West coast wrasse hunt.

On Tuesday we teamed up with our friend and fellow The Lure Forum member Martin Allison planning to target some wrasse species. Martin had very kindly offered to take us to some marks that had produced goldsinny, rock cook, corkwing and ballan wrasse. We were all looking to increase our species tally for the year and it was a great opportunity to meet up again and fish together.

I picked Scott up at 05:30 and we headed through to Greenock which was to be our first port of call. After just over an hours drive we arrived at the marina and met Martin. He was already fishing using bait for the mini wrasse at this mark and we would soon joined in gishing small lures using our LRF gear. Scott and I both went with Power Isome mounted on jigheads, I used a 2.3g #8 Shirasu Fine and Scott was on a 1.8g #10 Decoy Rocket.

We started by dropping our lures down the side of the walls and jigging them next to the kelpy growth. After a few minutes Martin called us over to show us the first goldsinny wrasse of the day! He was fishing a paternoster with #10 hooks baited with tiny sections of ragworm and after a pic or two, the fish was released. Great stuff, we knew our target species were around, now all we had to do was persuade them to have a go on the lures.

Martin shows us how its done with this goldsinny wrasse.

Next it was Scott's turn to hook a fish and I looked round to see his Diaflash rod hooped over. By the bend in his rod we could tell it was no small wrasse and soon a feisty wee pollock was landed!

Scott's first fish of the session, a scrappy little pollock

This continued to be the pattern for the next half hour with Martin landing a string of goldsinnys and dabs and Scott landing another couple of little pollock. I was starting to get a bit frustrated by this stage so I scaled down further to a 1.8g #10 Decoy Rocket jighead and rigged a section of red Gulp! Sandworm on it. We started to fish over the kelp which was now being covered by the flooding tide. Scott was taking a much more vertical approach while I was casting and bouncing the lure across the top of the kelp. I started to get a few taps as the tiny wrasse shot out of the kelp and had a go at the lure but I just couldn't get them to hook up. Scott gave a shout and was into a small wrasse. It turned out to be a corkwing which had the good grace to stay hooked as it was swung up the wall.

Scott's first ever corkwing wrasse.

Brilliant! A new species for an extremely pleased Scott and it was quickly photographed and returned. Martin then landed a corkwing too as well as a steady stream of Goldsinnys. Scott then winkled out a long spined sea scorpion from the kelp, much to Martin's surprise as they are not that commonly caught at this mark.

This little blighter had bolted into the kelp and Scott was lucky to get him out of it!

A quick throat shot for comparison against the Short Spined specimen Scott caught up at Portree.

With mounting frustration I went smaller still and put on a 1g #12 jig head from AGM discount Tackle, this I rigged with a Berkley Gulp! 1" Fish Fry. I went over to near where Scott was fishing and noticed two large boulders beneath my feet. I dropped the lure down in between them and soon saw a tiny goldsinny poke its head out and grab the lure, only to quickly spit it out before I could react! Argh! This game of "tease the angler" continued for about 20 minutes until I finally hooked it! It was reeled and lifted up with the utmost care and there in my hand lay my first ever goldsinny wrasse! I was very pleased to get of the mark with one of our target species at last!

I have you now!

Scott really wanted a Goldsinny too and spent ages trying to tempt one only to experience the frustration I had just endured! I meanwhile was after a corkwing and had swapped back to the Decoy Rocket jighead with a chunk of Gulp! Sandworm.

Two wrasse wranglers in action.

We were running out of time as we had to leave to go to another mark for bigger ballan wrasse. Scott had now downsized to a size 18 hook, 0.8g split shot and tiny section of pink Power Isome and was still being teased mercilessly by the goldsinnies. I was working my lure across the kelp when a small fish darted out of the kelp and grabbed the lure, fish on and my first corkwing this year was soon landed! Martin did the honours with a photo then we released the fish.

My first corkwing of 2012.

Just as Martin and I were breaking down our tackle in readiness to move we heard a triumphant "Yes!". Scott had hooked and landed a goldsinny although it fell of the hook and very nearly wiggled back to the sea! Luckily Scott reacted quickly enough to grab it for a quick souvenir shot!

Second new species for Scott. Look at those teeth!

