SW Road Trip day 1

Life’s been a bit hectic recently so I took two days off mid-week. The plan was simple, just fish my nuts off. I watched my days off approaching, the forecast held in advance of my road trip, a surprise in itself. With perfect conditions for a day at sea I launched at HT 9am on Tuesday to a nice smooth sea. First stop was a shot for Bass on a spot I’ve had some nice fish from the shore. Not much happening so I didn’t waste too much time, this would be a 12 hour shift afloat and the same time slot in the evening might provide better odds.

I had some frozen bait with me but I trolled some feathers while checking out some reefs but the Lowrance was picking up nothing so after about 40 mins I decided to put the anchor down. Making do with frozen mackerel I dropped a trace over the side with a FBM on the bottom instead of a weight.

There must have been a stack of fish coming past me in the tide as the rod was buckled for about 6 consecutive drops with multiple hook ups of Cod, Pollack and two solitary mackerel. On the bait rod it was rather monotonous with a dogfish a drop, time for a move.

After checking my bearings I was now about 1.5 miles out from my launch spot when I set the pick for the second time. It was action from the outset and my half mackerel bait produced a nice Huss first drop, typically, as they do, it let the bait go at the side of the yak. I put a smaller fillet on and dropped this back down and the first Huss was aboard a few minutes later.

After another one and two letting go at the side I wondered about a move to some different ground looking for Tope.

The tide was fairly pushing past by now and the ratchet screamed off with a fish on.

I had the fish alongside and checked it out, nice little Tope I thought, another first off the yak.

 

As it happens it was a Smoothhound, unusual thing is that it took half a Pollack. It was also about twice the size of my previous best. It really caught me out taking the fish bait, had no spots like the others I’ve caught and was that kind of bronze colour Tope can sometimes be over a certain type of ground. At somewhere between 13-15 pounds that’s a pretty big Scottish smut. From there it was a dog and Hussfest and I ended with six of them, with the doggies chewing through my bait on an ongoing basis I decided on another move.

Even the Cod were on the Pollack baits

Just when you think things are going well something usually brings you back down to earth. In this case, it was my anchor line snapping at the carabiner? This was only the third time the new 2kg Bruce had been to the sea bed and along with ten foot of chain and 150ft of cord it proved to be a right pain in the arse….

Inshore with the light changing it was pure Pollack mayhem. I tried a reef that came up from 20ft to about 10ft over a fair size area with a nice bit of tide running over the top. If there were any Bass around they didn’t get a look in. I switched to a popper and still caught Pollack, great fun.

As I was drifting I saw a big solid red return on the sounder in about 12ft of water. I dropped the lure in and looked over the side; saw the flash of bronze flanks as the fish took and the others scattered, the white lure disappeared and I felt the line zip off the reel. Just a great way to end a good day.

With no anchor it was plan B on day two. I arrived at the loch at midnight, knackered but sated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another for the hit list

Another one for the kayak project. Not the Tope I hoped for but a PB Smoothound so it merits making the hit list. It's not a  great picture lifted from GoPro video, was never going to be easy with the fish writhing in my lap.

 

Good idea at the time

Opportunities to go fishing this month have unfortunately been few and far between. At the last minute I decided to drive down to D&G on Friday night and left home about 9pm. The forecast for Saturday looked ok, the tides weren’t great but I thought I might take a punt on catching a few Bass at dawn and have a look on the reefs for them later in the morning. My alarm was set for 3am and on the back of 2 hours restless sleep in the car I poured myself a coffee and slipped the yak into the water before sun up.

These days I don’t see too many sunsets or sunrises on the coast. There is always something special about this time of the day on the water, today was no different. I soon forgot about the miserable nights kip in the car and I started to pick up a few small Pollack trolling to the area I intended to target two miles along the shore.

 

A true predator’s eye, its body will grow into it at some point….

