A bit of LRF in Lochaline.

On my last day off I fancied a wee roadtrip with my girl and decided to drive down to Lochaline as the weather was nice.
Its been a while since I was there last and to be honest I kinda hoped for some similar action with coalies to last time... Thus I picked up a couple LRF rods and my hardcase full of mini-topwater lures and off we went...
Since the weather was decent I was also thinking to get some good footage of them as I didn't film them last time I was there.. If that didn't work I had a plan B of targeting wrasse on the deep pier and finally put to use some of the gear a Japanese friend send me back in Spring...
On arrival conditions looked perfect although the wind was stronger than expected. Straight away I started casting some metals about but it soon became apparent that the fish weren't there..
I persisted but to no avail.. A bit disappointed decided to stop for a break and a picnic and then went to the other pier for Plan B...
I prepped the two rods and put on the little sinkers my friend sent me. They are used in a system similar to gliding kabura where the weight is movable and the hook/lure has more freedom to move and its mainly used for bream fishing (Kurodai-chinu). I rigged one with a 2" gulp Sandworm on a #6 inline (plugging single) chinu hook and the other with a 2" Jackall Peke Ring just to see if the fish showed a preference. Glad they didn't and we soon started getting lots of bites from the wrasse near the legs of the pier. I got the first one up while Claire was struggling with her timing on the strike. A few more fish followed to me and noticing that they liked a longer pause I told her to cut down on the jiggling...😁
Soon after she hooked up to a little female cuckoo wrasse.. I left my rod down to get pics/unhook etc and when I went back to pick up my rod I realised I had a small fish on.. I brought it up and was pleasantly surprised to see a Leopard Spotted goby with my Peke Ring in its mouth! A first time capture for me...
We kept at it but after missing a strong bite and getting a couple more small cuckoos we decided to call it a day and head home..
It was unfortunate that the vast shoals of coalies weren't there as last time but it was still an enjoyable little session.

A few around this size.. pure fun!

A very effective presentation.

Oh hello!

Glad she didn't blank!

They go so well on the LRF gear!

Another predator!

Fishing duo...

The gift pack!

Regarding the presentation, the weight is not lead or tungsten and sinks slower but it allows more movement and better feel to the lure. Also I had only one snag while fishing amidst thick structure and I'm sure this is due to the sinker having a slower sink-rate. I could have used smaller hooks to fish more effectively for the little fish but I was hoping on getting a better wrasse out.
Really gutted for not encountering the coalies again though and Im not sure why they werent about. Not that many of them up here as well right now and it might be a seasonal thing.. Some other time hopefully...
Anyway I'm sure ill get to use them again soon as I got holidays coming up and going to Ireland at the end of the month!

Tight Lines!

Gear used
Rod: MajorCraft Crostage CRK-T782AJI
Reel: Shimano Stradic 1000Fc
Mainline: Unitika Night Game PE 0.3
Leader: Toray Excellent fluorocarbon 6.8lbs
Lures: Berkley 2" Sandworm, Jackall Peke Ring

Lochaline and Skye adventure! Part 2.

The second day on Lochaline we fished mostly on the working pier but unfortunately there was a large vessel there not allowing us to fish at the front of the pier. Thus after a few casts around the sides, I wandered off leaving Scott to fish his baits for his species hunt. The coastline directly after the pier is rocky and as mentioned with good depth and I was sure I could tempt some pollock or maybe even something more unusual from the depths... I tried fishing the bottom at distance first but that proved to be almost impossible and very time consuming as the lure took ages to find bottom and practically emptied my spool! In my experience from similar marks in Etive, the great depths do hide surprises but it takes a long time and effort to get them and in the end its pretty boring fishing... I then started changing lures and trying to find the edge of the shelve before it drops off as its there where most of the fish are hunting/staging in such marks. The best approach was a 12gr cheburashka with a 4" Reins rockvibe shad that soon had the pollock biting. They were of an average size though and most came from surprisingly deep water for the time of the year.