We then headed half an hour down the road to our next mark in the hope of targeting ballan wrasse. The weather had really improved by this point and it was pleasantly warm and bright. The mark was very nice looking indeed with clear water covering big boulders, fingers of rock and bands of kelp, classic wrasse habitat. Martin gave us a quick tour showing us likely areas and then tackled up with a float set up to try to establish if there were any wrasse around. I decided to have a play with a 4.5" Slug-Go on a 10.5g jighead. After a few casts I started getting some knocks as I was retrieving the lure over a large boulder. Next cast again I got a couple of knocks so I stopped the retrieve and just let the lure sit still on top of the boulder. Tap, tap ... Whack! A wrasse grabbed the Slug-Go and zoomed off to my left, I struck and my lure flew off to my right! Close but no cigar! I then went back to the LRF gear as Martin had been landing a few small pollock! I rigged the 2.3g #8 Shirasu Fine jighead with a red medium Power Isome and was soon into some more small pollock! The biggest going about 1.5lb which put a good bend in the Corto EX and a big smile on my face! Scott meanwhile was having a bash for mackerel to see if they had started arriving and managed to catch one before carefully unhooking it and releasing it with minimal hand contact. After my tenth pollock I decided to go and fish further along the mark where Martin had just caught a ballan wrasse, Scott opted to keep fishing where he was, switching to his LRF gear and a baby Slug-Go and was soon into a small pollock as I headed along, his first ever fish on a Slug-Go! By the time I had reached Martin he had caught another ballan of about 2lb and needing no further encouragement I started to target them again!

Still using my LRF gear I went with a red Gulp! Sandworm on the jighead and started casting and retrieving it amongst the weedy gullies. A few casts later I had a sudden take and the fish powered off arching the light rod over. This time the hook held and after a fun fight my first ballan of 2012 was landed! After a spiky photograph the fish was released leaving me feeling extremely pleased!

Lovely subtle turquoise markings on this dark brown ballan.

Scott meanwhile was making his way towards us poking around in some gullies and rockpools looking for any mini species that they might hold. I continued to fish on and 10 minutes later had another bite and hooked into a much bigger fish. The rod bent in a good arc and I really had to apply pressure to bully the fish up. It then made a powerful run towards some large rocks before I turned it. It was another ballan and as it came into view through the clear water it looked like a new PB! After one more line stripping run it was beaten and came in to my hands waving its pectoral fins in greeting! Fantastic! My new biggest ballan measuring 35cm and a really good fight on my light set up!

My new PB ballan wrasse.

Scott had joined us by this stage and while I was re-rigging I heard a tell tale whoop and Scott was into his first ballan of the day! His Diaflash rod was really bent over and he really had to work hard to keep the powerful wrasse from diving into the rocks! After a good battle Scott landed a lovely 36cm ballan wrasse and a new PB

Another PB! Scott was thrilled!

What a session it was turning out to be, even when the tip of my Corto EX broke as I was casting, it still couldn't put a dampener on it. I went back to my heavier gear and started playing with the Slug-Gos again. Martin had changed over to an AGM 3" Stick Worm in Junebug on a 3.5g jighead and was trying for wrasse. This instead saw him find a seam of big pollack and he started to land some good fish! The biggest was a lovely bronze 4lber which really ripped some line off his reel and put a good bend in his Century HPR before it was finally landed.

Martin's best pollock put a great fight.

I however could only muster a tiny pollack on an Ecogear Aqua Swim Shrimp, but I was quite pleased with this as I had never caught on this lure before. Scott then announced he wanted some mackerel for his dinner and using some form of voodoo and a Savage Gear Psycho Sprat almost instantaneously caught two big mackerel.

Scott's dinner quickly sorted!

Martin and I joined in and cast to the horizon in search of them but we didn't have Scott's luck locating them and failed to catch any mackerel. That was about the last action of the day and we headed back extremely pleased with ourselves!

A fantastic days fishing and many thanks to Martin who made it all possible with his craft and knowledge of the marks!

Tight lines, Schogsky.

