November Grayling

Out today for my first trip of the Grayling season,  with all the rain of late I knew I would have to travel to the upper reaches of the river to find some clear water.After an hour or so drive I parked up at my spot and got my first proper look at the river, aye it was carrying a bit of extra water right enough but running clear, I had packed the fly rod as well as my trotting gear but in truth i fancied a bit of relaxed trotting so decided to leave the fly rod in the car.
George from the http://traditionalfloats.blogspot.co.uk/ made me some lovely floats last winter with this river in mind,  I've been so looking forward to fishing with them and today I would finally get the chance to put them to good use, one of them anyway!

 I headed down to a pool that gave me a few nice grayling last year and after two or three trots down and I was into a fish, not what I was looking for though, a little trout which was followed by one or two more of his pals before I found myself connected to the first Grayling of the day.

only a little one but i was pleased to land my first of the winter

the next Grayling was a different creature all together, what i call a line whistler, nervous moments as i drew him ever closer to the net, he went 2lb 4oz in the mclean.

if that was to be my last grayling of the day i would have went home delighted, but i seemed to have found a shoal of good fish, to cut a long story short i ended up with eight Grayling for the day with five of them between 2lb 4oz and 2lb 8oz, happy days!

some pictures in no particular order, a memory card full of grayling pictures gets a bit confusing as they all look the same!  

in truth i probably could have stuck it out a little while longer but with some prolonged heavy showers late afternoon i decided to call it a day around four, a great day and a big thank you to George for making me those lovely floats.  

        

It's Turbo Time

Myself and Brian  couldn't think what to do yesterday, the weather forecast wasn't great , strong winds and heavy showers in most spots apart from the southeast of Scotland looked dry , so we opted for a bit flattie fishing on a south east beach, a beach that has a reputation for producing the odd Turbot. The night before had us making up a few rigs , and made an attempt get hold of some fresh mackerel for bait but the supermarkets couldn't help. Fortunately I had about 6 freezer burnt fillets that had been in my freezer for well over a year , and still thought we had better try get some fresh bait  incase the quality of the bait had diminished, but we failed to track down anything the following morning ,  so had to make do .

Despite being really windy the sea wasn't to bad as it was blowing straight of shore , I was really looking forward to getting a bait in the water. Brian was having one of those days almost walking out to the mark only to discover he had left his tripod in the car, and his leads at home. Before long we were both fishing . It didn't take long to get of the mark with some small flounders, including a few double shots. Nothing big, in fact compared with it's normal stamp they were quite small. 

double shots galore

It was a bonus to get a turbot, lovely to see , and one of these days it will produce one worthy of the frying pan .

Turbo power

Later in the afternoon I managed another double shot of turbot and flounder, this one a bit of a mutant , with its camouflage covering much of its underside as well as its back. 

It was great  fun while the fish were biting , a pity the bigger flatties didn't show , but it was good sport nonetheless  , one day we should get lucky as long as we keep trying.  Next time hope theres a slightly bigger sea to fish think that will get the bigger flounder feeding.

earning my stripes

Sunday afternoon was my only chance to wet a line this weekend, but even then that wasn't looking likely, with recent rain I wasn't sure if any grayling rivers would be fishable or not and with limited time it wasn't worth taking the risk to travel to them, tide times didn't suit for a flounder trip either so it would have to be some local coarse fishing or nothing at all. I thought about having a walk along the canal with the lrf gear to try for some perch but speaking to Col on the phone he told me the canal was quite coloured and not worth bothering with. I had resigned myself to the fact that I wasn't going to get out and then I had one more idea, there's a quarry five minutes up the road which always has good clarity, and I knew it had some Perch in it too as Col caught one from there last year when we were fishing for Tench, why not i thought ,it was worth a try anyway.
Soon I was tackling up at the quarry and I have to say my first thoughts were ones of anger and annoyance at the amount of litter and crap left by the boozed up neds who seem to frequent places like this, the usual empty beer tins, old fishing line and camp fires strewn all over the place, what is it with these idiots when they think this is acceptable behaviour... rant over. Anyway I set up with a small jig head and a Lake Fork baby shad and started to cover the swim in front of me,  after a few casts I connected with what turned out to be a lovely wee Perch

soon after i took another smaller one but any visions of a bumper catch were short lived as it then went dead, after a while i decided to move to another spot which wasn't as easy as it sounds what with the steep banking's and dense undergrowth.

the next spot produced another nice Perch, this time on a Lemon Meringue Crappie Minnr!

another couple of moves around the quarry resulted in a couple of micro jack Pike, all welcome though on a day which i didn't promise much hope

there's one or two other venues in the area that could be worth a try for perch, ill keep them up my sleeve for when i'm stuck on a day like today.

