Willie's big Salmon-Martin's tiddlers

Rarer than a straight cast from Malkie! The clubs annual trip to the river Tay produced this fantastic springer for Willie , 22 pounds from the Ballathie beat, cracking fish.

Martin ventured onto the coast for the opening day of his Sea Trout season. While he didn't blank it was hard work.

The same size as Willie's( if you were an action man)

 

Club match Portpatrick

1st S Wason with 87 fish for 2615pts.

2nd F Spiers with 54 fish for 1573pts.

3rd I Grant with 28 fish for 1058pts.

4th J Wilson with 21 fish for 755pts.

5th P Brayden with 16 fish for 517pts.

6th M Bletsoe with 15 fish for 497pts.

7th S Wilson with 5 fish for 212pts.

 

Longest fish I Grant/J Wilson with 45cms.

Next Match is at Loch Etive on Saturday 11th March

 

A good start to the year

Some nice Spurdog action

Some  winter Pikes

Lovely Grayling

Image courtesy of Callum Connor

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunshine, Sunart and fish!

GG enjoyed a day afloat with Lucy( a first time shark angler) The had lots of fish to 14 pounds.

If anyone is bored-some year end video action

A couple of videos here from Martin

Mash up from Martin A on Vimeo.

Wrasse,Bass,Sea Trout, Pike, Perch, Bream, Needlefish and Twaite Shad

Plan B Pollack from Martin A on Vimeo.

Some variety

Gordon and Martin had a good day scratching around out of the aquarium that is Port Logan in summertime.

Poor Cod, Cod, Whiting, Pollack, Ballan Wrasse, Cuckoo Wrasse, LSD, Ling, Dab, Tub Gurnard, Grey Gurnard, Mackerel, Thornback, Plaice, Haddock and Short Spined Sea Scorpion.

Gordon got the slight edge over the now retired and clearly  in third gear "species master" with 14-12 victory. The total species count for the day was 16.

It would be fair to say there was some competition on the day. The loser will now have to forfeit all sense of reality and join GG on another fun filled jape on the ocean waves at some point in the future.

 

 

 

Arbroath Outing

Report for the Arbroath event.

Seven members fished aboard MV Ardent out of Arbroath. We met at McDonalds for a coffee and a quick chat before starting. We set sail at 9.00am and headed to where some other boats were fishing. Had a few drifts only small fish were about. Matt was the first one into what looked like a good fish on his spinning rod a Cod off a 1lb 8ozs.

The skipper decided to have a shot over the bell rock light house which proved to be a better decision as Frank had a solid take but after a couple off turns off the reel it popped the hook.The tide picked up  and the drift became faster and  the skipper tried hard to keep us on the fish. Over the course of the day it was mainly Cod and Wrasse, Tony had a small Ling

 We ran a five pound sweep on the day. £17.50 for the heaviest Cod and £17.50 for any other heaviest fish. James had the heaviest Cod at 4lbs 5ozs and David had the the heaviest Wrasse at 1lb 10ozs.Well done guys, a good day out for all.

Regards

John Wilson

Two flappers in the sunshine

2016 Shore and Boat dates for your diary

 

Please click on the images below to enlarge them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

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.

 

 

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

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;

http://www.reelseafishing.co.uk/RSF-Summer-Species-Challenge-15/scores.html

 

 

 

 

 

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.

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