Isle of Skye September 2015 Expedition. Day 1.

I haven't been writing many posts lately mostly because I haven't done much serious fishing and also because I was planning a proper fishing trip on Skye. I did have a short trip to the Mull of Galloway but I only had a few casts here and there and other than masses of average pollock and a few ballans not much else was caught. Moreover my phone became almost non operational and I couldn't take any pics.. Thus just the week before my Skye trip I managed to get a new one (the waterproof Samsung S5!) and I was ready for it. I took the bus to Oban on Thursday the 17th and got picked up by my brother there. After some lunch I took the car and headed off to loch Linnhe.
I was planning to fish locally for the day and drive up to Skye early the next day. I got to my mark on Kentallen and had some light game fun there (the only true lrf sessions for the whole trip as it turned out).
I was fishing small creatures on the jika rig, aiming for some wrasse as I really haven't targeted them much this year, but the codling had other ideas and kept pestering me!
I then switched to metals and had some pollock before deciding to move to loch Leven and fish a mark that I found on a diving site. It was getting pretty dark but the mark supposedly holds good numbers of wrasse and it was worth a try.
I arrived at the mark and on a first look it didn't seem that great but after the first casts I realised there was more to it than meets the eye. I got a good 'snappy' bite on the cheburashka and after a spirited fight, a lovely ballan was up ashore. I then got another similar bite but this time a much stronger adversary that managed to cut me off on the first run... I retied and after a few more casts I got a nice codling that got unhooked as I was bringing it up through the kelp. Definitely a mark to be revisited...

Codling on creature and jika rig.

Loch Leven.

A feisty ballan.

I stopped fishing as it was getting dark and got into the car thinking of a place to spend the night. I wasn't feeling tired at all and I decided to head to Skye straight away, thinking I would make good time since the roads were going to be devoid of tourists! And so it was, after a couple hours I was in Loch Duich and I decided to sleep on the parking space near the Eilean Donnan castle, so that I could fish that mark as well first thing in the morning.
I woke up early to a spectacular view of the castle and got down to the rocks. I could see shoals of coalies splashing about as the tide was pushing in and after catching a few I decided to head off as the weather was looking good and I wanted to make the most of it fishing the marks I couldn't last time I was on Skye.

What a view to wake up to!

Having checked the weather forecast, I was meant to have a mixture of dry and wet days but what interested me the most, was the wind speed and direction. For the first few days the winds were mostly Southerly and at times quite strong, thus I decided to head up to the Northern marks first.
My first stop was Staffin, as it showed potential the last time I was here with Scott but it was unfishable then. This time the sea was much calmer (though still choppy) and I was hoping for better results.
I started off with my heavier setup and a 3" Long John paddletail on a 12g cheburashka.I began fan casting around the rocky point at the entrance to Staffin bay and was soon rewarded with a beautiful copper mottled pollock that shoot out from the kelp to take the lure just under my feet. I was surprised to see a fish that big with this kelp-colouration as its usually smaller fish, living amongst the kelp that have it, in my marks further south.

Stunning colours!

I then had a few more decent fish, got cut off by something better and finished with a good one. The bite seemed to slow down after mid-day and I then decided to head North again.

Staffin shoreline...

A nice one.

I arrived at a village called Aird, and immediately could see that the area was looking very fishy.
It was a kelp filled bay, fringed by rocky slopes. The water didn't seem particularly deep close in but a good cast would help me with that and also I could see that the bottom was cleaner further out. As it was sunny I thought that the fish would be hiding in the kelp or be further out in the deeper water, so I decided to use mainly metals. I would work the metal near the bottom far out and as it came closer, I would aim to pass it just over the kelp where I was thinking that most pollock would be. This proved to be very successful on coalies at first and then some good pollock! They seemed to like the metal worked faster than usual and with more jerks, thus assist hooks proved better than singles at the back, as they don't get tangled with the line. I had some slow jigs with me purchased mainly for this trip and they seemed to be very effective albeit fished completely differently to how they're meant to. Due to their shape (wide) they rise quickly on the retrieve and they were perfect for being worked rather fast on a steady retrieve just above the kelp. A few abrupt pulls (not jerks!) and pauses here and there made them irresistible.
I kept moving and casting along the shore and caught a good number of fish. I also lost more fish (and lures) than I would have liked and this was caused by me forgetting to pick up my fluorocarbon leader from the other bag and thus resorting to mono (12lbs)  for my leaders which just didn't cut it in this case. Even my fluorocarbon leader didn't prove good enough for some of those fish and marks as it turned out in the end...

Looks fishy...

...even more fishy!

Nice plumb coalies on Skye as well.

Pollock love metals.

What a fight!

Slow jigs used differently but working...

Pollock ground..

As the sun got lower the fish became active close in and I changed to soft plastics, taking fish after fish!
It was hectic fishing and the quality of fish along with the quantity was staggering with most fish between 2-5lbs!

Unreal colours.

Tired from all the rock scrambling and fishing but happy, I made my way back to the car for something to eat and some much needed sleep.

After a hard days fishing..

Below is a teaser from my videos to come

Tight lines and more to come...

Gear used.
Rod:  MC KG Evolution, KGS-902L, 2.7m, 7-23g.
Reel: Abu Garcia Soron STX 40
Mainline: Duel Hardcore X4 PE 1.5
leader: Toray Bawo polyamide plus mono 12lbs
lures: metals and 3"-4" softplastics on cheburashka.