Mulling it over...

I  managed to get out with Callum and  Lenny from Scotia fishing who fancied a change from their freshwater fishing so we headed down to the Mull of Galloway. The task was to find wrasse and preferably all 5 species to get the grand slam, this was something that Callum had accomplished a couple of years ago and I was keen to emulate his achievement!

After a bit of a walk and a scramble we tackled up with our LRF gear. Small hooks were the order of the day and I rigged a #18 hook to nylon NZ dropper style on my #8 hook dropshot rig, gulp sandworm was the lure of choice. Almost straight away we were getting bites and I quickly landed a corkwing first then a succession of rock cook  wrasse, which were just stunning wee creatures with incredible electric neon colours. I also managed a small goldsinny wrasse amongst the rock cook and corkwing onslaught.

First Corkwing of 2014

Rock Cook, what a fantastic wee fish!

First Goldsinny Wrasse of 2014

Lenny was the only one of us that managed a ballan from this mark which nailed a Lunker city ribster and it was his first on a lure  so he was pretty pleased. Callum meanwhile had been searching the shoreline hoping for bigger wrasse but despite a couple of tentative bites and a couple of pollack and coalies none were to be found.

We decided to try and find a mark that was out of the now rather strong wind and I suggested a mark I had fished previously which should have had the wind at our backs.

We climbed back up to the motor and then headed of to the new mark a few miles away. Typically enough when we arrived at the new mark it was even more windy and it had also switched around and was blowing strongly on shore. The tide was also high which made getting access to fish these particular gullies very tricky indeed!

I tackled up my LRF gear with a dropshot rig and good old Gulp sandworm was rigged on the hook, then cast up the gully and slowly twitched back. The wind made things really difficult but after about 20 minutes I managed to hook into a decent wrasse which put up a great scrap before being landed. I popped the fish in a rock pool and readied my camera deciding to get a quick photo before it was unhooked. I decided to move the fish over the pool so I could get a decent shot of it in my hands and with the fish in one hand and my rod in the other disaster struck!

The fish gave a kick and fell back into the rock pool taking the tip of my rod with it with an almighty crack of expensive carbon fibre!

Rod wrecker!

The Graphiteleader Corto EX lived up to its name and is now an EX rod.

That kind of finished the fishing for me and we gave it another 45mins trying with heavier gear but with no further action we made the long route home.

Even with the death of my rod it was still a great session and thoroughly satisfying to get 4 wrasse species and my first British rockcooks.

Goodbye sweet corto and thanks for all the fish!

Tight Lines

Jake