Normal working order resumed!

 Had a cracking guiding session yesterday that shows how quickly things change in the sea. Fished with Angus, a young local angler that stays away from the Island and doesn't get the opportunity to fish that often. 

I was already out for work commitments in the morning and arranged to meet him later in the day. On the way back from work, I  had a quick reconnaissance troll around my usual spots and a couple other points.  Stumbled upon a good stack of fish in a secondary point and then went to pick up Angus.  Headed straight back to the shoal and he was straight into them! 

The conditions were same as last week with a fresh WSW breeze and chop, same size of tides, state and water clarity, but the fish were in a real hunting mode. Its like a switch flipped and they turned into "Autumn" mode! 

I gave Angus my rod rigged with a homemade sandeel softplastic from my Northumbrian supplier ;-) while I was preparing his setup. The fish absolutely loved the lure and were coming in one after the other! I noticed that his setup was using mono line and decided to have a cast to remember the olden times...

Bending time!

Average size.

Brute of a fish!

God, how did we ever manage to catch fish on that! Zero feel and control. Almost impossible to set the hook properly, but I still caught too! At some point I got a good hit and the fish stayed deep... It took some good drag and got me in the kelp twice. It was very hard to control it with the mono but the line held and buffered the headshakes... I joked that it was probably a feisty little fish but brought up a nice lump of a pollock! Kinda cheeky that I caught it on my clients rod but I made sure he caught plenty more fish on mine!

Nice chunk.

After a while, the fish wisened up and we moved to a different spot. Marked a bait- ball and anchored up with the Haswing close to it. Angus was soon in again and these were some better fish... I think he broke his pb a few times and settled on a 7lber for the day.

Eyes on the prize.

By then the sun was going down and it was time to call it a day.  Such a great day's fishing and in good company. It felt like a different place to last week. The fish showed preference for very loud colours like pink, chartreuse and bright orange. The crazy sandeel imitations got most fish and the metals barely got a sniff. More to come soon.

Tight lines 

Them Northerners again...!

It's the time of year for my Northumbrian friends to come again and they've had a busy week... Mick, Keith and Chris came up on Saturday and we went out on Sunday morning. Me and Mick on my boat and Keith with Chris on Mick's sib. Conditions were very good and we covered a good number of marks during the day. 

We used mainly the lads homemade soft plastics and jigheads with good results. The fish were still spread out but every mark we went to had them! The size department was lacking a bit in comparison to other years but Keith did improve on that later in the day. We did get a couple of better coalies in amongst the pollock, with Mick having one that reminded me of my Norway trip... He was fishing with a lovely MajorCraft Solpara slow jig rod and the bend on it was unreal!

Keith and Chris with back to back fish!

Some bend!

A proper coalfish...

Standard size and great fun.

A coalie for me too..

Chris with a nice one.

Keith with the best of the day..

Cracking day!

The fish were a little bit fussy and required specific lure weights and profiles to get them going. Once unlocked, bites came thick and fast until they slowed down again and another presentation had to be found. We were anchored up with my Haswing Cayman GPS bow mount trolling motor and the other boat was connected to us by a 15m bungee cord. It was very impressive seing the motor work effortlessly with both boats tethered!

Unfortunately we didnt take many photos as everyone got stuck in the fishing! It was a great day and Im glad the lads managed to make it up here again after a year like this one...

More to come...

 

Tight Lines

Gamechanger!

 The title referes to my recent acquisition of a Haswing Cayman GPS bowmount trolling motor. Its the cheapest model offering a GPS-anchor feature and even though I spent only a couple hours playing around with it, I'm very pleased with its performance.  Most of the fishing I do requires lots of moving about and usually over rough ground. Drift - fishing on a SIB is a pain and the constant anchoring and retrieving of the anchor, accompanied with the losses from snags, really deducts from the fishing time. Needless to say, I've had my eye on one of these motors for a while. They are used extensively in fresh and saltwater overseas and slowly becoming more common in freshwater here in the UK.  For some reason they haven't caught on in the salt here. 

My main issues with getting the motor were obviously the cost but also finding a way to mount it on the bow. I've put down a deposit for a new boat, but not gonna see it in the "flesh" till Summertime as the F-Rib production has been affected by covid etc this year. Anyway, I got the motor, and I decided to make a marine ply frame to mount it flat on the bow and held there by straps that connect to the sib's bow D-rings. 

The end result may not look the prettiest (further designing might be necessary), but it works and feels secure enough. 

I took the boat out the other day with a biggish tide and 20+mph winds and the thing actually worked! Can't wait to get out for some proper fishing with it now...

Fishingwise, either because of the weather or work commitments, I really haven't done much at all. Had a nice session over at the West side of the island but nothing spectacular.  Its been disappointing this Autumn, that I haven't done nearly as much fishing as last year and the times I was out, conditions were not good for topwater fishing.  It is what it is though and I'll hopefully get some good fishing next week. Here's some pics and videos of late.

This has been a testing year to say the least, but I do hope it will end on a more positive note. 

Tight Lines and stay safe.