Friday 9 October 2015

Loch Dornie trip

Went up to loch Dornie with Edddie Wong for a couple of nights. We were targeting pollack

But the weather soon put paid to that

It  poured down relentlessly with high  winds so we restricted ourselves to fishing loch Dornie where we found thornbacks aplenty d big average size too,

Eddde started off with a thornie est 13lb we moved to another mark where  we were catching a  fish a  drop until the tide  eased. After  good nights sleep aided by a few beers we returned to the same mark  in  the morning.

 

Day  2

Back  at the same mark i immediately  got my best thornback of the  trip of about 12ld

With Eddiie catching a codling  of about 2lb whilst feathering for mackerel i caught another Thornback of about 10lb we decided to pack it and go home. So all in all a successful trip (apart for the rain)_ with plenty of double Thornies, Dogfish, Codling ,Whiting, Pollack and  mackerel It was worth the  with  trip ad we will be back
My best of the trip  12lb thornie
 
 
 

Sunday 9 August 2015

Yellow Isle results

1st J Soon with 11 fish for 463pts.
2nd N Wilson with 15 fish for 460pts.
3rd I Grant with 13 fish for 361pts.
4th S Wilson with 10 fish for 334pts.
5th J Wilson with 6 fish for 174pts.
6th R Edmund with 2 fish for 63pts.
7th F Spears with 1 fish for 35pts.

Longest fish N Wilson 46cms.
 
 


Saturday 25 July 2015

Trip to Loch Awe

A invitation to Loch Awe from friends found me fishing for trout and perch from a small pier using  size 6 hook, bubble float, 8lb line and a bunch  of worms, after  10 minutes i noticed my bubble float take a dive ,striking into the fish i soon realised i had hooked into a Pike. No way i was going to get this fish in as i had no wire trace on were my first thoughts. But after 10 minutes i still the fish on when i seen it first time and the hook was just in the corner of its mouth.
After another   5 minutes I  finally beached it. My line finally gave out but i managed  to grab its tail,
                                                                The fish weighed 22 pounds

Thursday 2 July 2015

SW Club Match Results

1st J Soons with 12 fish for 843pts .
2nd S Wason with 11 fish for 756pts.
3rd J Wilson with 6 fish for 396pts.
4th S Wilson with 3 fish for 225pts.
5th S Clark with 3 fish for 164pts.
6th I Grant with 2 fish for 117pts.
7th N Wilson with 1 fish for 60pts.

S Wilson longest fish 85cms.

9 members fished.
 
 

Gordon's antics

I had entered the Reel Sea Fishing summer species challenge online earlier in the year and the target is to tick off as many of the species on their list between March and September. I’ve already caught spurdog and thornback ray earlier this year, but had to catch them again and photograph within the timescales permitted.
The weather forecast was not really favourable for many venues from the boat this weekend, so I opted for my usual winter stomping ground of Loch Sunart – a banker venue for thornbacks and spurries………… or so I thought! My plan was simple. Get up very early and hitch the boat up, early Corran ferry, get out to my usual mark and bang out both species, and then head out further West to anchor up in deeper water and see if I could add a conger eel to my tally.
Rising at 4am, I was on the 6.30 ferry and had lines down near Resipole just over an hour later – and waited, and waited. No spurs at this mark, only LSDs munching my baits every drop. Deciding that a move was in order, I upped anchor and relocated to the world famous “Goldie’s hole” nearer Salen. Sadly, once again no spurs but plenty LSD and small whiting. I did manage a couple of Thornback rays though, so not a complete washout.
Around 1.30 I got the anchor up again and headed down past the fish farms to deeper water nearer to Laga bay. The exact point where I had previously caught a few congers now had three orange buoys from the fish farm on it, so I moved about 50 yards away and got the peg down in 380ft of water. The LSDs were in abundance here too. No matter how big the baits were, they still got wolfed. One other thornback followed, but no congers or spurries to be seen.
I fished two heavy rods (Daiwa TDXS1230 with Daiwa LD50 reels) and a lighter one with smaller baits (Daiwa Kenzaki 12-20 with Daiwa Saltist LD30 twin speed reel). My Loch Sunart standard traces are 150lb mono with luminous beads crimped hard up against an 8/0 size circle hook. I fish these either in a 2 up/1 down or a 3 down formation. The beads form the biting trace and keep the sharp spurrie teeth away from the mono.
After re-baiting several times with calamari squid and fresh mackerel, I settled back for a bit of a snooze as it had been a long day. I had just closed my eyes at around 3.55 when I heard a couple of clicks on the ratchet of the saltiest reel. “Luvverly Jubberly” thought I (mistake!). Here comes a nice conger or spurrie thought I (Mistake!). The rod doubled over in the holder with a very familiar nodding and 50lb braid started coming off the reel. A skate had taken my bait – and sods law meant that it was the lighter 12lb class rod!
I’ve had a fair few skate in my time, and it was soon obvious that this one was a decent size. An hour and five minutes of bent rod fun later, I finally managed to get it off of the bottom and a few turns of braid on the line. This was a decent fish and no mistake. My thoughts soon turned to what I would actually do with it when I got it to the surface as I was solo on the boat? I had gaffs out, return net at the ready and a T-bar disgorger, pliers and gloves all close at hand. I had previously managed to land and return a 177lb skate close by in similar circumstances, so knew the score. As the leader knot passed through the top eye of my very tired and well worked rod, I caught a glimpse of the giant white underside of the fish below the boat. Big skate!
As this female came to the surface an hour and forty minutes after first being hooked, I managed to get one gaff in and safely removed the hook. I got the other gaff in cleanly and then had a couple of goes at lifting the fish in. There comes a time when a man has to admit defeat – and this was it! There was no way this big girl was coming in. Even if I had got it on board, I would have had to get it back out again after measuring. No chance! A quick selfie pic – which no way showed the true scale of the fish (that gaff is two and a half feet long for comparison) – and it was time to say goodbye to my new girlfriend and let her return to the deep.
I got the boat cleaned up a bit and decided to return to an earlier mark in the hope of a spurrie, but failed miserably and got packed up around 7.30 after twelve hours afloat. This was not the end of my day though and after a quick call to my DRM (Domestic & Revenue Manageress) – or wife as she is sometimes known, I came up with plan B.
Plan B was to drive home via Loch Etive (and Norie’s chippy in Oban – great haggis supper) and see what conditions were like there. I arrived at Taynuilt bang on low water at 10.40pm as some other anglers were packing up on Kelly’s pier. I launched the boat around 11pm and made my way up the loch to where the first fish farm was and tied up to a buoy as it was now pitch black. I got all three rods down and fitted tip lights to aid with bite detection. After around forty minutes or so, I had landed and returned five small spurdogs. My original intention was to stay out for the full tide which would make recovering the boat fairly easy at 5.30am on Sunday morning, but it had been a long enough shift and I got the boat recovered around 1am without any hassle and was home just after 3.
Long shift, but job done. The RSF Summer Species Challenge hunt details can be found here if anyone else wants to enter;
 
