Carlingwalk Loch suprise.

On Wed I had a job doing a removal in Castle Douglas so needless to say I built in a bit of time to visit Carlingwalk Loch! The forecast was for heavy persistent rain across Dumfries and Galloway, however when I arrived at the loch after loading the van it was warm and sunny! I only had an hour to fish which meant I couldn't really work my way round the loch. 

I started fishing close to the van where there was a lot of lily pads and weed beds. I wanted to try one of the Croatian bumble lures as we had got hold of a couple and they are perfect for this type of weedy swim. I went with the popper type and cast it out into the weedy growth. The action on the lure was good and it spat water and walked the dog when i gave it little twitches. It was also surprisingly weedless and meant I could work it through lilly pads and over surface weed beds. No bites were forthcoming though so I swapped over to a Savage Gear Soft 4Play in Fungus Roach. I hopped around reedy bays working the lure through the clear water but to no avail. 

With about 15 mins to go until I had to leave I found myself in a little bay. I had waded out till i was knee deep and suddenly noticed a large shoal of little perch milling about my legs! Not one to miss a opportunity I waded back to get my LRF kit and mounted a small 1" tail section of pink Isome on a 1.8g #10 Decoy Rocket jighead. Determined to beat the blank I waded out again and flicked the Isome out beyond the shoal. As I began to retrieve suddenly everything went solid and the little rod arched over, then bounced wildly as the fish gave a massive head shake and bolted! Line screamed off the reel as the fish stayed deep and tore off out the bay. If this was a perch it was a record breaker, if it was a pike I would have to be very lucky indeed to land it as I had no wire trace on! I gently turned the fish and caught sight of a big mottled tail as it made another run, Pike! Oh dear I thought as the pike made another run stripping line off the reel, this cant end well! Every second of the fight I kept picturing the tiny hook bending straight or the pike biting through the 6lb leader. Every time I got the fish close it would scream off at an incredible speed stripping line and pulling my arm off! Eventually and with disbelief I managed to beach a wonderfully fat 7lb fish! The hook was in its scissors and promptly dropped out as I lifted the fish to admire it!

My biggest pike of 2012 so far.

Recovering in some shallow water.

My Corto/Technium LRF combo had dealt magnificently with the fight and I know it would handle a bigger fish as I had to play this one very lightly indeed. What a turn up as I was honestly just trying to catch a little 3" perch and ended up with a beautiful Carlingwalk Loch pike. The fish recovered well from the fight and after a couple of pics she swam strongly away, although what she was doing preying on tiny worms is beyond me. With that it was time to head back to Edinburgh and finish the job, but I was sure glad to beat the blank on work time with a Carlingwalk Loch suprise!

Tight lines, Schogsky.

Mini session for mini species.

Jake and I headed down to Dunbar harbour for a few hours yesterday. We didn't realise that it was RNLI day and the new harbour was packed with people enjoyiing the nice weather, watching the entertainment, listening to live music whilst enjoying the food on offer as well as a few beers. We started the session in the old harbour and again I was after sand gobies. I'm sure at one point I spotted a few but they didn't have a chance with little shoals of small coafish quickly appearing and attacking my small section of Power Isome. I was fishing this on a #18 Kasaman Animal hook with a single 0.8g split shot a few inches above it. I've been using this setup a lot recently as I find the hook up rate with the smaller species is far higher. Jake was fishing a red Berkley 1" Fish Fry on a 1.8g #10 Decoy Rocket. It wasn't long before we were both catching small coalfish and the odd blenny that came out of the weed on the harbour wall to get in on the action.

The harbour is full of these at the moment and they are growing quickly.

Blennies now face competition for food.

After a while we moved to the outside of the harbour to explore the rockpools in the hope that something odd may turn up. The tide was covering them fairly quickly though and we didn't get long. I managed a couple of tiny long spined sea scorpions before the tide forced us off the reef.

Small hooks and split shot ensure even the smallest target can be caught.

Next we headed into the new harbour and had a quick drop down the side at "blenny corner". The residents were quite obliging and we were soon hoisting them up much to the amusement of passing spectators, particularly the children.

We then headed over to the area where Jake had caught some launce earlier in the week but a thick soup of coalfish meant the chances of hooking anything else quite slim! A steady stream of small coalfish were shown to passing kids and we also tried fishing the bottom for flounders and whilst we both had a bite or two I think it was just the coalfish!

Finally just before we left we had a quick go over the back of the harbour from the barracks. I switched over to a 2.3g #8 Shirasu jighead and half a pink large Power Isome. Casting this out and working it back very slowly with a lot of small twitches I hooked a small pollock on my third cast and followed this up with another two.

Biggest fish of the day!

Jake meanwhile had been trying to tempt a wrasse in some deeper water but his only reward was another coalfish.

A relaxing, fun session still produced 4 species and about 40 fish. It was also great to see the harbour so busy with everyone having a great day and hopefully the RNLI raised a lot of money in the process.

Tight lines, Hutch.

Every cloud...

With Jake catching a few launce in Dunbar harbour on Tuesday and the weather clearing up yesterday after all the rain the day before, we headed down there again after doing a bit of work yesterday afternoon. As well as hopefully getting a crack at a launce or two for my species tally I also wanted an opportunity to continue my ongoing search for a sand goby and a viviparous blenny from the harbour as I know they are in there having seen them caught from it in the last year. 

This plan was soon scuppered however as when we arrived at about 14:00 we found the harbour looked like the outflow from Willy Wonka's chocolate factory! We decided to head further down the A1 to another outflow to try our new Lunker City Ribster lures on the resident bass population. It wasn't long before Jake established that the bass liked them and then that the bass were very keen on them!

Irribsistible!

This greedy bass swallowed the entire lure.

I then caught one too, again on a Ribster. Jake caught a couple more before I spotted the swine trying to secretly smear some scent on his lure. His little bottle of Captain Mike's Shrimp scent was soon confiscated by me and liberally applied to my lure too. Jake's a big fan of it and no sooner had I cast out my stinky lure than I had a bass on.

Thanks Captain Mike!

Ribbed for pleasure!

Coincidence or not, I may have to order some! The action died of a bit for a while although Jake did catch a few more fish. I tried out some new Daiwa Tournament D'Tail lures and had a knock or two but no more hook ups. Not the targets we originally had in mind but I suppose we can't complain too much. What is it they say about every cloud?

Tight lines, Hutch.