax

A dour session to be fair, but I managed to find some fish where I expected them to be as the tide dropped. I’ve tracked baitfish and bass from my kayak at this spot and set up an ambush from the shore. I caught three in about 10 mins, then nothing for the next 2 hours. I expected the last couple of hours to be reasonable as the fish passed through but hey ho, that’s fishing. The DoLive quietly flicked into their path did the trick. The rest of session I had been tramping over boulders without a touch, kayak time soon, hopefully for some Tope.

18 Bass from three sessions and apart from two, they could have been the same fish, we can but try.

Dimitrios kindly sent my two new lures to try. These were designed by a mate of his from Cyprus, no doubt they look the part. The Autowalker at 115mm and just over 20g should cast like a bullet. They look to have Decoy hooks and being through wired, up to the job. I’ve not had a fish from the surface yet this year but I’ll give them a run out on my next session and report back. There's been some nice Bass caught on these having had a look on YouTube.

Hot hot hot!

Jamie and I had our first joint session of the year yesterday. We travelled in two vehicles for obvious reasons and chatted on the phone about where we could have been today, but that will come soon enough. One thing I pointed out was at the minute, this area was on top of the highest water temperature for ten years for this day in June. Probably not too surprising given we’ve had the sunniest May on record and possibly explained what happened later in our session. After Saturday I was dressed for the weather, wide brimmed hat and sun mitts that I usually wear when I’m abroad, it was just great to be back out again.

After a couple of blank hours Jamie opened his account with his first fish of the year, a nice little Bass of about 1.5 pounds as a breeze picked up putting some movement on the water. Until that point there had been no seals, birds and the sea was oily calm with no signs of life.  What happened next was unusual, for about an hour, on every other cast, I had Garfish follow and nip a variety of lures. Some were big, some were small and in between them I caught a few school bass. Jamie who was 30 yards away didn’t see one, bizarre given what was happening in front of me. I caught one here 6 years ago on a Mag Popper and I was wishing I had a small sea trout metal with me. I’m certain I would have landed a few yesterday. There’s no doubt we have them in Scottish waters, but I’ve never come across so many before. Maybe it was the unseasonal weather we’ve been having?

I picked my way through some small Bass here and there, the DoLive’s which were effective on Saturday were redundant yesterday. As we moved, I changed to the Wexford Worm AKA the Wave Bamboo Stick and picked up two better fish around 2.5 pounds from two gulleys as Jamie watched while taking a break. It’s a great way to fish just rolling these around, nice on a warm afternoon, minimum effort then “dink” fish on! It was good fun with the fish taking some line as they tore down the gully with my rod high to keep the line away from the rock ledges. We called it a day shortly after that, another super day where you appreciate freedom even more.