An extraordinary week of fishing. Part 7 : A bit of perspective.

After heading up to the caravan on Sat at about 6pm, meeting our mate Martin Allison and catching up with him whilst grabbing something to eat we headed out again for a few hours. We decided to go down to West Tarbet and began exploring the rocks to the south of the bay. We were hoping for more wrasse but as light faded so did our chances of catching any and with a distinct lack of bites close in we switched our attention and tactics to pollock instead. Jake was first catch one.

Lunker City Ribster proving very effective as Jake lands the target species.

Ross and I were not getting any takes though and I decided to fish a 6" red Gulp! Nightcrawler on the bottom and after a bit of patience and a few little twitches I had a rattle from something but I missed it. Repeated casts back to the same area failed to produce any further bites.With action grinding to a halt we decided to move and I went and had a look for a new spot that was accessible. I found one nearby and after a bit of clambering around on the rocks we were soon fishing again. With very little action from pollock again Ross did his mountain goat impersonation and started exploring and I decided to try fishing close to the bottom again with the Gulp! Nightcrawler. I was just saying to Jake that I'd not had much success with them when I felt a couple of taps as I twitched it over a rocky patch. On the third tap I struck and felt the weight of a decent fish. Jake thought I was joking and had maybe picked up a few blades of kelp until I got the fish about half way in and it decided it didn't want to be caught. My Power Pro started screaming off the spool and I raised the rod up to try and keep it away from the shelf below us. As soon as it stopped taking line I cranked it hard and bullied it up to the surface. Landing it would be tricky from our elevated position but there was a platform lower down to our right that the occasional wave was washing over so I steered the fish around to that and on the second attempt we had it on the rocks next to us. A nice fish and we both had a guess at its weight. To see who got closest we got the scales and a bag ready and whilst we did this the fish flapped a few times and managed to get into a very deep kelp filled rockpool behind us! I thought it was lost but luckily it was still a bit tired and Jake managed to quickly reach in and lift it out again. Much to my surprise I managed to guess its weight exactly right. Normally I'm not so good at estimating weights but I guess I'm improving. For a laugh we decided to do an "arms length = huge fish" shot which I personally think look pretty ridiculous. Mind you not as ridiculous as some of the claims people make about the weight of the fish in them!

Looks massive. Can you guess the correct weight! Correct answer is at the bottom.

By this point the light was fading and we wanted to get to the pub for a well earned pint. It turned out to be a few as when we arrived we met a few fellow The Lure Forum and World Sea Fishing members and had a good chat about what everyone had been up to and also about fishing ultra light and species hunting. Rather drunk we headed back to the caravan and had a few more drinks before Martin returned from bassing in the early hours of the morning. After another drink and finding out how he'd fared we went to bed as we had an early start in the morning with a boat trip booked to do even more species hunting.

Tight lines, Hutch.

Highlight below to reveal the weight of my pollock:
4lb 8oz

An extraordinary week of fishing. Part 6: Portpatrick LRF and Port Logan rock hopping.

Last Saturday the three of us headed down to the Mull of Galloway to continue our week of fishing with a spot of harbour LRF, a spot of rock hopping and also a boat based species hunt. Three and a half hours later, after stopping at the Glasgow Angling Centre to get some tackle rigs for our boat trip, we arrived at our first mark, Portpatrick harbour. It was RNLI lifeboat day and the harbour was very busy with lots of people enjoying the warm weather and entertainments. Avoiding the hordes of wetsuited kids flinging themselves into the harbour we tackled up and started to fish. Scott went to the end of the harbour wall, Ross positioned himself at the foot of some steps and I fished a gap between a pontoon and the harbour wall. I rigged up a 1.8g #10 Decoy Rocket jighead with a small pink Power Isome. I cast out next to the pontoon and the lure was instantly seized by a little coalfish. I seem to be magnetically attracted to coalfish and it was quickly landed and released. A few more casts around the pontoon resulted in a couple more coalfish so I switched my attention to the harbour wall. Scott meanwhile had already started catching a string of different mini species.

Scott's first fish of the day, a long spined sea scorpion.

Followed quickly by a few rock gobies.

