New travel rod testing..

I have recently purchased a new travel rod since I'm looking to have a complete range of them in preparation for future trips. The rod is the Savage Gear Roadrunner XLNT, 7', 3-16g and as soon as it arrived I was anxious to go and try it. Yesterday I got my opportunity to try it as it was my day off.
I was going to start with the freshwater, throwing some hard baits in the shallow bays for the pike and hopefully perch, and then I would close the session at my pollock mark in Loch Etive before sundown, targeting the pollock with soft plastics.
Reaching Loch Awe and on first inspection the rod seemed nice and light to the hand, being perfectly balanced with the Mitchell Mag Pro Lite 1000, and with a fast action without being too stiff.
 I rigged  a 6cm floating Salmo Slider as the water was quite shallow and I didn't want the lure to dig in the weedy bottom. I was casting in the middle of a weedy bay and retrieving the lure with jerks and twitches on a medium-fast pace trying to work it close to some bulrush. As the lure came closer to the edge of the bulrush, I got the first violent strike and after some vicious head shakes I got my first Scottish perch!

Small but feisty!

Another cast at the same spot lead to another strike and better resistance this time but unfortunately the fish (a bigger perch) threw the hook,, I made a longer cast and after a few turns of the handle with a couple jerks I got a different hard strike and I knew I had a pike in the end of the line. I struck hard lifting the rod as high as i could and the fish was on! It made some spectacular runs and jumped clear of the water 20m away from me (I'm sure these Awe fish are on steroids!) but after a while I got the upper hand and managed to land the fish. It was measured at 74cm and on closer inspection I discovered a long trace going well into the fish's throat.. I didn't try to pull it as I didn't want to cause any additional harm to the fish and let it go. Other than that the pike seemed in good condition so I hope it will be fine..

Bulrush covered bays always hold some fish..

Plenty of these fish around the 75cm mark.

I continued casting and walking towards another bay and then I saw another pike similar to the one I caught but unfortunately this fish was dead.. It had a small hook under its jaw and I'm not sure what happened there.. Possibly bad reviving effort? Anyway after seeing that fish I decided to leave the pike alone and go for the pollock instead.

Such a pity..

Culprit?

I drove to my mark and the sun was going down, the tide was also receding so it was perfect conditions for pollock. I rigged a 3'' Daiwa D'fin shad on a 5g articulated football lead head and started fan casting. It took longer than I was expecting but on a long cast I got a bite OTD and saw the line accelerate, I struck and the fish was on. I could feel it was a decent fish but it didn't start crash diving like a pollock, It felt like it was just cruising with its flanks against me and I thought i might be on to a decent cod or something.. As the fish came closer though, it woke up and made a proper crash dive towards the bottom.. I knew I had a pollock then and after a fantastic fight with a few more runs I managed to land him.

Took him a while to wake up..!

As usual, engulfed!

Another good size pollock and I was quite pleased for an afternoon's fishing, so much so that I decided to call it a day and head home for a beer and a good meal..
I'm quite happy with the rod as it works hard and soft plastics adequately with a good sensitivity on the tip. It also bends well on the fight despite being fast actioned.  I wish they made it a bit longer though but overall I'm very pleased that I bought it and hope it will give me many more fish from my travels to come!
Other than this session I had a previous one covering the same places with the addition of my trout mark a couple days before. I got a couple trout and one surprisingly on a metal jig (lost it on the fight) while yoyo-jigging it with the flow and I feel there's more to come by using this presentation.

They are getting more active..

I then went to the bays with the perch in mind and got my Ul dropshot gear. Instead of catching perch though, I caught a nice pike of 75cm that would not give up and let me land it! But in the end I managed to bring it on the bank. It was caught on a dropshotted Lunker city Ribster on my usual K2K dropshot rig. I am also posting the K2K knot I'm using as it really works best for me.

Sorry for the bad photo but I was using my Action camera and I'm not used to it yet!

K2K knot step 1.

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4.

I finished that session at my polllock mark as well and although I got no big fish I managed a few smaller ones and a codling on a combination of blades and  HTO metal jigs.

Pollock on a HTO metal jig.

Pretty codling on a metal jig.

We are really getting into summer mode lately, with the freshwater especially firing up and hopefully more fish will come. I'm really looking forward to some perch fishing as I really get a kick out of it! Its disheartening though to see fish dying after being mistreated and I think bait anglers especially should be more cautious as the pike can get the bait very deep.
I will probably follow the same pattern on my next days off and try and work on using metal jigs for the trout and some dropshot for perch..

