A wee change

It's had been weeks since I had last picked up a fly rod with all the sea fishing of late, but after reading George's blog it put me in the mood for a river trip. So the other Sunday I went for an afternoon on the Clyde where I was hoping to pick up a grayling or two as well as the trout.

I set up with a big klink and a couple of little tungsten nymphs suspended below and began to search a fast streamy pool where I often fish in the winter months. This proved to work quite well with a few modest trout and three good Grayling for the afternoon, hopefully won't be long until I'm back on the river again.

Yesterday Col and I decided on a float tube trip to Lubnaig in search of some Perch with the LRF gear.

It turned out to be a bit of a disaster for me as when I started to set up at the lochside I found out that I had picked up the wrong rod back at the house, it was the one I broke in Orkney instead of its new replacement, what an idiot! So I ended up having to fish away with about a foot missing from the tip which was far from satisfactory, never mind. Col was doing well fishing a pinky white tipsy worm on a jig head, secret seemed to be to cast out let it hit the bottom and give it the odd twitch, not really doing too much, no monsters but some nice perch up to about a pound. As you can see in the pic below a change over to a shad worked well too.

I managed a few on my broken rod but nothing like the numbers Col was tempting

They did seem to get a bit more difficult to locate as the afternoon went on, maybe they wise up?

Thinking about it today I can't wait to go back for another go with the right rod next time! Need to put in a wee order to AGM for some of those lures.

Wrasse-holes: An Itch that Needs to be Scratched

About a fortnight ago myself and Brian had a trip to St Abbs Head in search of wrasse, once again. First thing to do though before heading down was too dig some rag .  There we were meeting  Dan  . Dan was already there when we arrived just after lowtide.He hadnt had a sniff off a fish , and i did seem quiet or the first wee while before we started getting the odd coalfish and then the wrasse started to bite!

First wrasse of the day.

Whilst Brian was playing the first wrasse of the day , Dan connected with a pollack . He also took a flounder shortly after .

I lost what i think was a decent pollock  before getting my first wrasse of the day . After that the wrasse came thick and fast.

Cheeeeeeeeese!

The swell on the day was pretty big and it wasnt long before we were forced off that particular spot . so we tried drier spots . I once again found the wrasse and shouted the lads over where we caught another succession of plump wrasse.

Brian also had a nice cod , seems he's becoming a light gear  cod specialist.

Whilst sitting comfortably enjoying the banter of the day , the swell crashed over the rock giving us a soaking , i took the brunt of it being nearest to the open sea  , and that was our lot for the day , we were fairly contented , it had been a great days fishing.

Random casts

Been doing loads of fishing recently , mainly in the salt, but also had a few casts with the soft lures for perch.

I dug out the fly rod for a trip to the local river too for trout.

And there has been a  trip in search of flatties with the light game rod which brought me this lovely example.

And there has been more trips for those beautiful wrasse. with the 3 species of corkwing , goldsinny and ballan showing face.

I also had a trip with Scott and Nick too loch Etive in search of spurdogs.

Unfortunately no spurdogs showed but between us we had loads of grey gurnard ( a first for me) Scott had a couple of small thorn back rays.

The bigger gey gurnards had lovely gold flecks

green eyes

A couple sharks did appear for Nick and Scott but not the sort we were after.

Doggie style

Other fish that showed were cod , pollack and the odd coalfish and sea scorpions , a great day enjoyed a day fishing the big rods.

The following day i went too Burntisland where there were a couple of fellow lrf'ers fishing . Chad  and Tony.
Chad had a nice wrasse and Tony managed a couple of butterfish and a Yarrel's blenny . I had a few wrasse , a corkwing a goldsinny and a ballan or two , before they had to head home . I stuck it out into the evening but it was tough in the out going tide. i was forced to move and look for a new wrasse- hole out the front on the breakwater. It was till tough till around low water when the tide turned then i found a hot spot where it was a bite a cast.

A nice evening

perfect!

The cream of the evening was a dark  chunky corkwing wrasse , a bit of a warrior this one.

 A couple of lads (James and Adam) were out fly fishing for mackeral and as the light started to go , a few blitzes started show, i took a couple at distance on metals. That ended my evening .   Have to get a few mackeral for autumn for fishing the beaches for flatties so might do a trip specifically with them in mind.

Wrasse action to come:

Orkney wrasse sessions part 2

Wednesday i think i'm on to now. I was out for an early morning session, quite difficult again if i remember rightly, no ballans about but some cheeky wee goldsinny wrasse, they seem to be particularly well marked in orkney.

another Orkney first which i was really pleased with was this beautiful rock cook, it was actually quite big,so much so that at first i thought it was a corkwing.I never got any corkwings all week which was a bit surprising, up here goldsinny is king!

that was it for the morning, Clyde had a great time on a local beach in the afternoon!

disaster struck when i ventured out for a couple of hours in the evening, i had a box of beer in the boot which slide about and crushed the tip of my savage gear rod, as you can imagine i was a bit annoyed with myself ! i didn't dwell on it though and grabbed the little tronix and carried on to the barrier.

there was some codling about

and both male and female cuckoo's

and a sea scorpion

 strangely there were no ballans about. I then went home and drank some of the beers which broke my rod!

On Thursday morning it was poring, i got a good soaking for a couple of goldsinnys and ballans. The afternoon turned out to be a lovely day though when we were out walking at the impressive cliffs at Yesnaby. 

out for the evening session produced the usual culprits

nice sunset on the way home

Friday was my last day of fishing, out in the morning and then late afternoon into evening, very productive with good numbers of wrasse and cod, no monsters but great sport

it had been a great weeks fishing, fitting in those short...ish sessions without impacting on doing family stuff, looking forward to next year already!