XLNT Sensory Perception.

Following on from my last foray with my new rod I just had to get back and try it again! It was to be a short afternoon session and for once everything went to plan with the sea state calm, a slight offshore wind and a flooding tide combining to make it perfect. When I arrived at the mark I also had the bonus of having it completely to myself and as it is a very popular mark it was pretty unusual! I tackled up the Savage Gear Dropshot XLNT with my Shimano Aernos 3000 reel, 20lb sunline momentum, 15lb fluro leader and on the business end a 4.5" Slug go mounted on a 10.5g football jighead. I began to cast the lure, allowing it to sink slowly through the water column and when I felt it hit bottom I would jig it up with a couple of sharp twitches all before allowing it to fall back again.  The retrieve as such is dead slow all the time feeling the lure bouncing over rocks and weed, the rod is so sensitive that you really start to get a feel for the contours and layout of the sea bed. Fishing these methods with this rod is brilliantly intense and I tend to fall in to a world of concentration mentally mapping the seabed and feeling the lure working in the water. I swear you can feel the fish swim by before they turn and inhale the tender Slug go! Sure enough it didn't take long to get my first hit and again I could sense the fish gently nudge the lure before it engulfed it. I set the hooks and enjoyed a spirited fight before landing another fine bass of 45cm which after a photo was quickly released.

Another XLNT Bass

The soft tip really allows the fish to suck the lure in with minimal effort and every take was really positive. Each of the many bass I caught that afternoon had the lure deep inside their mouths and I am convinced that such positive engulfing of the lure is partly down to the soft tip. It wasn't all fishing the slug go with this rod though and when I saw a shoal of Bass smashing baitfish on the surface I quickly swapped over to a silver Toby to get the required distance to hit the shoal. Sure enough the rod effortlessly cast the metal lure beyond the feeding fish and a quick retrieve had it pass above their shoal where upon it was nailed by another feisty bass which was quickly landed before being photographed and released.

It's not just slugs with me, Tobys also have their place!

I followed it up with a couple more before the shoal moved off out of range. The few hours I was fishing were really productive and brilliantly intense falling into an almost zen like trance when retrieving, punctuated by the electric suddenness of bites and the adrenaline fuelled moments of the fight.

A calm November afternoon, if only it was always this good!

All the time the weather remained calm and mild and as the light began to dim I decided to call it a day and headed back to the car thoroughly satisfied with the amount of fish landed. The main aim of the day was working the new rod though and again it was a real joy to use and I really wouldn't have had as much success without its XLNT sensory perception!

Tight lines, Schogsky.

Metal Rocks!

Yesterday, after a night of being shouted at by my nine month old daughter Eva, I found myself in the car at 7am clutching a mug of tea with one thought on my mind, bass! After scraping the ice off the windscreen I had another thought on my mind, gloves, or rather my inability to locate a pair when I needed them. Heaters on full I headed down the A1 blasting myself awake with some nice, loud Fishbone and by the time I arrived at the mark my tiredness had been overtaken by the anxious excitement I always feel before I fish. I loaded my self up with my bass gear and my LRF gear and forgoing an extra jacket headed down to the mark.

It was cold but calm with a slight offshore wind and I went straight for my go to lure, a Lunker City Ribster in Arkansas Shiner mounted on a 10.5g #2/0 Football jighead. I began working the lure around the reef, bouncing  it along the sea bed as well as jigging and twitching it through open water. After about 45 minutes I swapped over to my LRF kit and rigged up a Lunker City Swimmin' Ribster on a 3g #2/0 jighead, to see if the added vibration of the paddle tail would illicit a response. I spent about half an hour working the lure through the current, allowing it to sink nose down waggling its tail before jigging it back up again to repeat the process, I had a couple of tentative bumps but nothing I could actually strike into. I then decided to try at range with a 30g Bombarda with an eight foot trace, rigged with a tiny pearl redgill. This was launched out a considerable distance then really slowly retrieved allowing the little weightless eel to flutter provocatively in the tide. I worked this set up for a while before I switched over to a silver Toby to see if some flash would work on the bass. Sure enough as I worked the lure back in the surface layers with a medium retrieve a bass hit the lure hard and everything went solid. The fish fought well for its size and kited about a bit as well as doing the usual bass surface splashing before it was landed! I was pleased with this bass as it had been frankly quite hard work to catch, especially as all my usual methods weren't doing the job.

Old school lures still rock!

A quick picture and I slipped the 41cm of silver back to the sea. I noticed that when it was landed it coughed up a tiny sandeeel of about 1" which would be perfectly matched by a Gulp! 1" Minnow.  I quickly reached into the rod holdall to grab the LRF gear in order to cash in on the feeding bass. It was at this point that disaster struck, in my haste to get the rod I had forgotten that it still had a lure attached and as I lifted it quickly out the hook found a juice box in the bag. I watched in a sort of dumb horror as the tip folded double then with a sad little crack parted company with the rest of the rod.

Bugger!

After 5 minutes of mourning I packed up and headed back as I was keen to order another tip section from Ben at Art of Fishing, which I hope will arrive soon as I am keen to get back to some LRF bass!

