Lochaline and Skye adventure! Part 2.

The second day on Lochaline we fished mostly on the working pier but unfortunately there was a large vessel there not allowing us to fish at the front of the pier. Thus after a few casts around the sides, I wandered off leaving Scott to fish his baits for his species hunt. The coastline directly after the pier is rocky and as mentioned with good depth and I was sure I could tempt some pollock or maybe even something more unusual from the depths... I tried fishing the bottom at distance first but that proved to be almost impossible and very time consuming as the lure took ages to find bottom and practically emptied my spool! In my experience from similar marks in Etive, the great depths do hide surprises but it takes a long time and effort to get them and in the end its pretty boring fishing... I then started changing lures and trying to find the edge of the shelve before it drops off as its there where most of the fish are hunting/staging in such marks. The best approach was a 12gr cheburashka with a 4" Reins rockvibe shad that soon had the pollock biting. They were of an average size though and most came from surprisingly deep water for the time of the year.

Lochaline west pier.

The coast after the pier..

A plump coalie..

And some pollock as well from deep water..

After a while the bites dropped and I decided to head back to Scott and see how he did. he had caught some more cuckoo wrasse along with a few other mini species without any ballans though and no ling. I changed to the light gear and fished small metals around the pier mostly to pass the time.
Of course i caught more coalies and a couple mackerel along with a lovely sea trout.

Lovely silver..

The time passed and the fishing slowed down so we decided to take a break and look in Google Earth for any other marks around that would give us some more fish. We identified an area on a peninsula with better depth than the surrounding area and decided to go and fish it. On arriving there after a tricky drive, it was apparent that it was a 'fishy' mark even though not as deep as we thought but definitely wort a try. Scott fished with bait on a baitcaster while I used my heavy gear for long casts with a 20g Saltybait/gulp sandeel combo and a tiny soft plastic teaser about 40 cm from the lure. This rig really 'combs' the water and it rarely comes up without a bite or a fish, hence its usefulness in new waters. From the first few casts I was getting bites and soon I had some nice coalies that took the teaser as usual. I then proceeded to getting two double hook ups with decent pollock that made me think I had something much better on before getting some more coalies with a really fat one among them and then a lone codling as well.

Nice looking mark..

Teaser always gets them..

Double haul of pollock!

And another one!

Probably the fattest coalie Ive ever seen!

A single codling for the whole trip!

 Scott wasn't having much luck with the bait except a couple pollock that hit the bait when he was reeling it in and so, after a couple hours and while the sun was going down, we decided to head to the ferry pier for another frantic, coalie smashing night! The results were the expected and i had even more of them OTT this time! We head back at around 23:00 as we needed to sleep for the long drive to Skye the next day.
We set off for Skye early the next day and on the way up we decided to have a go at Loch Duich near the Eilean Donan Castle. The mark is a deep rocky point and after a few casts with a Salty bait I had a nice coalie and two pollock with one of them being of a good size around 3lbs..

Cant get a more picturesque mark than that!

It holds some fish...

A nice pollock from the depths..

After these fish we got back on the road  to Skye. We reached Portree in the early afternoon and we headed at once for a tidal mark called the black rock where there have been some reports of an interesting mix of species caught. Unfortunately since the mark can only be approached around low tide and with the water now coming up we had very limited time... Nonetheless I quickly got to the rocky point and started casting about with a 4g cheburashka and some isome threaded to a #10 hook. It didn't take long to get a fish and a pollock was quickly hoisted up the rocks. A few casts later and it was time to move though as we were getting cut off.

The black rock..

And my express pollock..

We moved further along the coast to some interesting looking rocks but the wind picked up and it made fishing very difficult. We weren't expecting the wind to be so strong and even more so to come from the Northeast in the middle of summer(!) and after a while we headed for our accommodation and then back on the road for a northern mark that Scott knew from previous visits. This proved to be a bad decision and in retrospect we should've  looked for areas sheltered form the wind but we didn't expect to find the mark in as bad a state as it was! We made a few casts and I even caught and lost a little pollock that shook the hook but in reality it was unfishable and the waves were huge. Distraught we headed towards other likely marks nearby that would be more protected from the wind but in reality we spend more time driving than fishing and in the end we decided to just fish the pier at Uig but with very meager results... Disappointed we went for a bite in town where Scott even had a play with the bait rod and some more little fish from Portree harbour while I couldn't be bothered from the cold! A fish and chips later and a few beers back at the hostel and we planned a better approach for the morning. We decided to head Southwest to a mark near Elgol that Scott had good fish in the past and moreover it would be largely protected from the wind... An almost non existent sleep later (never staying at a hostel again!) we headed to the mark first thing in the morning...
 I took with me the heavy and medium setups and started with the heavy one and the Salty bait with teaser rig. The mark had a good depth but little structure and snags further out. After some casts I got a few bites and a couple coalies showed up but it was slow going at first. We persevered though as we knew we were on the best mark with these conditions and as the sun came higher and the wind died down a bit, the fish started waking up... Below a vid form some of the action and some pics...

Stunning bit of scenery at Elgol.

A rainbow for good luck?

Scott braving the wind..

First one..

Stunning big daddy!

First ballan of the season!

They were quite aggressive!

The thumbs up of success!

It is interesting to note that I lost a couple of good fish that simply weren't hooked even after a good strike! I put this down to the new hooks that I was using the Hayabusa worm offset wrm 951 and in close inspection, even while they proved to be very sharp and strong, their shape and narrow opening seem to affect hook-sets with pollock. This cant be a coincidence as I didn't lose other fish with different hooks. I guess I need to watch this more carefully.. Another interesting point is that almost all of the large pollock were caught very close in at the rock wall and after examining the remains of a rockling from a pollock that Scott caught it is obvious that they are resident fish that hunt for sizable prey very close to the rocks. Next time I will probably use some weighted senkos and stickbaits for them as well...
Moreover we were surprised by the lack of codling but I guess we cant draw any conclusions yet...
Below another vid of various fish and some more pics of the stunning Skye! I'm already planning for my return in September!

In all it was a very successful and enjoyable trip and many thanks go to Scott for taking me there as well as managing the logistics (except that dreaded hostel!!) and hope we can do another 'expedition' soon!

Thanks for reading and tight lines!