Making the most of it

This weekend i thought i would have another try for the wrasse whilst conditions still allow, Col reckoned sea temperatures were still good and with low wind speeds over the last few days i hoped that water clarity would be ok too. Fishing was slow to begin with but in one area inside the harbour i was getting regular bites, eventually hooking one of the little critters, a first for me, a Sand Goby!

 out front i caught a tiny Cod and a coalfish but still no sign of the wrasse, i resorted to casting the dropshot rig out a little and twitching it back slowly, this resulted in two or three welcome Pollack to help make up for the lack of wrasse activity .

 eventually i started to get the familiar tap tap bites from the wrasse with the tide half way up

  the fishing got better and better up to high tide, with both Ballan's and another first for me the pretty little corkwing wrasse

sea scorpions put in an appearance too, there not very cooperative when it comes to having the hook removed, they lock their mouths shut and vibrate in your hand!

only downside on Saturday was when i hooked a real cracker of a Ballan, i had him played out and estimated him to be around the three pound mark, i had to hand line him up the sea wall and you guessed it, we parted company, i was a bit gutted! think i need to look into getting a drop net. Still it was a great fun day with some nice fish landed.

Today i was back for more, again it was slow to get going but i occupied myself  fishing for the sand gobys for a while

once the tide was well in i started to get the familiar taps from the wrasse including this little goldsinny

managed a couple of codling today as well, good fun on the light gear

and this, think its a yarrels blennie like the ones Col and Scott caught? another uncooperative fish for unhooking i found out.

a nice ballan  

  

an enjoyable couple of days fishing, don't know how much longer we'll get before the wrasse go off the feed but its great fun whilst it lasts.

seasons end

In all honestly I didn't think I would be fishing for trout again this season, but with much needed rain at the end of last week I had a change of heart today and decided to check out a local burn, i wasn't sure if it would be fishable or not but there's only one way to find out. Sure enough it was running high with a tinge of colour but it looked ok.

working the slacks and side streams with a big klinky/tan glister bug duo seemed to work a treat in the stained water and soon i had brought a few trout to hand

this was the theme for the day with most pools producing a trout or two, i worked my way upstream a good distance, its not the easiest stream to walk, some dodgy wading and a lot of scrambling through the undergrowth, but its worth the effort!

at the back of five i had to call it a day and face the torturous walk back downstream to the car, that's definitely it for this season now, but it was nice to end it on one of my favorite local burns.

Wrasse me up when September ends

The back end of the trout season has been a bit of a disappointment to be honest with the rivers and burns now down to their bones,  and with the season soon coming to an end  I doubt I'll be fishing for trout again until next year now. Not that I'm too bothered as there's plenty of other species to target in the months ahead.

The dry and mild September has been great for Col's wrasse fishing exploits on the other hand so when he suggested that we go over to Burntisland on Sunday I jumped at the chance, I've had a couple of short visits there myself this summer failing miserably on both occasions so I was keen for Col to show me the ropes. We arrived an hour before low tide and our first job to do was dig some rag worm, Col has a garden fork conveniently stashed in the undergrowth so he doesn't need to carry it on the train all the time!  after twenty minutes digging we had more than enough rag to do us the afternoon.

ain't nothing like the real thing

Once at the harbour we fished away in the inside wall for an hour or so without much interest apart from the odd tap, then Col took the first Wrasse of the day, a little Ballan in what could have only been a couple of feet of water max followed by his first Goldsinny wrasse of the day

switching between fishing on the inside and outside of the harbour wall the familiar tap tap bang bites of the wrasse became more frequent as the tide came in,

Col was broken by this one only to catch him a little while later on and get his hook back!

a goldsinny and a ballan

Col was using a size 18 hook with Corkwing wrasse in mind

no fillings required here!

on the light gear even the little wrasse put up a scrap, every now and then a bigger one would come along, and most of the time they won the fight, you really have to keep them out of the snags to have any chance of landing them.

after getting snapped on the cast before i was pleased to keep my last ballan of the afternoon out of the snags

at the back of five we had to leave to catch the train home, i can see why Col's been so addicted  to fishing for them this summer, brilliant fun on the light gear.