                           
Being high tide I spent the first hour and half or so casting to the shore and working my way along it with soft plastics and surfaces lures. It was really quite, no signs of fish at all and I felt I should be somewhere else. The gannets were having their breakfast two hundred yards offshore so I hit the pedals and took my lead from them as to where to try next. There was some rough ground in about 20ft of water that was solidly marked with baitfish and some other returns on the finder that looked interesting. Given that the sun was well up and being calm with not much tide I decided that if there were Bass around they might be where the bait was. I ended up targeting these areas of rough ground maybe a bit earlier that I intended to. The action was pretty relentless, small Pollack but good fun. As I worked my way through about 15 fish I was hoping that the next bump would be a Bass. Given the prey that was around by comparison to shoreline area, in these conditions, that’s where I expected them to be. They had different ideas and as the sun got higher and the tide dropped the bait and the fish disappeared altogether. It was time for a troll to cover more ground and find some new reefs.

A surprise Grey Gurnard decided it fancied the J13 trolled about 12ft down.

                   
This was pretty much the story for the rest of my session. If I found some baitfish I would sure enough find some Pollack but the Bass proved elusive. My preferred method was using an xlayer on a 10g head jumping and tapping this along the bottom.

About 1pm I headed back to launch site , the 400 yard portage back to car looked no fun at all. The lack of sleep, heat, sun, miles peddled  and probably dehydration kicked in and I was grateful for some assistance from two lads from Yorkshire as they pitched in to get my rig back to the car. They said I was keen, I said it seemed like a good idea at the time, not so much now….

 

 

Bass aboard!

When I first got my Outback one of the target species high on the list was Bass. For one reason or another I’ve just not got around to putting the time in giving myself a chance of a few fish. Thankfully this changed today, mainly driven by todays weather, I dropped onto a spot that I’ve caught fish at LT and the first part of the flood from the shore. It was a dirty day, grey and wet, the rain started when I put one foot out of the car and pretty much didn’t let up.

Despite having had Bass here before I was caught by surprise not long after starting, the rod hooped over and I felt a Bass shaking its head, great start!

My first kayak caught Bass, wouldn’t have used the picture otherwise. Having taken two shots the lens was smudged in the conditions, part of one of today’s camera fiasco. Part two followed soon after when I hooked another fish. I hit record on the GoPro remote, giving it a bit of chat then holding the fish up before slipping it back. When I looked at the remote it told me there was no SD card in it, happy days.

Let’s try again shall we? Fish three…

 

 

A bonus Tub Gurnard liked the SG Sandeel as well.

  I then went on to cover a lot of ground but couldn’t track the fish down again, can’t complain, mission accomplished and another target species for the kayak campaign.

These Bass were lean and fairly modest, hope to catch up with a few larger specimens over the course of the summer. My Sea Trout season fizzled out on a run of blanks but my Bass season has started well, 14 fish in two sessions and before the end of May. Tope next, if the weather plays ball.

 

 

 

Rodney’s Beach

It must be around 18 years, probably more since Rodney took me here to catch my first Bass. Sadly he’s no longer with us but as far as I’m concerned it’s still his beach. I’ll always fish it a couple of times a year and I won’t ever step on this beach and not think about him. We had some good times here, a lot of laughs and some nice fish. Of course there were some failures. I liked to wind him up about these, he would blame me for most of it but we always laughed about it. Rodney also liked his bed so it was hard to get him out of it for the early morning sessions that always seemed to produce our best fish back then. That grey time of the morning, half-light. It was rare to get a smile from him at daft o’clock but a nice Bass usually cracked his face with a big grin. He was never far away from some kind of nonsense, fishing related or otherwise. Within a short distance of where I was stood he had a tent torn to pieces by a Great Dane, fixed some kind of belt problem on a MK2 Golf using a bait fork as one of his tools and had a panic attack climbing a cliff. These dramas didn’t necessarily amuse Rod but it did always give us something to consider bettering on any given fishing jaunt.

Anyway, I digress, the fishing was pretty good considering. I knew I wouldn’t be getting any decent fish tonight, it was very flat, but I didn’t expect to hit double figures. I’ve been over the Tay Bridge twice today on the other side of Scotland and drove past my home to Luce Bay to catch the tide for two hours fishing. Just as well it wasn’t a blank, too much on this weekend to stay any longer. I won’t be complaining about that for my first Bass trip of the year.