Thanks for reading and tight lines!

Gear used

Rod: Savage Gear Roadrunner XLNT, 7', 3-16g
Reel: Mitchell Mag Pro Lite 1000
Mainline: Fins windtamer, 10lbs
lure: various

When weather's crap.. LRF!

Well as the title says, the weather has been absolutely dreadful for the past week and it was raining for the past three days non stop! I was feeling like a bird in a cage and although I attempted a couple 'serious' sessions, I was turned back wet and without much to show for my efforts.. I was in need of a mood-fix and could think of nothing better than a couple LRF sessions mainly in Fort William car park pier, that is quickly becoming my go-to mark for the little predators.
With the rain easing up for the couple past days, though not stopping, I picked my Majorcraft Solpara LRF rod along with my newly repaired Mitchell Mag Pro and drove to my mark. The Pier is very easily accessible and a convenient spot for fishing, but the major factor is the good number of small codling and coalies that provide good, and most importantly, reliable action.
The rigs and techniques werent fancy, just 2-3g jigheads and 5g carolina rigs will cover most situations, along with some mini hardbaits for more variety.
There is usually current running up or down the pier according to the tide, and this draws fish near the corners of the pier where the water is constricted and food is funnelled through. This is particularly evident with coalfish as they will be shoaled tight around these areas and will hit everything that passes. The current pushes dead kelp, scum etc near the walls and the coalies are attracted as they find food amongst all this 'cloud' of dirt. When I could get past the coalfish and especially near the walls I got a couple of sea scorpions that really intrigue me as a species with their interesting looks.

Plenty of these...

..And these

Voracious appetites!

Prawn imitation hard lures work too..

Thank god for coalies!

Fish were shoaled tight near the corners of the pier...

...where the surface scum was collecting,

Little poor cod too.

All the codling seemed quite plumb and some had pieces of ragworms in their mouth.

Targeting the surface scum.

Night game coalie.

I have also fished the pier during nighttime as there are plenty of lights and the fish hunt very close in. All in all I had some good fun and I'm thinking of putting some more night sessions in order to target some larger codling. Thankfully the weather got nicer today and I had a better fishing day but Ill post it separately..

From a different session in Etive but still striking looks!

Thanks for reading!

Gear used.
Rod: Major Craft Solpara SPS-S792M (7'9", 0.5g-5g)
Reel: Mitchell Mag Pro1000
Mainline: Sunline Siglon fluorocarbon, 3lbs
Rig:carolina, jighead
lure: slim lures, prawn imitations, glow is good as well.

Blades, metal vibration, cicadas etc...

Call them what you like but for a while now I was wondering if these lures have a place in my tackle box. When I first saw them I was quite keen in getting some of them as they look cool and I was sure they would give me loads of fish easily... After getting my hands on them, I tried them in freshwater and the salt but the results were not the ones I was expecting.
I thought that with their vibration and flash, fish would go mad for them and I used to rig them from the hole towards the back to produce the maximum vibration! This seemed to produce the opposite effect and fish wouldn't touch them! I then started researching even more on how they are fished and also gave them some more water time by trying many different retrieves and in various situations/conditions. I started getting some fish on them and in freshwater this seemed a bit easier as perch and even chub would go for them, especially in areas where fish had wisened up to the traditional spinners and spoons. Albeit no big fish among them.
In the salt I got some fish when the conditions were rough and especially at lighted harbour entrances at night. Even then though, they never became a mainstay in my lurebox instead becoming the lure you would put when playing around.. This was to change after I decided to use some from the Ecogear range in a situation where I though they might do well.
I was fishing my usual mark in Loch Etive at the mouth of a basin and the tide was coming in. There was also quite a strong wind and the water slightly stained. I had good results with the soft plastics retrieved with the current but I thought of using something that would imitate a crustacean dragged by the current and trying to flee in short jerks on  the bottom as they move.
I rigged a ZX35 and what followed was a revelation! Fish were hitting it like mad and not just the little ones.. I caught some nice pollock that had engulfed them.. On that day the fish seemed to just suck them in from the bottom like they were a natural food source and not an artificial and this lead me into thinking that I may have stumbled on a pattern here. Indeed many sessions followed and with always some fish caught, good fish at that with pollock around the 2kg mark that fought like demons on the LRF gear. So much so that I had to beef up the braid and trace to get them in safely while sacrificing casting distance. I also managed to video some of these sessions with my new Sony Action camera and I will be posting more videos soon. The quality and layout is not very good but I'm looking for some software to help me improve.
Some notes/points from the sessions are:

• Current and slightly stained water very important.
• 'Crustacean' profiles/presentations more effective than 'fishy/flashy' ones.
• Fish come pretty fast.
• On Ecogear ZX and assist rigged blades waiting on the strike a bit works better.
• Short jerks and pause to touch bottom very important.
• Rigging near the front better for less vibration/flash, too much scares the fish!
• Smaller lighter lures of up to 4g more successful than heavier ones.
• Added appendages/modifications to look more like prawns can work.
• Stiffer Aji style rods better for working them along with braid over fluoro.
• On currents, although the direction of retrieve should be more natural with the flow, the position of the fish is more important and they will take it even when retrieved against the flow.

