Just came doon from the isle of Skye

We had an early start on Thursday morning driving up to fort William where Col and I had arranged to meet up with his brother Lindsay, after a much needed coffee we then continued on the journey to the Isle of Skye for a long weekend of non stop fishing, yippee!
After what seemed like an age we eventually arrived at our chosen mark, a sea loch at the north west of the island, firstly we tackled up our lrf rods to see what was about on the rocky outcrop in front of us, and It didn't take long for the bites to start coming to bits of raw prawn, we landed some small pollack, coalfish, poor cod and the ones we were really after, Ballan wrasse.

nice orange one for col

the sea was a little too rough with the northerly wind to comfortably fly fish for Pollack so later on in the day we upped sticks and went of to try another more sheltered mark which was a new one to us, it looked great but despite trying every rocky outcrop around the bay we failed to connect with any pollack, never mind it had been a long tiring day so we went back to our accommodation for some food and a couple of beers to end the day.

Friday morning feeling revitalised after a good nights sleep we decided to fish the same venue as the day before, we did have other marks in mind but this one seemed like the best bet what with the wind direction and it also had the benefit of only being  a short drive from the cottage where we were based. Over coffee in the morning we discussed how cool it would be to catch a cuckoo wrasse, and would you believe it, it only took Col about five minutes after starting to fish, jammy sod!

 

another couple of females followed from the same area

Lindsay caught a monster of a sea scorpion!

Col and Lindsay seemed to be catching plenty of poor cod, it took me a while on the other hand but i got one in the end, pretty little fish.

 plenty more ballans about too

another new wrasse species for Col, a rock cook 

later on in the day Col landed a couple of pollack on the fly from his "rock" before the wind picked up, all in all a great days fishing

On Saturday morning we headed into Portree to see if we could buy any more raw prawns and some leads, we got the leads ok but no luck with the prawns, we did notice however that the harbour was stuffed with Mackerel so we grabbed the rods from the car and caught a few for chucking out a bait on the big rods later on. So after some food we were back at the same spot yet again! Col thought there would be a good chance of a goldsinny and he was right!

Lindsay's big rod with the mackeral bait registered a bite, it turned out to be a dogfish which was quite exciting for us as non of us had ever caught or even seen one before.

Col took some more rock cook wrasse on tiny bits of squid

after a while we decided on a move so headed around to Neist Point where we took some nice Pollack on the fly, orange clousers worked well as did chartreuse, great fun on the fly rod.

on Sunday morning Lindsay headed for home whilst col and i had one last chuck for an hour or so, i failed in my attempt to catch a rock cook wrasse but Col took a few Pollack from his rock to end a great weekends fishing, can't wait until next year! 

Skye road trip day 1

Finally our yearly trip away had had arrived After a few weeks of planning .  Brian picked me up at 7 am on the Thursday , we were heading for the Isle of Skye.
 We arrived stopped for a bite to eat on the way  , and arrived at Dunvegan campsite.  We got out tents set up , with a bit of difficulty,  and brewed up a coffee before heading out fishing. As the light easterly wind looked favourable we headed for  Skyes most western point  famous for its fishing and whale watching opportunities called  Neist point.

We  arrived at  the mark  just an hour or so  after low tide, so the plan was to fish it up to high tide , or until it got dark as it was beautiful warm day with the sun shining.

We headed out the front to the rocks to the left of the lighthouse armed with the fly gear . And Brian hooked a coalfish on his first cast.

 It was almost a fish a cast and in almost consecutive casts i completed the grand slam of a coalie,then a mackerel then a small pollack , if i had a bit foresight i would have kept the mackerel for bait , but i was confident we would not struggle to catch them at other marks, i was wrong as it was the only one of the weekend !

Brian finally  managed a decent pollack out the front on his chartreuse/white  clouser but most of the fare was with the coalies and a family group fishing feathers along side us were pulling them in groups of 3 and 4  .

Coalfish

 The minkie whales also put in a show occasionally porpoising at distance, a great sight.

from out the front

For the last hour and nearing high tide, we decided to fish the harbour in Moonen   Bay , here the sport was much better we both got pollock Brian with the best of them going over 4lb.

A stoater!

It had been a good days fishing , difficult at times to locate quality fish particularly out the front  perhaps it was the bright weather ?

After that we took the steep walk  back to the car then returned to the campsite cooked up some sausages  a couple of beers then went to get some sleep for day 2.

 

thats my boy!