 
 
 

 

Nice Perch and Smoothies for Martin

Not much salt in his water at the minute, but a wee bit just to keep his hand in.

Sunday 31 May 2015

Visit to the Coastguard & Lifeboat Station at Girvan

Despite a low attendance from club members the visit went ahead. First we visited the coastguard station. Where Alex took us through all the procedures and duties these guys undertake.
                                        The lifting equipment demo of an injured person from the cliffs


Then it was across the road to the lifeboat station where again we were taken through all the procedures and duties that these guys, who are all volunteers, undertake. An added bonus we were taken out in the lifeboat we were shown a man overboard procedure where one of the crew kindly jumped into the water twice! To show us how they go about getting a man back

All n all it was an excellent nigh t hopefully we do not need the assistance from these guys but it is comforting to know that they are there.
                                          Willie at the controls of the lifeboat with coxswain Gary
                                                                               Man overboard!
Safely back
Inside the lifeboat
 
 

Saturday 16 May 2015

Some freswater action

Stewart had a nice Salmon and a  Sea Trout during the week.

Martin managed to get his kayak afloat last weekend and had some Perch and Bream.
 

Wednesday 6 May 2015

Crinan Skate Trip

Willie and I headed to Crinan on Friday with Ticketty Boo! II with my friend Colin to take advantage of a weather window before the yucky weekend arrived. 

The day started and ended fairly quietly, but we twice had double skate hook ups and boated fish of 174, 180, 182, 186 and 201lb between us for a total of 923lb. This total is certainly a PB for my boat. We lost  another biggie and had a seventh fish spit the bait after a short run.
Tides were to be fairly small, but this didn't stop the 2.5lb leads from bouncing away a couple of times.Most successful bait was squid, which took four of the fish. All skate were measured and released.

The 201lb big girl puts Willie in pole position for the skate trophy this year. With my very last drop on the small rod, I was lucky to bag a Black Mouthed Dogfish which won't do my species hunt hopes for 2015 any harm.


Wednesday 15 April 2015

Slowly winding up

This month and into May will see the usual seasonal increase in opportunities in the SW with the arrival of the Smoothounds, Bass and maybe Tope. Some decent spells of calm and bright weather will likely mean our members targeting some Plaice and increasing their species counts in the Portpatrick area. Try and forward on some picture for the blog after your sessions please. Until then, here are a few more from Martin who got battered by the weather last weekend while catching four Sea Trout.

Friday 27 March 2015

Stewart takes Chris for a shot on the Pike


 
Lucky winner Chris Grant.
I took this years winner of a free guided pike trip (donated at prizegiving night)to one of my haunts down in the Galloway forest. Conditions were flat calm which is not very good for pike but we were there anyway so decided to crack on. I baited up two float rods, one fished close in and the other a bit further out.
After 20 minutes the close in float took  dive which resulted in a fish of about 4lb played well by Chris.

Although not his first pike it was a PB so well done

It was the only fish of the day alas but we went home happy
 

Sunday 22 March 2015

Etive shore match

Eleven anglers fished the first shore match of year at Etive.

1st F Spiers with 6 fish for 289pts.
2nd I Grant with 4 fish for 157pts.
3rd M Bletsoe with 3 fish for 127pts.
4th J Soon with 2 fish for 114pts.
5th N Wilson with 2 fish for 106pts.
6th J Wilson with 1 fish for 58pts.
7th S Wilson with 1 fish for 55pts.

Longest fish J Soons with 67cms
 
 
 
 
 
 

Sea Trout in the sun

Martin had a couple of fish despite in challenging conditions.
                                          Nearly- catch of the day right enough! A nice solid fish for March.

Monday 16 March 2015

Annual Prize Giving


The members gathered at the home of Ayr Utd on Saturday night for the annual prize giving, food and light refreshments.

The committee would like to say thank you to all those who supported the various boat, shore and species events over the course of 2014. Here’s to a successful and fish filled 2015!