Here are some pics of fish and also a few clips of recent sessions.

A good fish.

Engulfed!

Coalies like them..

Decent fish..

Codling like them too!

Some cheap ones.

modified...

further modified!

In all blade baits make for some very fast and fun fishing and under certain conditions and fish they can be deadly. Although they are harder to make them work than other lures, they certainly earned their place in my tackle box! The best model has by far been the Ecogear ZX range but their high price has put me off from buying them for a third time! So I purchase some cheaper ones mainly from Poland and after changing the hooks and 'modifying' them, some of them have proven to be very effective..

Tight lines!

Gear used.
Rod: Various but stiffer ones better
Reel: various
Mainline: Braid better.
lure: Ecogear ZX 30 and 35, Spinmad Cma and Uklejka, Jaxon switch blade

Finally some trout!

The past weekend I was determined to catch a trout from loch Awe no matter what! So on Saturday I woke up at 06:30 AM  and headed off after some coffee and breakfast. I reached the loch about 07:45 and started making casts while walking along the bank. I was using my medium LRF gear for fear of encountering another salmon but this limited the choice of lures I could use as most of my spinners and spoons for trout are less than 4gr. Nevertheless I stuck to #2 spinners and two spoons, one 5gr Yo Zuri Altima and the other 8gr by Aquarius.
I was expecting the trout to be most active early on but this wasn't to be and apart from one caught at 09:15 it was a while before I caught more.
Due to the morphology of the mark being like a deep channel with abrupt edges, it was difficult working the lures in straight retrieve as they would ride too high on the water column and from what I could see there was no surface activity. I then started working the spoons (snagged the spinners!) in a yoyo jigging fashion trying to initiate spinstop after every lift of the rod and letting the lure touch bottom.
After hundreds of casts (maybe thousands!) I finally found some fish in quick succession but of course also lost a few that either didn't bite properly or shed the hook in the fight. It was midday and the fish seemed to be getting more active then surprisingly.  But after a few the bites became less frequent. On the last casts something hit me hard near the bottom and for a second I thought it was another salmon! Instead after a while the fight indicated that it was a pike that hit the Yo Zuri spoon. it fought well but I was bullying it as I didn't have a trace on and the fish could bite through any moment. As I brought it near the bank, I grabbed the line and it then snapped by the fish's teeth but I was quick and got my hands on him! A nice jack that provided some entertainment in a very long and tiring session as the gear was too powerful for the little trout.

The first one.

Beautiful fish!

micro spoons and spinners do the job.

A nice distraction.

 I then moved to the shallow bays in order to target the pike as it was already 4 in the afternoon!
 The bays were stuffed with other anglers and after wading long and fishing hard, I got no pike and the only bites I got seemed to be from perch. I persisted targeting the pike on the large lures hoping for one but it didn't come. In retrospect I think I should have targeted the perch...
The rest of the weekend didn't go as planned as the weather turned sour with continuous rain and strong winds that didn't let me have a proper session. Since then I have also encountered some sea trout in Loch Etive and they seem to be getting very active now. I wasn't targeting them going instead for the pattern that I stumbled upon, pollock on blade baits, that I will go on more detail in a following post.

Little trout on spoons..

..along with codling on the same presentation.

They are getting more active and Ill need to target them soon...

 Overall it was a tough weekend fishing wise, and I also didn't manage to visit the new marks I wanted but instead Ive been having good fun on the short sessions for pollock. I am preparing some videos as well with my new Sony action camera and will be posting them soon.

Tight lines!

Gear used.

Rod: Major Craft KG Evolution KGS-832ST 2.53m, 3-15g
Reel:Shimano Stradic ci4 2500f.
Mainline: Seaguar Kanzen braid 10lbs. Dragon fluorocarbon 8lbs leader
lure: #2 Aglia and Comet type spinners, 5gr Yo Zuri Altima spoon, 8g Aquarius spoon.