Holidays done.

 Back to Skye a couple days ago from my month long holidays in Greece. This was not strictly speaking a holiday as we went there to do our wedding and baptise the children, hence most of the time was spent with family and preparing everything. 

I only managed 4-5 sessions and most of them in freshwater. I did get a bucket list fish though as we visited Lake Plastira for a few days after the wedding. Its a dam  with rocky bottom and it has good numbers of predatory barbel. In my area in N Greece we don't have this species and I've always wanted to catch one on a lure.

Being midsummer I assumed that they would be close to deeper water and I caught one close to the actual dam. I used a variety of lures and presentations, trying to mimic crustaceans and small fish near the bottom by mainly bottom-bouncing and yo yo jigging but the fish preferred a bronze spoon on a straight retrieve a few meters from the bottom (!). Its always good to be surprised in fishing... Unfortunately i snagged and lost that lure a few casts later and didn't get any other bites. I was hoping that this trip wouldn't turn out to be a grind fishing-wise but the fish had other ideas... I fished a couple other areas with the ISUP and whilst I could see fish jumping (seemed mainly for parasite removal not hunting) they wouldn't hit. The last morning of our stay there, I revisited the dam and fished small metal jigs on a straight retrieve. It took a while but I got another bite and an unreal fight from a better specimen. These fish fight like salmonids! I released the fish and fished another hour or so for no more bites...

Streamlined power.

My first barbel on lure.

A much better specimen!

ISUP on the lake

To be fair I knew from my research that the autumn months are better for these fish and it felt like they were just post-spawn right now. Nevertheless I got another species scratched off the list. I'll definitely plan a dedicated trip for them sometime in the future.

The last few days in Greece saw me have a couple lrf sessions from the ISUP which has become my favourite summer fishing style. One day I had a good number of species and located a group of yellow scad but had to cut the outing short and the next day my efforts were thwarted by an actual storm that justified my purchase of a double paddle for the paddleboard...

ISUP lrf annular bream.

A wee melanouri (saddled bream)

Yellow scad are great fun!

Needless to say we also got covid as well and it seemed like nature was conspiring against me catching fish..! Perseverance pays off though and on my last session on my last day in Greece, I chose to visit my favourite dam close to home. It was raining but meant to clear later on (great conditions for midsummer fw fishing). I had a big fat chub on a fiiish black minnow imitation even before inflating the paddleboard and many more came afterwards along with some wee perch. The best action came near dusk where I experienced the best topwater bite in freshwater ever! The chub would attack anything that touched the water and I lost count of how many fish hit!

Fat chub!

A few of them about..

Topwater chublet.

It was tricky landing them on the ISUP with all the trebles flying about and I'll need to make a cradle or something for holding the fish on... I used cicada- like topwaters, small poppers and walkers. All of them got hit equally though I had better hook ups with double trebled lures.

I can't recommend the ISUP highly enough for summer fishing in calm waters. It has really opened up a ton of fishable ground for me and I'm seriously thinking of customising mine for more serious fishing, ie add seat, transducer mount etc. The low cost, speed of deployment, speed on water and quiet approach make it a perfect fishing platform. I suppose having my inflatable pedal kayak in Greece would be an even better fishing vessel but setting up the kayak and launching can feel a bit of a faff while the ISUP is a doddle. 

I'm really looking forward to some solid fishing here now. Need a few sessions on the mackerel and possibly sea trout but we'll see how it goes. Got some guiding booked and time to get serious soon as Autumn is just around the corner! 

Tight lines!