I have been unable to do much fishing lately as I have been very busy preparing to move to another place, job etc. I was gagging for some fishing though and since the weather has been ok, I found a couple hours on my break to do something that I don't do very often. This is to target the micro species with tiny hooks and lures. Its not that I don't enjoy this kind of fishing but being in a fishing paradise that is the west coast of Scotland, I tend to overlook the micro-predators.. Moreover I don't know areas with many rockpools etc around here so I just went down the Port Appin pier to see what could be had.. I was gonna be using a 2g cheburashka and a #18 long shank hook with another #20 hook tied above in a double dropshot fashion. I threaded some Isome on the bottom hook while the top one was baited with Gulp just to see if there was any difference in bites.
I had seen small corkwing wrasse, butterfish, gobies, blennies and of course the various gadoids but I was less interested in the latter as I catch them all the time!
Thus I started dropping the rig down the pier walls and the bites didn't take long to arrive...
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| The rig. |
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| How cool is this little scorpion?! |
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| Hordes of baby pollock... |
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| An unexpected pouting. |
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| My first Scottish blenny... |
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| My first Scottish goby... |
The hardest part was trying to avoid the ravenous baby pollock and coalies but in the end I managed a couple of my targets.. Moreover I didn't notice any preference to one or the other brand, both caught fish...
Today I got laid off early and decided to head up to Loch Etive since I haven't fished there for a while and I was keen to try for pollock and possibly some trout.
I started fishing at my favourite pollock mark and used 4" stickbaits on 3.5g, 3/0 weighted offset hooks. After many casts and while working the lure deep down with steady retrieve and pauses, I got a gentle take and I struck into something good. It made a screeching first run and a few less powerful ones while I was bringing it up, but in the end I managed to land a very good pollock of 66-67cm.
A last trophy possibly? After releasing the fish I got another much smaller one before I decided to move and change gear and tactics in order to target the trout. I used the Majorcraft Crostage/Shimano stradic 1000fc for them with a 7g hexagonal ice spoon/pilker and after casting about in a weedy shallow bay I got a couple before calling it a day.
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| A good pollock. |
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| Secure hook set. |
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| They love stickbaits.. (among many other lures of course!) |
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| A lovely Etive trout.. |
A few more fish from a couple quick sessions here and there. The mild weather seems to have stimulated the fish and they have been very obliging.. Pity I don't have more time here!
I was very impressed in one of these sessions where I witnessed some nice codling attack my lures almost at my feet, while hiding amongst the kelp in shallow water! More over I have been playing around with floating soft plastics on carolina rig in preparation for my winter canal fishing...
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| Nice codling hit at my feet... |
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| ...on a swimming-jig with a 3"senko.. |
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| Carolina with floating softbaits.. |
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| ...a promising presentation. |
I'm looking to have a few more sessions this week as it might be my last one up here and I'm also looking to write a post regarding my stickbait/senko fishing along with some videos..
Thanks for reading and tight lines!
Gear used.
Rod: MC Solpara for nanojig, MC KG Light for stickbaits, MC Crostage for trout.
Reel: Shimano Stradic 1000 fc, Shimano Stradic ci4 2500f
Mainline: Yamatoyo SW super Light Game PE 0.4, Duel Hardcore 4x4 PE 0.6
leader: YGK Nitlon DFC fluorocarbon, 8lbs.P-line Halo fluorocarbon, 10lbs,
lures: cheburashka, metal jigs and 4"stickbaits.
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