Scott and Ross were both fishing tiny sections of Power Isome on #14 hooks and split shot setups. Scott caught a few more long spined sea scorpions and rock gobies and then started catching poor cod higher up in the water column. Ross was busy concentrating on the bottom of the steps and was getting a lot of attention from blennies. I too was enjoying a bit of a blenny bashing and lost count of how many I had! Scott quickly caught one, his 250th he would later discover, then moved round the harbour to a sandy bay to hunt for flatfish so I moved to where he had been getting the poor cod. Ross and Scott were both definitely getting more bites on the smaller hooks. I joined them and attached #16 hook to nylon to the eye of my jighead. This was rigged with a little section of power Isome whilst the jighead had a red Gulp 1" fry. As soon as I had dropped it down I was getting little bites and quickly hooked the culprit all be it on the jighead!

A poor cod. My 20th species on lures this year!

I caught and released a few more and also picked up a couple of mini pollock. Ross meanwhile had seen a tiny fish and was absolutely intent on catching it. Some time later he managed it, a small sand goby on a #20 hook and split shot rig. I moved over to where Scott was and he had been catching sand gobies too. I joined in and quickly had one too!

One of Scott's many sand gobies.

I get in on the act with a specimen sand goby.

We carried on around the rock that form the northern side of the harbour mouth, but apart from a long spined sea scorpion for Ross the bites dried up and there was not much action. We then decided to head south to Port Logan to fish off the rocks at the back of the harbour. Deeper water and heavier ground meant that we switched to our standard pollock and wrasse gear. I rigged up a Lunker City Ribster on a 10.5g #2/0 Lunker City Football jighead and began to fish around the rock fingers and gullies. Ten minutes later I had a take and felt the unmistakable pull of a pollock. The fish ran towards me and tried to dive under a ledge, luckily I managed to bully it up over it and a nice 2lb pollock was landed!

Pollock love Ribsters!

I began to work my way over the rocks with Scott and Ross also starting to move around exploring the area. I found a deep gully and cast out into it and began working the Ribster down the gully. After a couple of casts I saw a small pollock chasing the lure only to turn away at the last minute. I dropped the lure straight down and began jigging it a bit in the hope of attracting the fish back. I felt a couple of pecks at the lure then a better bite, then everything went solid as the fish took my lure under the ledge! Annoyingly I lost the lure to the fish so on went another Ribster. Again I dropped it straight down and the fish was still interested, a couple of taps then an almighty bite. I struck but didn't hook up and lifted the lure to find the tail section missing! This could only be one thing, wrasse! I called Scott over and as he made his way I hooked and lost another fish. Scott arrived to show me how it was done and no sooner had he dropped his lure down he was getting interest. I carried on trying to winkle out a wrasse. Suddenly Scott's rod arched over and began bucking about. Scott found this very amusing and in a fit of laughter quickly landed a nice little ballan which had fought well above its weight!

This small ballan put up quite a fight after aggressively taking Scott's watermelon Ribster.

Scott then moved off to explore some other areas, whilst I carried on trying for the wrasse at my feet. I sacrificed a couple more Ribsters to the wrasse who bit them clean in half without getting hooked, before I got fed up of them abusing my precious Ribsters and changed over to a Keitech Sexy Impact mounted on a 7g AGM Football jighead. I dropped it down and tapped it on the sea bed, a couple of pecks then bang! Fish on! With the drag locked up the fish bent the rod right over as it made a powerful dive for the kelp. I held on and lifted into the fish, it made a couple more lunges and then came to the surface. I managed to land it with the help of a wave and there lay my prize! I was extremely pleased as wrasse on lures is still quite an exotic experience for me.

Keitech Sexy Impact does the damage.

At 36cm and 2lb this beat my previous PB ballan wrasse by 1cm and a few ounces.

Wrasse are beautiful fish and the variation in colouration and markings is mind boggling. Lovely eyes too!

I thanked the fish for being such a good sport and then carefully released it, pleased when it disappeared at top speed back down into the kelp below. With time up I made my way back over the rocks to see what Ross and Scott had been up to. Both had been getting bites with a wrasse destroying a couple of Scott's lures but avoiding capture and Ross had hooked and lost a small pollock. My wrasse however was to be the final fish from Port Logan and with that we made our way to the Clashwhannon caravan site where we would be spending the night.