Edinburgh : Street Piking

On Monday Scott and I found ourselves in the vicinity of the Union Canal due to a job we were doing. With the work over by 11.00 and having had the foresight to bring our tackle, we headed to the canal for a short session. I went with my LRF kit, my 7'9" Graphiteleader Corto Ex rod, Shimano Technium 3000SFC reel spooled with Sunline Super PE 0.6 braid and Scott went with a heavier setup of his 9' Daiwa Powermesh X-Spin rod, Daiwa Exceler X-3000 reel spooled with 20lb Power Pro braid.

When we got to the canal we were surprised to see the water was crystal clear! This is very unusual as the canal is normally a pretty murky place and is constantly stirred up by the barges that travel along it. The clear water and bright sunshine meant we could see all the features we normally fish over such as tangles of mountain bikes, traffic cones, shopping trolleys and the odd lamp post!

We both went with the same lure, a Savage Gear 9.5cm Soft 4Play in Dirty Roach, but with 2 different approaches. Scott rigged his with an AGM 7g #2/0 Ultra Ball jighead and I rigged mine weightless on the Savage Gear "ready to fish " single treble hook rig. We began working our lures along the canal and it was great to see them working in the clear water. The lures are so life like that small roach were following the lure about trying to shoal up with it! It wasn't long before Scott spotted a Jack lazily following his lure across the canal. It stopped following and hung motionless in the middle of the canal, Scott made another cast bringing the lure right past it with a slow twitched retrieve but the pike just turned and looked at it before swimming slowly back to the reeds. Frustrating but exiting to be able to see the pikes reactions to the lure! A few minutes later, while searching the far bank with my lure a jack suddenly fired out from the reeds and seized the lure. He shook his head and instantly spat the lure out then went and sulked in the weeds. I consoled myself with the fact that at least this pike had played ball and continued to fish on.

As we both worked our way down the canal we kept getting follows from pike but they were very lethargic and the bright clear conditions were not helping even though it made it pleasant to fish in! 12 pike follows later and half a mile down the canal a young guy approached me saying he could see a wee jack sitting in a reed bed. He showed me where it was and left me to get on with it. The jack was very small, so I rigged up Berkley gulp 1" minnow on a Ecogear 2.3g #8 Shirasu Fine jighead. I cast over him and brought the lure past him with a twitchy slow retrieve. In a flash he seized it, I set the hook and he tried to dive back into the weed bed but being tiny I just reeled him in! Unfortunately the little pike had other ideas and just as I was about to lift him out launched into a little tail walk and threw the hooks!

Meanwhile Scott had been experimenting with some other lures and had manged to get a couple of jacks to attack but with the same results as me, no hook ups. I decided to stick with the micro lures and see if the small perch we had passed were interested. Scott pointed out yet another tiny jack lurking right in close to the reeds. Needing no encouragement I jigged the little lure in front of his face and he totally nailed it! I quickly lifted him out of the water and held possibly the smallest pike I have ever caught!

This micro pike is my new personal worst!

Oh well at least the blank was off! A few minutes later a wee perch fell for the minnow, my first ever perch from the Union Canal! Brilliant! I have a real soft spot for perch no matter how small.

My first Union Canal perch, perfection in miniature.

Another ten minutes later I had another slightly larger jack on the Gulp! 1" Minnow who gave a spirited little fight on my light gear before he was unhooked, photographed and released.

This jack couldn't resist a Berkley Gulp! 1" Minnow!

As we approached our starting point I changed lures and went back to the soft 4 play to try and tempt the first fish I saw again. I had just cast my lure beneath an over hanging tree on the far bank and given a couple of twitches when an unseen pike shot out at speed and grabbed the lure! This time he was well hooked and tore off heading for the reeds. It was a better fish and put a nice bend in my rod. The reel played its part too, with the smooth drag giving line as he darted for cover. After a couple of runs and some impressive tail walking he was soon landed, photographed and returned.

This pike though small put up a great fight on the LRF gear.

It was a bigger pike about 2.5lb which was enormous fun on my light gear! The pike had torn the Soft 4Play off its mount and it was no where to be seen, so I reached into my back pocket for my little lure box. It wasn't there! I checked my other pockets with that horrible cold realisation that my little treasure trove was no longer in my possession! I quickly ran back along the canal to where I remembered last having it but sadly I couldn't find it. In all likelihood someone had found it and taken it! It was a blow to lose some of my lures and I had a few that I'd owned for years in the box. I doubt whoever found it would appreciate what they had.