I just used my Sea Trout in-lines, pretty effective for this size of Bass at least.

I forgot how spikey these little fellas are while handling them.

Another highlight were these fellas. I did consider pegging it off the beach with them, Norfolk Terriers, can't say I've come across them before. I hooked a sand eel and fed it to them thus starting a short tug of war, typical terriers.

I might have a shot for Tope/Bass from the kayak on Monday weather and domestic life permitting.

 

 

 

 

 

May already

With the year passing so quickly May has arrived in no time at all and the seasonal gear change is kicking in everywhere. I’ll be taking a backseat this month, too many commitments on the domestic front, projects running behind and other things that need attended to. Given I’ve had three blank sessions trying for Sea Trout since my last capture it’s probably a good time to have a break. These were only short 2 hour trips but blanks all the same. If I can squeeze in a few hours I might but won’t be sweating it if I don’t. Most years I get to August and feel a bit burnt out, a bad time to feel like that.

I can’t complain with my year so far, the kayak challenge I’ve set myself will pick up again in June when I can get my rig out of the garage again. The Tope, Bass and Smoothound will be here in better numbers by then. I’ll get around to improving the Perch I have here as well.

I’ve only started thinking about a trip to Ireland and the possibility of a Blue Shark from my Outback, the ideas is still there but I need to start networking soon to establish if anyone else has similar thoughts. Having also entered my first kayak competition this was a step forward to putting a Zander in the kayak. I’ll be fishing the World Predator Classic 2017 qualifier to be held at Grafham in August. The final will be in Holland. For me it’s really about getting two days on that venue and the possibility of a decent Zed. If that fails it will be a long journey back down to England in the Autumn for a schoolie Zander from Rutland, motivation enough to get it right first time hopefully.

Timing and tides

I'm not sure it could get much better without a trip to Fyn or Bornholm.

Two cracking fish

 

                                                            

Chasing fatty

Imagine my shock when the builders couldn’t start work when they said they would .... Every cloud and all that. Probably a lot other things I should have been doing today but nothing that won't wait till Sunday, fxxk it, get the Perch gear. I don’t need much encouragement

Seven rigs and my first anchor lost today, what happened to the single digit wind strength? They’ve not done their business yet but it can’t be long now, doubt I’ll get another chance this year for a real big fatty.

 

 

Slow day in the sun

I should have had a crack at the Perch today but opted for a day afloat on the coast chasing some silver.  The forecast was good so it made for a pleasant time on the water but it wasn’t very productive. I fished hard around a general area that used to produce some decent days for me in the past. Unfortunately over the last two seasons this area has produced very little, I wont be in a hurry to go back for a while. I thought covering the area from the kayak would make a difference, for today at least, it was more of the same.

I winkled out this fish, my first Sea Trout aboard Das Bite. I also had two tiny finnock, onwards and upwards to better tides and better fishing.
 

Dawn raid

I have a busy weekend planned so took the opportunity to get on the water this morning, first cast 6am. It looked fishy and on my fourth chuck the rod hooped over with the first Sea Trout of the day, fantastic! Almost at the top of my waders in the strong flow I had the fish in the net for a confident start. I reached for the camera to take a quick snap of a nice 2 pound fish only to find the memory card missing and the internal memory full, don’t know how many times I’ve done this. I dropped the fish back in and cleared down some the limited space, not wasting too much time before getting back to business. Time passed and I was thinking the fish had shot past me at some point and was also considering changing lures when I had the slightest of taps, with a couple of stops this was converted into a smaller Sea Trout this time.

This was followed by another, slightly bigger fish which put up a scrap punching above its size in the tide before a quick visit to the net and making its onward journey.

These little features are great, with the undulating bottom these small gaps provide spots for the fish to hold up, rest or ambush passing food items. Even when these are covered by a few feet of water you can spot the signs. Three of fish this morning came from spots like this, hundreds of yards from the main flow.