Tight lines, Schogsky.

An extraordinary week of fishing. Part 5 : Hoping for a bonus species?

With Jake and I having already helped Ross add a few new species to his tally this year we decided to head down to a few marks in East Lothian in the hope that something unusual may turn up. First off we headed to Yellowcraig beach to explore the rockpools and gullies there at low water. I have in the past seen 15 spined sticklebacks there and some of the rockpools are very big and very deep so the chance of something strange turning up is always a possibility. Upon arrival Jake headed to fish some of the gullies that the sea was flooding into and Ross and I focused on the Rockpools. It wasn't long before the usual suspects started appearing, namely blennies and long spined sea scorpions, and greedily grabbed the Power Isome chunks we lowered into their lairs. 

No two sea scorpions are alike and they are so photogenic!

After working our way along the rocks and then back again, with lots of fish but no nice bonus catches, we met up with Jake who had also caught a few long spined sea scorpions and a nice pollock from the kelp filled gullies.

Fiesty little pollock. Good fun on LRF gear.

We had a final poke around in some large rockpools and caught a few more fish. Ross spotted a tiny fish and was determined to catch it just in case it was one of the smaller goby species or something else unexpected. After failing to hook it a few times on a #14 hook I gave him a #20 and he soon hooked the smallest long spined sea scorpion I have ever seen!

Nothing escapes the #20 hooks!

A close up for those with poor eyesight!

Next we headed to the beautiful Seacliff beach. Jake didn't think it was a great choice for species hunting but previous trips here cod fishing made me think it had potential and I was happy to take the blame should the fishing be poor. The rocks at the western end of the beach are home to the smallest working harbour in the U.K.

Room for one or two small boats only.

 
We started fishing in it when we got down there and were soon pulling out loads of small fish. Long spined sea scorpions, blennies, coalfish to start with and then Jake caught a small codling.

Choice of mark proving to be a good one as Jake gets the 4th species out of the tiny harbour and adds a new species to his 2012 tally in the process.

I then popped over the back and had a quick go down the sides of the gully that's cut into the rock that leads up to the harbour. There were two other anglers there and I got chatting to them both and they were very interested in my ultra light setup. As the tide began to come up over the rocks we were on we went back up to the harbour. Jake and Ross had been happily fishing away catching plenty of small fish and the two anglers stayed for a while and chatted to us. The action seemed to slow down a bit as the harbour filled up and the pressure was on when one of the intrigued anglers told me he wanted to see me catch something. I needn't have worried though. Right on cue I had a cracking bite and my rod tip arched over. I though it was a flatfish as my lure had been on the bottom but as a brought it up to the surface I could see the huge mouth of a sea scorpion appear. Quickly hoisting it up I realised it was a short spined variation. Only my third ever and a new PB.

18cm long and 3.85oz of swimming mouth.

After this I had a go just out side the harbour mouth over the now submerged gully with an Ecogear Aqua Bream Prawn. The view to the west is quite spectacular.

The ruins of Tantallon Castle sit atop the cliffs to the west of Seacliff.

It wasn't long before I was getting small bites and after getting a few taps soon landed one of the culprits, a small coalfish which was quickly returned and followed by a better fish which I knew was a pollock after it performed a trademark power dive even if it was only a small one.

Great fun on the ultra light Diaflash rod.

With the tide about to trap us on the rock we made our escape. After a few casts from the rocks onto the sandy beach trying our luck for turbot but with no success we headed off. We popped into North Berwick on our way back up the coast for a quick hour in the harbour there as we've not really fished it as much as maybe we should and again I felt it may throw up a surprise or two. Apart from a few ever obliging blennies,coalfish and long spined sea scorpions though the only other fish we caught was a flounder which followed my lure up and grabbed it very aggressively.

Doubt the predatory nature and powerful swimming abilty of this species?
Fish for them with lures in clear water to see their capabilities!

That was the last fish of an enjoyable day. No real surprises apart from the codling and the short spined sea scorpion and Ross whilst not getting any surprise species seemed to be very happy catching the tiny long spined sea scorpion!

Tight lines, Hutch.