Orkney weekend

Back yesterday from a  long weekend in Orkney visiting my mum, i'm not usually up there so early on in the year but fancied having a go for sea trout in the salt as their season  got underway on Feb 25th. Having read a couple of good articles on the subject it seems as if the spring sea trout will take the fly readily, the difficult part is locating them, and this was ringing in my ears as on Thursday afternoon and on Friday morning  when i drew a blank after trying a few different locations around the island, some of which I've encountered sea trout from before in the autumn months. I could feel my confidence draining, there's a lot of coastline to cover, i wished i had some kind of sea trout detector to find them!

Saturday would effectively be my last real chance to bag myself a sea trout with no fishing for migratory fish on Sundays so there was nothing else for it but to get out there and try again. I decided to try a location i had fished the day before but this time rather than concentrate on the most obvious area went on for a wonder down the coastline a bit. I found a  bay i liked the look of so thought i would give it a try, wading  my way through it after a few casts there was a little resistance which felt different from the usual hang up in the bladderwrack, next cast and my suspicions were confirmed as i hooked a lively wee sea trout which cleared the air on hook up, i was over the moon to finally find a sea trout.

  more nips and pulls every other cast and another sea trout followed before it went quite

 this is when i was unsure what to do next, do i continue to wade forward through the bay to try and find them again? or will that spook the entire shoal? i decided to carefully get out of the water and rest the spot for half an hour and go try another area for a wee while, on my return i was straight into fish again, some coming from within feet of the shoreline on the high tide, great sport for a while with loads of hook ups and takes too before it quietened down again, none were big but great sport.

   

the orange fritz with bead chain eyes was working well

as was the platinum blonde

i decided to drive to another spot further up the coast but on arrival noticed another angler had already beat me to it, never mind, since i was in the area i visited a relative for a chin wag and a much needed coffee and cake,  after that i returned to my original spot in the now falling tide, i had a few more hook ups and one or two of them were of a decent size, but failed to land any of them.

another wee fella from earlier on in the day

late Saturday and Sunday afternoon  i took some pictures around and about the island, weather wise it was great for the time of year. 

the Italian chapel 

   

Italian prisoners of war joined two nissen huts to make the chapel during the second world war

an old tractor going back to nature

footprints

the ring of brodgar

it's sailing days are over

spring tides

leaving at noon on monday i got up super early to squeeze in a couple of hours fishing at first light, i didn't find any sea trout in the little bay this time but lost a small fish in the weed further down the shoreline, unlike the other day there didn't seem to be any more of his pals in the same area, maybe because of the big tide? i'm not sure but i continued to work my way along and a while later had a good fish maybe around the 2lb mark follow the fly right to my feet before taking the fritz, unfortunately the hook didn't hold which was a pity because that would have been the icing on the cake but with no time left i reluctantly had to leave. This weekends been a learning curve with highs and lows, not easy fishing but if i could do it again tomorrow i would right in there, the chance of a big bar of silver is to much to resist.    

A Crack at the Bass

This weekend we were hoping for a shot at the bass , watching the forecast just to make sure the winds were favourable. So with gusty south westerly blowing we fancied our chances of it being in good fishable condition, and on our way down from the roadside there wasn't a whitehorse in sight, and sure enough it looked perfect when we arrived at midday at the venue tackled up and ready to take on the waves.
First though before the tide got really moving we decided to have a bash at the blennies, it was great fun lowering our power isome along side rocks had the wee blighters sticking there heads out and pouncing on our hooks, most came adrift on the strike but a few stuck.

After half an hour we decided to get our heads down to try and tackle the bass, hours went buy as we thrashed the sea in various corners with our clousers , to no avail, still we kept our heads up and carried on. Then a splash caught my eye followed by a fish clearing the water, I immediately thought seatrout, Brian reckoned bass.

Anyway it gave us renewed enthusiasm and after a move brian hooked into a bass, it was really good to see, he had his second and third before I managed my first, but they kept coming steady for an hour or so, nothing big just typical school bass but great fun, it feels like boom or bust type fishing at times.

The sport then began to subside as the offshore wind gathered pace , and we decided to call it a day fairly contented with our days fishing. It was nice just to catch some bass as Brian pointed out it had been over a year since we last did so.

Like a coat of arms

Feeling Flat in February

January and February have been really difficult to get out and do any sort of angling at all in my neighbourhood. A contrast of high winds and and ill timed downpours have seen to that. Even this weekends plans took a detour at the last minute. Brian and I were prepared to go and have a shot at the bass , when a northerly westerly showed up on the forecast . A wee look at  comfortable areas to fish took us too a Fife beach, the first time we have given it a shot called Ravenscraig beach.

