Hail, snow, sun and fish! A guided fishing session in February.

Yesterday I had a guided session arranged with avid angler Iwan. He would be in Skye for a week or so with his girlfriend and wanted to catch some pollock and coalfish as he doesn't get the chance to do much rockfishing where he lives.
I was sceptical about the weather as the forecast has been changing every day and thus decided to just pick a day and stick with it... Well that's what we did and Monday morning saw me driving through several inches of hail on the road fallen the night before 😲! Not the best of omens for the day ahead but I persevered and picked Iwan up around 9 o clock. We headed to Neist point and found a bit of a swell running. The previous days had been windy and the swell had not cleared yet. Nevertheless the wind had died down and it was meant to get more pleasant later on in the day. Moreover we arrived about midway to low tide and thus were less concerned about the swell.
We set up on my favourite spot and started rigging up. From the off I noticed that Iwan was using a shorter and lighter rod than I would've liked thus I took the Light shore jigging setup for me in case we needed some 'grunt'.
I set him up with cheburashka and paddletail on his ML setup, but then switched to a Carolina rig with a 1oz tungsten bullet weight on the LSJ rod as the current was too strong (large tides). The lure was a 3" Long John paddletail in UV Magic colour that I thought would be easier to detect in the milky water.
The place was looking 'alive' despite the swell, with birds moving around and cormorants diving, something which is always a good sign...
Iwan started casting around and working the lure by dragging it on the bottom and keeping contact with it while it was slowly swept by the current. When the lure got closer in I told him to just wind it in slow and steady. The fish then slowly started coming, most of them around 2-3lbs but with a few pushing over 4lbs. Very decent for this time of year...

Hooked up!

First of many..

A very decent fish for this time of year.

After a few pollock, Iwan wanted to try for coalies and we got back to the lighter gear fishing metals with his homemade teaser flies. At that point it started snowing! It was the first time I fished under such heavy snowfall and I must admit was quite an awesome sight! 
He got a few coalfish that I quickly cut the gills to bleed out and then changed presentation to jighead for pollock when the coalies stopped biting. It was interesting to note that almost all the coalies preferred the metal to the teaser, something that reinforces my belief that they feed on larger prey at this time of year..

Coalies in the snow!

Unreal...

We were nearing the low tide mark now and the current had reduced considerably. I picked a pink Fiiish Crazy Sandeel as the water was still milky and he proceeded in catching a good number of fish one after the other! With this combination of big tides and swell, it appeared that the fish were looking to feed as soon as the waters calmed down and that was the most productive period of the day.
The fish seemed shoaled over or near certain patches of reef and kelp and they would hit Iwan's Crazy Sandeel hard! So hard that due to the frail material of this lure, we exhausted all the pink bodies and then went to the old classic and much tougher Savagear Sandeel in lemon back. This lure/colour proved equally successful and the fish kept coming.
The tide soon turned and also a glorious sun had come out (crazy Skye weather!) and the bites dried up after that... I was thinking of going on a different spot before the water rose more but thought it worthwhile changing lure to a more natural colour first. We put on a natural coloured sandeel and this seemed to do the trick by catching a few more pollock that had Iwan's little Solpara bent all the way! The short rod (7.5ft) made landing most of the fish that day a bit tricky and it was definitely not ideal for rock fishing but the fun factor cannot be underestimated! Moreover Iwan's old Pflueger reel's antireverse broke and this made a couple landings even more difficult! Thankfully he had a couple spare reels and continued to fish.

He's in again!

A nice one.

Happy angler.

Then the sun came up...

Well conditioned fish...

And they kept coming...

A change to a natural lure got more fish as the sun came out.

Chunky pollock.

At some point the bites died down, something to be expected from hammering a spot all day long, and seeing that we still had some time I decided on a move to a nearby mark for a few more fish. On reaching the second mark things looked quiet but after fishing around we moved to a spot that I saw some birds diving close by... We kept casting and retrieving our lures but other than a couple bumps and rattles we got nothing...
Seeing that the sun was going down I said to Iwan that we gave it our best...But it was then that he hooked up! After a good fight, I scrambled down the rocks and managed to land a nice fish for him, giving a happy ending to a surprisingly fruitful day (considering the weather!).
It was a pleasure seeing Iwan catch so many fish and I'm glad we managed to find them under these conditions and in this time of year. He might be coming again after the summer for some topwater action in the shallow marks... Will be having a video of the trip up soon.

Tight Lines!

Rod: MajorCraft Solpara SPS-1002LSJ, 3.05m. max 50g and MajorCraft Solpara Wind 7'7", 1/4-3/4oz
Reel: Shimano SW Biomaster 4000XG and others
Mainline:YGK G-Soul WX8 PE1.2.
Leader: Duel Hardcore Powerleader fluorocarbon 25lbs and16lbs
Lures: Carolina rigged Long John paddletails, Fiiish Crazy sandeels, Savagear Sandeels.