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Thursday 9 February 2017

Cracking February fishing!

A few days ago I went for a session on the rocks soon after my arrival back to Skye... I couldn't believe how mild the weather was (coming from snow-ridden N. Greece!) and with water temperatures of around 8.5℃ I was pretty sure that I would find active fish.
Now usually at this time of year I had good results down at the Sea-lochs albeit with much smaller fish. Moreover in the East Coast you could get better-sized fish although in my experience you might be looking for a few bites in a whole day! This is Skye though, and after putting on a 4" UV/motoroil, long John paddletail on a 20g jighead, I got straight into fish! A plumb, hungry coalie managed to fit the lure in its mouth and was released soon after. I got fish after fish on almost every cast after that! Coalies were out in numbers and with the ML setup they were proving to be the best fighters of the day! Got a good number of pollock as well, especially as the day got on. Sizewise coalies were around 40cm and pollock around 55cm, but the pollock seemed subdued and much more prone to get straight in the snags than making runs... This can be explained by the low water temps and also by the big bellies on some of them indicating spawning time.
THE place!

Ravenous coalfish..

Decet stamp of pollock about..


I stuck to solid coloured lures throughout the day, either dark or loud in order to be more detectable in the milky water, on jigheads, cheburashka and Carolina rig.
 Coalies would typically hit anything while the largest pollock seemed to like the lures pinned to the bottom (even dragged) especially rippletail worms. I fished from the ebb onwards and bites were more frequent before and after the high tide mark. This may also be due to the sun coming up...

Some really nice coalies..


Carolina rig is very effective for pollock on the bottom.


Bruiser..

Metals would invariably get coalies!


It was a thoroughly enjoyable day with way too many fish than I'm used to for this time of year.. The Isle of Skye is such a generous fishing destination and with these mild winters I find it more to my liking fishing now than in summer with all the tourists!
Below a video of some of the days fishing. Unfortunately the batteries were very low and I didn't get the whole day's worth of action.

Tight lines and more to come!

Gear used.
Rod: MajorCraft KGEvolution Basic KGS-902L.
Reel: Shimano Stradic Ci4 2500f
Mainline: Duel Hardcore x4 PE0.8
Leader: Duel Hardcore Powerleader fluorocarbon 16lbs
Lures: various solid coloured (light or dark and UV) on 20g jighead, 16g cheburashka and Carolina rig with added floater near the hook.

2 comments:

  1. Nice work, especially in Feb. Been looking for a weather window and the right timing for a kayak trip-not easy.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks pal. Aye I know what you mean.. It may be mild but its very windy.. Looking good for this weekend though!

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