The last Skye fish for 2016!

The past couple weeks I have managed to do two outings in order to close my 2016 account up here in Skye. I would've liked to have been on the rocks much more often as the weather has been very mild and settled for the most part, but being very busy at work, didn't get the chance. Nevertheless both sessions were on fire with lots of decent fish coming out and I have to say that I feel 'full' of fishing bliss! lol I'm now going back home and I hope to be making some reports on my fishing there...
On both sessions The fish were very active and the general weather patterns were the same. That is around 10C temperatures with brisk westerlies. On the second session the winds were a bit more than brisk with a moderate swell! This didn't slow down the fishing though... I used the heavy gear on the first day and the ML/HRF setup on the second one. I had lots of fish in the 3lbs-5lbs bracket with a couple more than that and also a few cutoffs even on the heavy gear! Moreover the coalies are now in their best size with a proper fatty caught the other day on a 5" paddletail and 3/0 jighead. 😲
I also got a surprise in the form of a beautiful male cuckoo wrasse in the last session.

A good stamp of fish...

Metals were very productive on the calm day...

Heavy Texas does the job...

A solid fish!

Of course the SaltyBait always produces..

Such beauty..

As I mentioned, the second day conditions were far rougher and this affected the fish lure preference but not their feeding activity. While I caught plenty of fish on metals on the calmer conditions of the first day, it was a different story in the swell... I had far more consistent results then with 'flashy' colours and loud presentations i.e chartreuse paddletails on cheburashka, pearl-white sp's on Vassalo Swimming jigs and Carolina rig with red floater before the hook. It was also very noticeable that the use of the lighter gear didn't inhibit me but instead helped with fishing lighter weights and picking up bites better despite the swell and current. The finer lines really cut through the water...

Chartreuse was the colour of the second day..

Loud presentations in the swell...

A fatty!

Recaptured fish!

On the 2nd day metals were preferred by the smaller ones.

Nice one!

A lovely surprise.

The place of dreams...

Goodbye.. for 2016...

Another interesting occurrence on the second day, was when the sun came out and soon enough the bites from larger fish slowed down.. I then switched to small slow jigs and reverted into catching fish albeit the smaller ones and also coalies. As soon as the sun got behind the clouds and became darker, the bigger fish started feeding again and the softplastics again picked the best ones out.
Below the action filled videos!

These two days were all I needed before leaving and I'm now looking forward to some good fishing back home! I'm hoping to get some bass and barracuda from the salt and chub and pike from the freshwater... Lets see!

Tight Lines and Merry Christmas!

Gear used.

Rod: MajorCraft Solpara SPS-1002LSJ, 3.05m. max 50g and MajorCraft KGEvolution Basic KGS-902L.
Reel: Shimano SW Biomaster 4000XG and Shimano Stradic Ci4 2500f
Mainline:YGK G-Soul WX8 PE1.2and  Duel Hardcore x4 PE0.8
Leader: Duel Hardcore Powerleader fluorocarbon 25lbs, 16lbs and12lbs
Lures: 20g -30g metals, 16g-20g cheburashka with various paddletails on  #1 offset ewg hook, Carolina rig with 20g -30g tungsten bullet-8mm glass bead-swivel-25cm line-#1/0 offset ewg hook and various softbaits.