Some tough guiding to start the season.

 Over the weekend I guided for a second time (after many postponed trips due to various reasons) my friend Zubair and his brother along with 2 friends of theirs that haven't fished in Skye before.

The weather didn't allow for a boat outing thus we fished from the rocks. Unfortunately the boys were a bit late and we lost valuable time from the ebb in the morning. I got cut off by something with sharp teeth and Zubair dropped something big that stayed close to the bottom. Possibly spurdogs. 

After that the action slowed down and we had to move to a couple different spots. The bites were few and far between and mostly coming from deeper spots. Typically, the newbies both caught while the "veterans" didn't!  Took another move to get them to catch as well. 

Overall the fish were fussy and apart from the early morning losses, no lunkers showed up. Moreover, we caught  a couple males that were still exuding milk showing that they haven't spawned out fully. I'd usually expect fishing like this in March or April but not May... 

With the colder weather this year i suppose that everything's been pushed back a bit. Water temperatures are over 9C now so hopefully things will pick up quickly. 

I've been doing more wee lochan fishing lately as it gets me some exercise and those brownies are always fun. I got an UL telescopic rod for these smaller waters and every little fish feels like a monster.  Still a bit slow on the seatrout front. 

Only had one short boat session since my last post without having much to show for it. Was more exploratory as I had a few areas marked that I wanted to check out but just then my fishfinder's transducer stopped working and put me all wrong for the day. Had a few average fish here and there and played around with the boat before calling it a day. I've since bought a Garmin striker 4 Vivid with downvu imaging and also ordered a cheap transducer from Aliexpress for the old Garmin. If that works, I'll use the Vivid on the boat and the old one in the kayak...

Who needs hooks when they hit like that!

A cast from the pier after I put the boat away...

Looks good.

It seems that we'll be getting some warmer weather soon and there'll be an end to these Northerlies at last! Raring to get the boat out and do some serious fishing!

Tight lines 

Slowly edging towards Spring.

 The weather has given us glimpses of Spring the past couple of weeks and I've had a few outings in salt and freshwater. Had a few nice fish on a short SIB session after work and got some nice underwater footage that I've yet to edit!  The pollock were up for larger and more natural baits than the reaction lures I tend to use this time of year and there seemed to be a mix of prespawn and postspawn fish.  My Northumbrian friends lures did well again.

A solid fish OTD.

A couple days ago I tried to open my sea trout account as well.  Took me a while, but I did find a group of sewin at a slightly different place of where I usually catch them. They were patrolling a rocky point close to some deeper water.  Got 3 fish stuck, landed 2 and had a couple missed hits as well. Only small but they were there and pretty as ever!

Beautiful silver missile.

 I also managed a very short session on the kayak, on our way back from a day trip. Fitted the fish finder to it as well and I was salivating at what I was seeing!  Definitely will be doing more of that soon. Typically, I only got 2 bites and landed a nice but skinny brownie...

Good size but skinny. 

The inflatable kayak has been a pleasure to use so far and my only gripe is that the rudder could be improved as the turns are quite wide. I'm sure I'll work something out for that...

My time has been more limited than usual the past couple months but now with some of the covid restrictions getting lifted, I hope to start the guiding and even more fishing! 

Tight lines