I was thinking of wrapping it when I had another little fat fish in good order to end a fairly productive 2.5 hours session. Now for a day looking at flooring and kitchen appliances .....

 

On a long shot

Leading up to Grand National weekend Jim and I had planned our own long shot with a trip to target large Brown Trout that inhabit a remote highland loch. I had planned to fish another loch in May with the same target so we made joint plans to give it a crack together. These fish we were after would be around 4 pound and above, sometimes considerably more, aren’t exactly numerous but they are there to be had. With a reasonable plan and some luck we agreed it would be worth the effort. I met Jim after driving to the venue when I finished work and we set up camp, in some luxury I might add. We had some food and opened a few bottles as we got the gear ready. We had a late night and a late start the next day but with no travelling time for a change we could afford that luxury.

All the gear and half an idea-we were in business

We spent about half of the first day throwing some budgies in a gusting 20mph wind with some drizzle. Jim had a Pike about 4 pounds and I had the smallest Pike I’ve caught in a while. This however was my first Pike on a fly; not exactly a significant capture but it brought a smile to my face on dour day.

We tried to escape the wind which was funnelling down the loch, some ducking and diving and Jim started day two with another Pike.

Having spawned the Pike were in a lean condition but they did add the odd bit of action while searching for trout. The first sign of these came to my rod. After casting out a Brown Trout pattern Rapala the lure swung around behind the boat and just at the angle you might expect a take a big Brownie hit it and went about 3 feet in the air. Unfortunately for me the line went slack ,the chance was gone. It did provide some encouragement and we refocused our efforts once again.

We started to pick up some nice trout but we did have a few setbacks. The weather wasn’t great,  the  fish finder failed and most likely, the area we ended up fishing as a result of this wasn’t renowned for the biggest specimens the loch can throw up.

While I appreciate they look of a good Sea Trout in freshwater mode I had forgotten how easy these fish are on the eye.

Lovely wild Brownies

On Saturday night the wind dropped and the loch was a much friendlier place. We agreed we could have been in a remote corner of Canada. We had the chance to relax and appreciate the surroundings, lovely sunset and a couple of fish, the world was a good place. It had been great to just completely get away from it all for a few days.

Back at base camp things however had deteriorated somewhat, stocks of Malbec had hit rock bottom, thanks to me. Jim’s Merlot had to be plundered and we realised the trip was coming to an end. I had arrived wearing a suit and over the course of a couple of days transformed into wandering around base camp in merino wool long johns and a bunnet, just what I needed as it happens. Thanks Jim for your hospitality, looking forward to our next adventure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grind and find them

The fishing was as variable as the weather, decent at some points and downright horrible in others, spring time fishing in Scotland I guess. I spent a couple of days trying to track down some big fat Perch at the weekend. There were a few other anglers doing likewise. With nobody giving too much away I’ve no idea how their sessions went but our goal would have been the same at this time of year, a fish with height and girth, the biggest fish of all some might say, in the Perch fishers’ world at least. I kind of agree. I enjoy fishing for them.

It was an all season weather weekend with the wind constantly changing direction and strength with sun and rain in the mix. It was wearing me down at few points but the thought of  getting that one fish I was looking for I stuck with it. But it wasn't to be, that's fishing. If I had more time this month I would take a week off and go at it, now's the time for the mama. It was hard going mind, would probably need another week off after peddling  around after them, suppose I could do a Lance Armstrong, get a blood transfusion mid week maybe?

This was the first Perch I measured

 

I was perhaps into double figures in terms of the size and two a little longer than the fish above over the course of the weekend. To be fair it was more of famine than a feast on my trip, I fished hard for these. I had the feeling the fish were somewhere else completely and perhaps I could have launched in a different spot on day two. The big Perch are here, having caught them in the past it's just a matter of putting in the time and the legwork.

 

Now for something different. I have a three day trip with Jim later this week. I've no idea in the slightest how we'll get on but I am motivated enough to give it a shot. Best foot forward, we've got the gear and most of an idea. Till next time.