With the Mackerel being about in large numbers the weekend before I thought it would be fun for the young lad to have a go, so of we went on Saturday morning hoping that they would still be around in numbers. When we got there the first thing I realised was that i had forgotten my heavier 7-35 gram rod which I had intended to use, so we would be using the wee tronix just to make it more interesting! To begin with I set up with a drop shot rig and a bit of isome  and we got a few nibbles from wee coalies but clearly the macks weren't in like the week before. In a bid to keep Jamie's interest going I switched the column  lead over to a small wedge spoon to see if there were any a bit further out and a few casts later a mackerel was on, I passed the buckled over tronix to Jamie to play the fish, what a laugh!

  another mackerel and a plump coalfish followed before we went to another spot where I was intending to have a go for Mullet.

it was quite windy here and I would have had to have been wearing waders to get into the right position to fish for the mullet, perhaps not the type of fish to go for anyway with the young lad to keep amused. The bread I had didn't go to waste though, Jamie was helping himself to the odd slice as he was now feeling hungry and the aggressive blennie population seemed only to happy to compete over a bit of it too, amusing watching them appear from nowhere to grab hold. A good fun morning and pleasingly Jamie wants to come out fishing again soon.       

    

 

mackerel & mullet

We headed down to the popular east Lothian bass mark yesterday with the thought of targeting a few different species, first of all we had a go for the bass with the fly rods, not much happening to be honest so after a couple of hours flogging away without a touch we decided enough was enough and moved to another spot near by. We set up our lrf rods to see what was about, hoping for wrasse I guess, first cast with the drop shot rig and cols wee tronix  buckled over with a hard fighting mackerel, soon I was in on the action too, it was a mackerel every chuck,  a switch over to the fly rods was fun with a few more before we had to move with the incoming tide.    

 after our brief  mackie bash we went back down to the bass mark, but this time to try for another fish on the to do list....  mullet. Once we wangled our way into the hot spot  I introduced some mashed up bread and sardines to try and get them on the feed and  encouragingly it didn't take long for a few to start showing. Hooking them was a different story, we fished with chubber style floats and most of the time we found ourselves striking into thin air, exciting though! I  lost a couple and was beginning to think it wasn't going to be my day when eventually one stuck, not big but I was pleased with my first ever mullet.

  Col was having an equally frustrating time but perseverance finally paid of for him and he got his reward too just before calling it a day, I could see this mullet fishing being quite addictive, don't think it'll be too long before we have another go for them.

Mack- Attack

Returned to the same spot i fished last Thursday on the Forth when i took the LRF gear . Today  i had the fly rod . I fished  1 hour  up to high tide and 2 hrs after , and i think the first hour beyond high water was maybe the best. Not the big boils of mackeral but subtle attacks hear and there . I fished an intermediate with clousers sucessful colours were pink and white , red and white and flash clousers, to be honest i dont think it really mattered , if it was in there path  they would take it .

It wasnt hectic sport but i picked up fish steadily some blind and some cast to surface action. Some of the catch is bound for the smoker and some for bait for the flatties.

Fife LRF sesh!

Had another shot at the wrasse in Fife , the ballans  didn't show but managed a brace of wee goldsinnys , first one came first drop the second was a little more tricky , having umpteen failed hookups before  finally landing him.

It went quiet in wrasse corner so i went and explored elsewhere only for the occasional podlie, so i headed to the rocks. On the way i noticed some surface action, and once on the rocks i saw a shoal of mackerel herding baitfish into the gullies below, it was a real visual treat from my high vantage point, they would come and go , but i was ready for them, i decided on a " zoom  Tiny fluke" presented with a 7g cone weight above , and they seemed to like it.

I took a brace and lost a further 3 in the hour i was there plus the odd coalie . Looks like its time to hit the macks with the fly rod, now that is good fun!

Not Waving but Drowning

  The weather is really making fools out of us over the last month or so. The rain fell last night,  which would help thaw out the currently frozen   ponds/ canal etc it did however put the rivers up so what was left was a trip to the seaside for a shot at the flatties. Unfortunately  the sea was wild , and coloured ,and carrying a  lot of weed so after giving it a couple of hours we agreed we were flogging a dead horse.We are ready to hoist the white flag and surrender our fishing gear in exchange for golf clubs , the current scenario reminds me of that  poem based on the life of Sylvia Plath , a misunderstood  cry for help "Not Waving but Drowning  .

 Anyway back home and my 3d epoxy  eyes arrived through the letter box  , so thought I'd spend a bit time on the bench as i had a pattern in mind .

