Urban trout and LRF sea trout

April 1st heralded the start of trout season in Edinburgh and as far as I was concerned it couldn't come soon enough. On day one I fired down to the river armed with my trusty Ecogear Pocket in kit and although it is meant for Mebaru (Japanese Rockfish) the lures are truly Trout dynamite.The joke however was on me as I managed to hook and lose 2 fish, my trout skills were a bit rusty!

I was really pleased to see the trout though and planned to go back the next day. It rained overnight and the river became too high to fish.

After a couple of days the river came good and I was straight back out again and over the course of two short sessions I managed five trout with the biggest going 25cm. The fish were taken on a couple of different lures mainly Ecogear Grass Minnow SS and Ecogear Power Shirasu, mounted on a #12 -1.5 gram jighead.

OK, so the fish were not huge but the pleasure I get from being able to pop down the river after work and street fish for wild brown trout can be measured in buckets!

The first trout of 2014!

The biggest urban trout so far this year...

As the weekend rolled up my mate Callum Conner got in touch to see if I fancied hitting the coast for a spot of Light Rock Fishing, the answer to that was a big fat YES! Callum had got some serious cabin fever, despite guiding clients to some fantastic catches he hadn't been able to wet a line for an age (being a conscientious guide he never fishes when he is with his clients!).

We headed down the coast from town and we were both excited at the prospect of catching something other than the salmonoid species that had been filling our time.

First port of call and we arrived to find it pretty gusty. I went with a dropshot rig and gulp sandworm as the lure. I thought we may have an outside chance of a flounder but I was really expecting coalfish. After about 10 minutes I felt a some sharp plucking at the lure as I was slowly retrieving. That sort of bite meant one thing only, flounder and I struck into a hand sized flattie.

We quickly landed it and after a couple of pics released the fish, I was over the moon as it was the first flounder of the year.

This is the earliest harbour flounder I have had and another 2014 first...

We tried for a bit longer but nothing else was forthcoming.

We bounced further down the coast but our usual marks were devoid of fish and we tried lots of methods to no avail. I decided to push a bit further south to the next harbour again hoping for coalies. When we arrived I still had my coalie rig on, which is really just a bastardised dropshot rig only in place of a weight I rigged a small metal jig. This allows me to fish tandem lures and I rigged an Ecogear Aqua strawtail as a teaser on the dropshot hook.

After only a couple of casts I hooked into a small fish and thinking it was a coalie I quickly reeled it in. As the fish came closer I suddenly realised it was a small sea trout!

Instead of the normal coalies the harbour was teeming with these guys...

Callum displays his first sea trout of the session...

Ritchie displays his first ever sea trout...

Callum captured the biggest fish, I love the black fringe to the trouts tail

So much fun on our LRF gear.

We were not expecting that at all, nor were we expecting the decidedly daft fishing that happened afterwards! We had stumbled across what can only be described as a hoard of ravenous sea trout and we spent the last few hours catching trout after trout from the harbour. Ritchie also popped down and managed to bag his first sea trout as well as about a dozen others.
Such wonderful irony to be chasing brownies all week then head out for sea species only to only to end up catching trout in the sea.

In the end it went from a hard day to a crazy red letter day with Callum catching the biggest fish and it's these sessions, filled with mates and laughter and lots of fish that really live long in the memory.

Tackle used -

Rod: GraphiteLeader Corto EX 7'9" 0.5-8gram Tubular tipped.

Reel: Shimano Technium 3000

Line: Pontoon Exteer braid PE. 1

Leader: 6lb Greylon Fluorocarbon

I have also managed to do a compilation of the week's fishing on film, something I hope to be able to bring to the blog on a regular basis. Although I am finding it hard to balance taking stills and video footage. Rather annoyingly the editing software got the best of me on this one, there is a weird flickering at one point but it does go away! Also there are some random black and white footage that the editing software added of its own accord. Either way I hope you enjoy the footage.

Thanks for reading and watching!
Tight Lines
Jake