Tight lines, Schogsky.

Corkwing corner revisited. Scottish record almost beaten!

With the day free on Sat Jake and I headed down to Torness Power Station to fish the inlet side. When we arrived the tide was fully out and being a big spring we had access to a lot of rockpools and gullies that are normally covered. I had a look around some rockpools whilst Jake went further down and explored a kelpy area. We made our way along to the power station but unusually there was no sign of any fish. None were found in the long gully where we've caught a lot of sea scorpions in the past and no sign of any leopard spotted gobies in the deep water between the boulders where they've been caught in the past. We climbed down to the western side of the outflow and started fishing down the side of the kelp covered drop off with drop shot rigs. Jake got snagged though and whilst he tied on a new rig I fished in front of a nice overhang. After a short time a coalfish appeared but didn't seem too interested in my Gulp! Sandworm. Then a sea scorpion popped out and gobbled my lure. I thought it was well hooked as none of the lure was visible but as I lifted it up it promptly spat the lure out and swam off back into the crack. Jake then cast out away from the drop off and as he worked his lure back it was taken by a mackerel which was quickly landed and dispatched so Jake could have it for his dinner.

Drop shotting proving to be very versatile.

I put a 7g silver Toby on and soon had a few bumps from mackerel at range but didn't get any hook ups. We then went to the opposite side and after searching the area with my Toby I soon located the mackerel shoal fairly close in and soon caught four mackerel. Two larger ones were quickly dispatched so I too could have mackerel for my dinner and the other two smaller ones were shaken off the hook with minimal contact to avoid damaging their sensitive skin. Jake caught a second mackerel so with our dinners sorted we stopped targeting them despite them being great fun on LRF gear.

If only they grew a bit bigger!

Our friend Nick Aitken has caught a couple of Yarrell's blennies from the inlet area so before the tide flooded over it Jake decided to see if he could get one. This meant getting a bit wet though but a species hunter has got to do what a species hunter has got to do!

Jake gets a quick shower whilst trying to get a new species down in the corner.

No reward for his soaking though so we headed up onto the gantry that crosses the inlet to try for corkwing wrasse as the tide flooded over the kelp covered shelf we had been standing on earlier. Jake was in first when he caught a small coalfish.

This greedy little coalfish swallowed the whole section of Gulp! Sandworm.

Shortly after returning the coalfish Jake caught his first specimen corkwing wrasse of the day. We thought it may have been a small ballan wrasse at first due to it's colouration but closer examination confirmed it as a corkwing wrasse.

The dark spots behind the eye and on the root of the tail confirms this is a female corkwing wrasse.

A big one too! Measuring 22cm and weighing 171g it's just 5g short of beating the current Scottish record!

I was finding fishing from the gantry quite uncomfortable so I climbed down onto the rocks below to fish from there. We were both quite excited about the prospect of further specimen corkwings but the action stopped completely for a while and whilst Jake persisted in his quest for a Scottish record corkwing wrasse I headed over to the sea defence boulders to try for a leopard spotted goby before the area was covered by the tide. As I clambered over there I looked up to see Jake's rod nodding away and he was soon lifting up a small pollock.

The 4th species of the session.

I began exploring in between the boulders and whilst there was no sign of any gobies I caught a blenny, my first for a while.

This blenny was almost black when I caught it. 30 seconds later it's completely changed colour.

Then as I dropped my Isome down into a gap I spotted a small fish with the unmistakable electric blue marking of a leopard spotted goby. I quickly changed from a drop shot rig to a #16 hook and some split shot and dropped a tiny section of pink Power Isome down into the hole. My plan was scuppered however when a big blenny appeared and scared it off, before turning his nose up at my offering and disappearing again. At this point Jake called down to tell me he had caught another corkwing wrasse so I headed back up to the gantry again. The wrasse seemed to be there again and after a few bites we both caught another corkwing each.

No question about the fact this is Jake's second corkwing wrasse due to its vivid markings.

I get in on the act with my first corkwing wrasse from the inlet area.

Who said punk was dead?

Jake's third corkwing of the session. A much darker fish.

Just when we thought we would see an increase in catches though yet again the action stopped for a while so I headed to try for a Yarrell's blenny from the gantry above where Jake had tried earlier. Holding my lure above the bottom I soon had a few bites and hooked a fish. Quite excited, I called along to Jake but as I hoisted the fish up I could see it wasn't my first ever Yarrell's blenny. A greedy little long spined sea scorpion was the culprit. I tried for a while longer but didn't get any more bites so I headed back along to where Jake was and he hadn't had any further action either so we called it a day, headed back to the car and drove back up the A1 to Edinburgh. When I got home I popped out and got a few ingredients and Lillian and I had the mackerel for our dinner.

Thai Spicy Mackerel Salad - Yum Pla Too. Yum indeed!

Nice varied session with six species caught and a seventh spotted. I still think the area has even more potential. Further time will be spent exploring it soon and I think it's only a matter of time before a record breaking corkwing is caught!

Tight lines, Hutch.