First Perch of 2017

I would like to have another trip very soon. These fish are about to pop. If I could have found one 45cm+ it would have serious weight at the minute. Easier said than done of course but they are a reality and possibility here.  The two hours last night was worth it, today wasn't.

Back in the game!

Following on from my fiasco a couple of weeks ago I had quite a day to myself today. I think I’ve only caught this many Sea Trout, once or maybe twice before. I had a half chance to cap it off with a peach but the huge bulge following the lure faded as the fish caught site of me when it was virtually under the rod tip. A fantastic days fishing.

My first fish of the day, a touch on the lean side but come May/June it will be back to normal.

My longest and best conditioned Sea Trout. It gave a robust account of itself in the tide. I'll be on the fly rod next time out . That will get things back to reality with a bang( or maybe even a splash)

 

 

Dont drink on an empty head

Thanks to Craig for tying these for me, it’s appreciated, they’ll catch fish for sure. It would have been a lot better if I took them with me, along with my leader, permit and everything else that was left in my HPA pack, in the garage. My wife drove most of the way to drop it off to me, she’s a gem and I didn't ask, but it will probably cost me at some point ;0) So, this is what happens when you've not had a glass of wine for a while? Daft really, functioned almost without a flaw for years before this, I need to have a word with myself.

I had about 3.5 hours fishing with a couple of follows on the Alive Shrimp in the first 20 mins, which, unfortunately was it. I spent the last half hour with the lure rod on a spot that needed some range at the top of the tide only to be shown how to catch Sea Trout by seals. I just wasn’t my day, the seals were on the money, never saw Sea Trout jumping to get away from them before and both are always here. I know I’m in the right place at the right time but it’s difficult not to be annoyed, they, at the end of the day are not doing it for fun.

On this occasion there wasn't!  I enjoyed dusting down the fly rod ,something I'm keen to do more of.

Willie's Salmon

When I was flogging away on Saturday a few of my fellow club members were on the Tay for the clubs annual jaunt to the fresh stuff on the River Tay. I think this is year six of this fixture. My late mate Rodney had the only success over this period with a nice spring Salmon of 12 pounds.

Unfortunately these fish are increasingly hard to come by. When I had text from Willie on Saturday to say that he had a 22 pounder in the net I was delighted for him, what a super fish.

 

Tough start

Windy, cold, difficult and rock hard fishing.This was my opening day of the season. I’ve had better days, but it was great to be back at it again.

My permit hadn’t arrived by post. Thanks to Gareth, who went out his way to meet me. I was then able to participate on the first day of the season.

On a day like today I was glad to see this little fish.

They got smaller but they were still welcome.

I stopped on the way home to have a coffee and look at this, it would be rude not to.Till next time.

 

 

 

 

 

French style( or the lack of it)

Incredibly, I have never got around to fishing for Grayling. I’ve thought about it now and then over the years but didn’t put the thinking into action.

Callum and I haven’t fished together for a couple of years. In fact, the last time was a bonkers 6 hour round trip turn and burn to meet me on a Bass mark. The fishing had been good that day and I was pretty relieved he got a nice fish on a lure at night for his efforts. Callum will know that feeling all too well as he’s been busy building his thriving guiding business over the last few years.

 I gave him a call a few weeks back for a catch up, had a look at a few dates that suited us both and before you know it, we were in the car talking about life in general and of course, fishing.

 

Callum demonstrated, to good effect, how to use a French leader. I was pretty rubbish in all honesty. I could blame the strong wind blowing downstream, but truthfully, I found it difficult to work with. Every now and then I got the upstream angle just right letting the fly’s work properly. Just as I thought I hit a reasonable rhythm, a Grayling agreed.

Image courtesy of Scotia Fishing/Callum Connor

Tearing around in the current displaying the red edge of its raised dorsal in the sunlight will be a memory that stays with me for a while. I was delighted.

Image courtesy of Scotia Fishing/Callum Connor

I enjoy fishing with Callum, need to make sure it’s not years before next time mate.  If you’re visiting Scotland and looking for a first class guided fishing experience get in touch with Scotia Fishing top guy, top guide.