The amazing sunrises couldn’t last forever, and my last day
was met with what could have been a typical Scottish morning and that kinda
rain that gets you wet…
We made a start at the same spot as the day before with the same
tactics, rips, corners, and points around an island. We both had a few follows
and swirls on glide baits and top waters without connecting. We started to
think this would have been a good day for live baits, but we had managed well
without them so far. It was about 7am before I had the first fish of the day,
another lovely striper.
We had another couple of fish before I hooked what turned
out to be the smallest striper of my trip right next to the boat. Being hooked
in close proximity, almost under the rod tip, there was a tremendous amount of thrashing,
and the striper came in very green. As I tried to help Joe untangle it, I ended
up with a treble in my finger, lots of blood, another plaster and more tape was
applied. As I dealt with this and while Joe tied another leader, we had drifted
some distance to another island. It looked fishy so Joe set the boat up for a
drift along the beach towards a finger of rock that looked perfect. Strangely
Joe hadn’t tried here before, we both had follows and swirls again so decided
to try another drift as the wind and tide were perfect to run parallel to
features. The stripers seemed a bit fussy, so I fancied showing them something
with a different profile and dug out the fly rod and made a few casts tight to
the beach.
A really satisfying fish, they always are when you read the
signs and make a change.
Joe had a couple of fish on the glide bait before his mates
turned up with some food for him, fresh Tuna caught the day before, nice. They
agreed to keep in touch, handy as shortly after they left, he had a call from
them about a blitz fairly close to where we were. The fish seemed to be on
smaller bait as there were Terns dipping along with the gulls. Joe picked the
fly rod and I went with a sluggo.
Joe picked the right option. All I could manage were a few
knocks and follows before it was over. Great to see though, casting to breaking
fish is as exciting as it gets.
The rest of the morning was a total slog, we had some good opportunities
right around low tide, among boulders and weed and about 2ft of water but we
didn’t connect. We then took a run offshore, no birds or bait but another first
for me. As I scanned the water, I saw the tip of a fin which turned out to be a
huge Mola Mola.
I’d like to thank Joe for a great week; he’s also a decent
human being and a pleasure to spend time with. I’ve travelled to a lot of
places to fish in the last 30 years, Arctic Norway, Europe, East and West
Africa, Pacific Mexico and the Caribbean.
This was one of the best trips I’ve had. If you are of a mind to catch some stripers
look him up at Fish Boston or captjoegugino on Instagram.
As for me, I'm still fishing locally here and there. I might update the blog now and then. At some point I'll run out of time and money for these trips 😊 I'll go back and fish with Joe I'm sure, but the next target species will be BFT in the UK and a double header for Peacock Bass and the Silver King, that just has to be done...
