Recently back from our yearly holiday break in Greece. Typically we arrived in foul weather back in Skye whilst it was a very hot September back there. Back in Greece we spent most of the time with family at my hometown but also went south to the Peloponnese for a wedding. This was a good opportunity for fishing there and I had my usual light game setup ( Crostage CRX-784LG, Stradic ci4 2500f) and a heavier one (Gamakatsu Akilas mobile 80H, Daiwa Ballistic LT 6000).
In all I used the light gear 95% of the time as I just didn't get the conditions or see signs of good fish. I had some sessions from the inflatable paddle board and a few from shore. I had to work for my fish most of the time but when I encountered 'tasty' conditions ( choppy sea) the fish would switch on. Surprisingly I encountered the most new species ever, managing to catch wee amberjacks, tunny, blue runner, pompano and a dentex! I was thinking that I'd get these species down south but actually my local area was the most productive... I did have a close encounter with a beautiful mahi mahi coming inches of my tiny metal jig but deciding against hitting it in Nafplio. That place had a good variety of predator species but I didn't manage to get anything decent out of it unfortunately.
There were 2 days that stood out for me. A wee shore session on a windy day whilst we were at the beach. I fished a rocky bay and caught some feisty wee amberjacks, a tunny OTT and raised a couple bass but only had one half-hearted hit from them. Cracker of a light game session! The other day that stood out was when we rented a boat for half a day and explored around the nearby little islands. We encountered masses of aggressive garfish that would hit most lures and that's where I also got my first dentex on a Savagear Gravity Pencil!
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| Scenery from an ISUP... |
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| Feisty wee Amberjacks! |
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| They fought well... |
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| ...but this guy fought harder! |
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| My first pompano ( litsomelanuro in Greek) |
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| Surprisingly few scad and false scad this time... |
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| A nice bream on a metal |
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| A tiny wee blue runner! |
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| Masses of garfish! |
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| The queen of the Mediterranean! |
I also had a couple freshwater outings where I mainly got chub on topwaters. I had a couple donkey sized chub spit my popper or come unhooked straight away that really got the heart going. These were definite pb fish and I suppose they'll have to wait a year...
The day before our return flights, I took a few topwaters and went down the local canal just to see if any wee jacks or chub would give me a pull. I got much more 'pull' than I expected as I lost a fat chub at my feet (I didn't get the net with me) and proceeded to lose 4 more poppers getting cut-off on jacks or snagged up by good chub! I think I need to get a designated heavy- cover topwater setup for these situations. Still able to cast small lures but with more backbone for landing fish in these overgrown spots.
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| Popper engulfed... |
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| Plenty of this size... |
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| Didn't get their grandparents this time unfortunately... |
As always the days went by pretty quickly but that's the way it goes when you're having fun. Already I have some ideas of things to try next time I'm over, namely getting the ISUP in the canals and maybe visit an island too.
Returning to Skye in the current weather was a rude awakening of sorts but I'm hoping to get out as soon as conditions settle for the 'golden' part of the season!
Tight lines