I was pleasantly surprised that it was a charming  wee spot,  that gave us shelter with its distinctive  crags and ruins an at our backs with a steady off shore breeze. the day its self was pleasant with no rain  it felt almost spring like and that sparked up conversation of the coming season , trout , pike and SWFF,  float-tubing  amongst other species and methods , really looking forward for all that kicking off.

The flounder fishing for the time of year wasn't too bad either , between us we managed perhaps 10 to a dozen small flounder between us  ,  but like other beaches we have sampled on the Fife coast it went off on the last couple of hours approaching high tide. Still it was really nice to get out  with the rods and a bonus to  catch our first flounders of 2014.

watching for a bite

With the trout season now fast approaching I've been quietly going about  a bit preparation , a few new purchases such as a new   fly line ,a new pair of forceps , and I've had a few small sessions on the vice producing the usual klinks, shucked cdc's , dirty Pollies , wire nymphs the odd spider etc.

A start on the dries

 shucked cdc

Lots more to do but still another 4 weeks to go, roll on the brownies!

making plans

Something that's been on my to do list for a long time now is an early spring trip up to Orkney to fish for sea trout in the sea, I was thinking about this over the weekend and decided to put my plan into action, Ive been intending to visit my mum who lives up there anyway so I'm off for a long weekend at the end of this month, just in time for the start of the sea trout season!. Fingers crossed the weather won't be to rough so i can get a couple of days fishing in, although up there there's no guarantees.

Tackle wise all I should need is my sw fly rod, intermediate line, 8lb fluorocarbon  and a few different lures to try. The car's going be vital to search different locations, along with an ordnance survey map and a note of the tide times around the island. As you can see Ive made a wee start on tying a up some lures which i hope will do the trick.

 from what Ive been reading fly choice isn't to critical as the sea trout feed well in the spring, the difficult bit will be finding them in the first place, there's a lot of coastline to search and blanks are common.  

i'm looking forward to giving it a try anyway

 a clouser or two wont go a miss i guess

 marabou type lures are recommended too, i'll tie up a few in orange too. 

  

January, grayling nymphs and other stuff.

For me this January's been a bit of a disappointment from a grayling fishing point of view, the last couple of Saturdays on my favorite borders stream have been pretty uncomfortable with wind, rain and rising water levels, deep wading isn't much fun either to be honest, unless you find a grayling or two that is and  that's proving to be easier said than done. Having said all that i'll be back for more punishment in February if conditions allow, as this river contains some fine grayling with 3lb plus specimen a real possibility.

another 2lb15oz and this one will be a cracker!

i was inspired to tie up a few new nymphs to try after watching tight lines on sky sports the other night, where they did a great wee report on a grayling competition held on the Welsh Dee.

peeping caddis

hends rainbow spectra dubbing nymphs in light violet

some on jig hooks

red holographic butt

cdc red tag type thing

first published in 1968 and just as good now, a great winter read.

welcome winter colour in the garden just now, witch hazel

A mid-summer nights Dream

As the rain batters of the window, the only angling inspiration comes from looking at photos from seasons past , and from there i felt inspired to tie a few flies at the vice. My mind was taken to fishing for trout in  the hot summer evenings , with this now in mind i decided to tie a few spinner patterns, these are particularly handy during the months the blue winged olive is on the water but also for olive upright and large dark olive spinners too during a rare mild May evening .

 

Our evening fishing normally should be well underway by Mid May, i look forward to putting these flies  to use and hope they prove sucessful when the spinners start to fall.

beauty and the beast

I booked today off work with a bit of grayling fishing in mind as the river looked to be dropping nicely at the start of the week, unfortunately rain yesterday and overnight had pushed  the levels back up and today when i peered over the footbridge i saw that the river was even higher than it was at the weekend! oh well i was there now so thought i may as well give it a try anyway.

rivets on the footbridge

 wading was more or less a non starter today so i methodically fished up the margins of  the pool Col got his big grayling from on Saturday, without an offer, the only fish i saw was a dead salmon on the bankside.

not a pretty sight

  i wasn't at all confident but thought i may as well give a big pool downstream a shot, where surprisingly after a few casts i hooked a grayling, not a very big grayling but her colours were bright and beautiful, i was  pleased to catch her.

i fished on with renewed optimism hoping to find some of her pals but that turned out to be my only fish for the day, never mind there's always next time and fingers crossed the river level drops a bit.