A bit of LRF in the Aegean!

Today I returned from a week-long holiday back home in Greece. Although this was most certainly not a fishing trip, still the little Spro mobile stick found its way among my stuff along with a newly acquired yet used Shimano Biomaster 1000fb and naturally I had a couple sessions in some of my old haunts... Unbelievably the bad weather followed me there and I didn't manage a single outing on freshwater. Moreover the sea-fish seemed to be affected as well from all that rain but thankfully LRF gear and tactics helped me have some fun!
One particular session stands out as I fished with my cousin Kyriakos, something we haven't done in a while, and catching a good number of fish. It was a long time since I taught him the basics but he soon put that knowledge to good use, managing plenty of painted and plain combers along with an annular sea bream. He was using cheburashka with isome and generally soft plastics while I was using metals, blades and soft plastics as well in the end. This saw me catching loads of painted combers, with the blades and small paddletails being the most effective lures while I lost something much bigger (grouper or snapper probably) on the ZX blade that didn't stick. Towards sundown I got a couple sea-bass on a 2" white Jackall Peke Peke on a Crazyg jighead. But also got a nice hit on a popper just a couple meters away from my feet without a hookup though..
What impressed us was the good size of some of the painted combers along with their expanded bellies so I'm guessing that they could still be spawning! In the end of June?!
Some pics below and a video will follow soon.

A perfect rock mark..

Painted comber will take a large variety of lures..

Chunky goby from the shallows..

Beautiful!

A happy lrfer!

Double hook-up!

A perfect target for Mebaring and Kurodai tactics..

Match the hatch.. If you look closely...

Baby goldblotch grouper

Two banded sea bream on isome..

Most of them with expanded bellies...

A bit of silver..

A good little fighter..

A serious painted comber..

A nice little break from the hustle and bustle of the city and although the weather yet again messes up my plans, I still thoroughly enjoyed my trip! Now I'm curious to see what July brings...


Tight Lines!

Gear used.
Rod: Spro Mobile stick 80 UL
Reel: Shimano Biomaster 1000 fb
Mainline: Gosen mebarin braid PE 0.4
leader: Toray premium fluorocarbon, 6lbs
lure: various

A couple more vids..

Just a couple clips of the sessions before my holidays..

Enjoy!

Thought it was June, not November...

This week I was determined, even without a car, to get a bus and go to Etive yet again. The weather wasn't looking good but I was determined to get among the pollock that should finally be there in numbers...
Well thankfully my mate Ronnie wanted to do the same and so yesterday morning we set off.
On the way to the loch the weather was getting worse and worse. On reaching the mark we were greeted with strong winds and rain. Temperature was around 8 C!
We knew it was gonna be bad and we came prepared with waterproofs but it was even worse than the weatherman predicted! Nevertheless I started fishing blades and trying hard to control them in this wind and after a while I started catching some fish. They weren't of any great size but this raised our hopes that a larger fish would show with perseverance.. Unfortunately this didn't happen, and after a few hours we had enough so we decided to head down to our usual banker mark in loch Fyne.
The weather was a little better there and we got catching fish straight away.. What surprised me was the great depth that most fish were coming from and that some of the pollock still had worms on them. Moreover the number of pollock was relatively limited comparing to codling, that we caught quite a few of. This seems to me to be because of the bad weather that I find  affects the pollock much more than codling and coalies. In any case we caught a good number of fish with some nice codling among them and also lost a couple that got stuck on the way up.
As they say, a day fishing beats a day at home anytime!
Some pics below and a video will come soon.

The largest pollock on the blade...

Lovely looking codling...

On a softie..

Pretty coalie.

Cheburashka kills codling!

A poor cod from the deep on the slow jig..

They are leaner here comparing to the East coast ones..

Red coding are stunning..

I'm not sure I will be heading up in Etive again, unless the weather greatly improves before my holidays back home in two weeks time. I want to try loch Long soon and I'm hoping I will be able to find some productive marks there as its so much closer to Glasgow and I can reach it easily either by train or bus!

Tight lines!

Gear used.
Rod: Majorcraft Crostage CRK-T782AJI, MC KG Evolution, KGS-832ST 2.53m, 3-15g
Reel: Shimano Stradic 1000 fc, Shimano Stradic ci4 2500f
Mainline: YGK G-soul x3 PE 0.4,  Duel Hardcore X4 PE 0.8
Leader: Sunline FC guide special fluorocarbon, 6lbs doubled up. YGK Nitlon DFC fluorocarbon, 8lbs
Lure: ZX35, metal jigs, paddletails on cheburashka.