Skate fishing on Reel Deal

Went up to Craobh Haven with Stu & Willie on Fri night and stayed over on Reel Deal. Set off 7am on Saturday morning after Willie wound in my wee rod with the sabikis and tiny bits of raggie - and diddled me out of a beautiful wee Long Spined Sea Scorpion, and started with a fruitless search for coalies for bait. never saw a single mackie either. Got to a mark near Crinan and got the skate rods down. Also had wee rods down as I was hoping to add conger, BMD or cuckoo ray to the species list.

Fishing was fairly constant throughout the day and we ended up with seven skate to the boat at 21, 30, 90, 103, 111, 150 & a big mama for GG at 204lbs :-) Four had previously been tagged, so their details were recorded and submitted to the SSTP.

Willie - the reel broken deal.....smashing gear all over the world

Got an email back from Lewis Cowie to tell me that Big Mama was originally tagged by Ian Burrett in Nov 2011 and measured then at 197lbs. She had been at large for 591 days between originally being tagged and coming aboard the gin palace for a wee visit.

Stuart and I managed two BMDs each which takes me up to 23 boat species for 2013.

We got back completely knackered after all that lot. The forecast from HM Coastguard was for Force 8 gales on Sunday so we beat the retreat down the road on Saturday night.