All of last week I'd been sitting looking at the weekend forecast with my
mood shifting between dread and disgust. Two work colleagues had been due to
come out with me for a while, but I'd had to cancel twice because of yukky
forecasts. Saturday was cancelled for a third time.
Settling down to the thought of a fishing free weekend with as much
enthusiasm as a muderer awaiting the gallows I accepted my fate. All of a
sudden....... on Saturday afternoon I checked the forecast again for the
following day to find it had improved a bit and was now in the "do-able"
category. No mad fishing buddies could be located, so it was to be a solo
trip.
One of the main bonuses for me about having the Warrior 165 is that I can
launch and recover it single handed in all but the worst weather. This means I
can take a mad notion at a moment's notice and fly solo if required :-)... The
drive up to Sunart was extremely pleasant. There is something fairly civilised
about the first Sunday ferry not being until 8.45am - i don't need to leave the
house until seven o'clock for starters.
I launched easily enough and headed for my first mark wuite near to
Resipole and in 210 feet of water. The doggie bites came thick and fast to all
three rods and it seemed they preferred mackerel to squid. No spurries here
though. I lasted here about two and a half hours in glorious weather before
upping anchor and moving about a mile to my old faithful "Goldie's hole". This
is not in fact a hole - it has no features at all, just a muddy bed 240ft below
the surface where I have been lucky in the past.
Got the rods down and again the doggies were in plague proportions - I had
two treble shots and quite a few doubles. I got one spur about 10lb which
managed to shake the hook on the surface. This is a fairly rare occurrence for
the circle hooks that I use.
Around three o'clock and in really shitty weather I
got the unmistakable banging of a decent spurrie bite. Right away it was clear
that this was a decent fish and it gave a good scrap on the way up as it also
managed to get wrapped around my other two lines. I struggled to get it into the
net and was relieved when I swung it inboard. Beautifully marked fat female that
measured 113cm long and 40cm around. It weighed in at 15lb 2oz. Fish was quickly
back in the water and I returned to the mundane doggy fishing.
Happy Days!
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Regards
Gordon