Oh well It was still an enjoyable few hours and although someone had made off with some of my lures and Scott had blanked it was still good to experience the clear water action of the canal. It beats working all day that's for sure!

Tight lines, Schogsky.

Loch Lubnaig : Char quest continues!

Jake and I had a job to finish yesterday that gave us the opportunity to visit Loch Lubnaig again. Jake's not the type to ever admit defeat and he has a score to settle with the resident arctic char population who have been tormenting him recently.

We arrived and headed straight to the spot where I caught two of them last time we fished it. Same tactics were employed, ultra light gear and pink Jackson Cymos which the fish  in the loch love. After a while with no action at all we decided to head up the loch towards a weedy spot where Jake caught a few perch last time with the intention of return to the starting point later. We reached the area and started working the lures through the weed beds. I quickly became annoyed having to pull the lure through the weed and weed off the lure so I switched to a weedless Decoy Violence jighead and a 2.5" Lunker City Fin-S shad in Watermelon Candy Shad.

Still no action so we decided to head a bit further along the bank to a spot we've never tried before. The water was a bit deeper here and immediately in front of us to bottom was a fairly clean boulder field but a bit further out was a large weed bed. We started working along this and as Jake was retrieving his lure it was hit very close in by a perch, just in front of him. His drag was set lightly so the little perch started stripping line much to our amusement. He was enjoying this little scrap and I jokingly told him to tightened up before it spooled him! After a quick photo it was returned to grow bigger.

This cheeky perch gave Jake an epic battle.

 
Jake then caught another two in quick succession. Again both of them taking the lure very close in, probably following it in from the weeds before striking.

Another stripey fish falls to the pink Jackson Cymo.

Jake makes it a hat trick of perch.

Meanwhile I was not getting any attention on my Lake Fork Live Baby Shad in Golden Shiner on a 3.5g #4 AGM Finesse jighead so I decided to start heading back to where we started to try for trout and arctic char whilst Jake happily continued targeting perch.

I got back to where we started and carried on with the soft plastics retrieving them very slowly with a few pauses and twitches. After quite a while I was beginning to think I was going to blank when I felt a little jolt and hooked a small perch quite close in just beyond the drop off. This was my first perch from Loch Lubnaig so I was quite pleased.

My first Loch Lubnaig perch! Due to the absence of pike the loch holds some huge perch, or so we've been told.

At this point Jake came back around to rejoin me and asked what I had caught. I told him it was a char..., pausing briefly to wind him up before adding, ...ming little perch. Luckily he saw the funny side.

Then as we we were fishing we heard a low pitched drone. Over the horizon came a bomber. Flying very low it flew over our heads before heading up the loch and north up the glen. Obviously on a radar avoidance training exercise. An awesome sight indeed!

The bomber approaches.

With Jake's focus now switched back to targeting arctic char, he waded out a bit and began working along the bank. This time in the opposite direction down the loch. I headed past him, and very quietly past the group of relaxing highland cow bulls that live in the field next to the loch, to some rocks a bit further along next to the road.

Highland cow bulls including a jet black one. Just looks weird!

I climbed up onto them to survey the area. It looked it may hold a few perch. Fairly deep and a few weeds but instead of large beds they were a bit more spaced out, perfect I thought! I started working my lure through the gaps very slowly. Moving along the rocks exploring the gaps in the weeds. Again as the lure was close in I hooked a perch. It was very small, yet had managed to get most of the lure into it's greedy little mouth! It took me a bit longer to unhook it so I put it straight back without taking a photo. A few cast later I caught another, slightly bigger perch.

With no pink vibe lures wizzing by to distract them, the perch were loving the Lake Fork Live Baby Shad in Golden Shiner.

Lovely fins.Some odd scars on it though. Perhaps from a monster Lubnaig perch!

Meanwhile Jake had also caught another two perch, a small brown trout and had also hooked another two brown trout that had thrown the hooks but alas the arctic char were not playing ball again.

Another nice perch for Jake.

Tell your cousins that Jake will be back for them!

Looks like another, perhaps longer visit will be on the cards soon. I know what Jake will be targeting, I on the other hand may take some "heavier" lure gear and throw some larger soft plastics to try and tempt out a bigger perch!

Tight lines, Hutch.