I was "googling" for my swff  trip next year , and on a sea fishing forum i came across some interesting info, that there was many small 4-8oz mackerel around and the big pollack were preying   on them .  With this in mind So i got busy on the vice.

These are what i came up with dressed on a 2/0 saltwater hook. Perhaps a close copy isn't really required especially when the damage on those particular fish was done with a jelly worm tipped with mackerel strip, but , to me it's one of the pleasures of fly fishing /fly tying is matching the hatch.

hopefully the weather will improve enough for some fishing in the new year.


    

Call of the Coast

It's been a difficult  couple of weeks to get any type of fishing in, last weekend was off the back of a really wet spell which caused flooding in many areas, ended up at a tackle shop (angling active) , for a few fly tying purchases , mainly buck tails and a fly wallet , followed by a few fruitless half hearted casts on a muddy pond for pike.  This weekend we had grayling planned with conditions being frosty it seemed a good option , but then on Friday night it rained for 3 hours , looking at the conditions we decided for a change and go for the bass , sure enough going down towards our location the rivers were out of condition, but unfortunately a north wind also put those plans  to bed, we then tried the canal but it was frozen and as i type it's snowing , So no fishing of any sort to post about.

Ive been spending a wee bit time at the vice though, mainly tying up saltwater patterns for next year, it's the  form of fishing i really crave at the moment, my heads rarely been out of  Lefty Kreh's "Saltwater Fly patterns" book, dreaming of and planning future trips for next year, digging out the OS maps looking for rock marks etc , with possibilities of  bass , mackerel , pollack, coal fish, sea trout and maybe even flounder   on the cards.

Ive also been doing a wee bit dying with certain patterns in mind and i think the efforts have been worthwhile despite dying my fingers every colour of the rainbow during the process.  First i halved a Metz silver badger cape dying one half hot orange. and also dyed a few grizzle hackles hot pink, chartreuse , and teal blue. these
were mainly for flanking  feathers for deceivers.

Ive stayed pretty much to the tried and  tested patterns , the Clousers , deceivers and half and halves in colours and sizes suited for species of baitfish (sprats , sand eels, launce) or preferred attractor colours of the quarry. Here's a few of my efforts. First up the deceivers.

Deceivers

I just had to include what looks to be almost considered the standard pattern of white over lay ed with chartreuse buck tail with it's red crystal flash beard , I've dressed it on a size 2. The other two pictured i had with loose sprat imitations in mind dressed on size 4 hooks in grey and white and aqua and white. I guess any colour which takes your fancy can be used or more importantly what catches the the fishes eye .


  Next up are the clousers,there are  many ways to tie them up, with all materials under the hook, the tail or along  the shank, or perhaps the best known way with the white on top and contrasting colour on the bottom bearing in mind that clousers swim upside down.i guess they give them slightly different tapers . Traditionally buck tail was the material  used to tie these and i must admit i do think they look the part.

Buck tail Clousers (3 styles)

But theres no restrictions, and with the countless synthetic materials available to the saltwater/pike fly tyer today anything go's like frizz fibre, fish-hair, supreme hair , H2o's slinky fibre or flash n' slinky etc,  but here I've used kanekallon hair extensions (aka jumbo braid) which is much better value and IMO just as good as the above it also comes in a huge array of colours some more useful than others .I guess one advantage synthetics have over buck tail is they can be tied really long. 

Synthetic hair Clousers

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Other clousers that will be in my box next year will be flash based  clousers, i had a bit success earlier on in the year with a mixed blend of pearl gold and silver.To add to those i got hold of some micro tinsel from Castle feathers , they do quite a spectrum of colours in this material and I'll have to add to my colours i currently have shortly as i really like the look of it .

Flash Clousers

So that's the trusty clousers sorted for now anyway.

Another  lot I'm really quite excited about trying, are the half and halves, that's half deceiver half Clouser and is a genuine pattern from the inventors Lefty Kreh and Bob Clouser not some dodgy hybrid  concocted in my head . Ive tied mine slightly different from the examples in the book , but i think they shouldn't be any worse for that.

The orange and black ones are tied very much with Pollack in mind , as I'm told that combi as well as all-black is a good option.  The above are tied on sizes 1/0 and 2 .

A few surf candies wont go a miss.

Last of all I've done a few gurglers, just in case theres some good surface blitzes to take advantage of.

A bit of time on the vice at this time of year can be  time well spent, hopefully it'll pay dividends  come next summer. Just hope we get a break in the weather soon.