Lochaline west pier.

The coast after the pier..

A plump coalie..

And some pollock as well from deep water..

After a while the bites dropped and I decided to head back to Scott and see how he did. he had caught some more cuckoo wrasse along with a few other mini species without any ballans though and no ling. I changed to the light gear and fished small metals around the pier mostly to pass the time.
Of course i caught more coalies and a couple mackerel along with a lovely sea trout.

Lovely silver..

The time passed and the fishing slowed down so we decided to take a break and look in Google Earth for any other marks around that would give us some more fish. We identified an area on a peninsula with better depth than the surrounding area and decided to go and fish it. On arriving there after a tricky drive, it was apparent that it was a 'fishy' mark even though not as deep as we thought but definitely wort a try. Scott fished with bait on a baitcaster while I used my heavy gear for long casts with a 20g Saltybait/gulp sandeel combo and a tiny soft plastic teaser about 40 cm from the lure. This rig really 'combs' the water and it rarely comes up without a bite or a fish, hence its usefulness in new waters. From the first few casts I was getting bites and soon I had some nice coalies that took the teaser as usual. I then proceeded to getting two double hook ups with decent pollock that made me think I had something much better on before getting some more coalies with a really fat one among them and then a lone codling as well.

Nice looking mark..

Teaser always gets them..

Double haul of pollock!

And another one!

Probably the fattest coalie Ive ever seen!

A single codling for the whole trip!

 Scott wasn't having much luck with the bait except a couple pollock that hit the bait when he was reeling it in and so, after a couple hours and while the sun was going down, we decided to head to the ferry pier for another frantic, coalie smashing night! The results were the expected and i had even more of them OTT this time! We head back at around 23:00 as we needed to sleep for the long drive to Skye the next day.
We set off for Skye early the next day and on the way up we decided to have a go at Loch Duich near the Eilean Donan Castle. The mark is a deep rocky point and after a few casts with a Salty bait I had a nice coalie and two pollock with one of them being of a good size around 3lbs..

Cant get a more picturesque mark than that!

It holds some fish...

A nice pollock from the depths..

After these fish we got back on the road  to Skye. We reached Portree in the early afternoon and we headed at once for a tidal mark called the black rock where there have been some reports of an interesting mix of species caught. Unfortunately since the mark can only be approached around low tide and with the water now coming up we had very limited time... Nonetheless I quickly got to the rocky point and started casting about with a 4g cheburashka and some isome threaded to a #10 hook. It didn't take long to get a fish and a pollock was quickly hoisted up the rocks. A few casts later and it was time to move though as we were getting cut off.

The black rock..

And my express pollock..

We moved further along the coast to some interesting looking rocks but the wind picked up and it made fishing very difficult. We weren't expecting the wind to be so strong and even more so to come from the Northeast in the middle of summer(!) and after a while we headed for our accommodation and then back on the road for a northern mark that Scott knew from previous visits. This proved to be a bad decision and in retrospect we should've  looked for areas sheltered form the wind but we didn't expect to find the mark in as bad a state as it was! We made a few casts and I even caught and lost a little pollock that shook the hook but in reality it was unfishable and the waves were huge. Distraught we headed towards other likely marks nearby that would be more protected from the wind but in reality we spend more time driving than fishing and in the end we decided to just fish the pier at Uig but with very meager results... Disappointed we went for a bite in town where Scott even had a play with the bait rod and some more little fish from Portree harbour while I couldn't be bothered from the cold! A fish and chips later and a few beers back at the hostel and we planned a better approach for the morning. We decided to head Southwest to a mark near Elgol that Scott had good fish in the past and moreover it would be largely protected from the wind... An almost non existent sleep later (never staying at a hostel again!) we headed to the mark first thing in the morning...
 I took with me the heavy and medium setups and started with the heavy one and the Salty bait with teaser rig. The mark had a good depth but little structure and snags further out. After some casts I got a few bites and a couple coalies showed up but it was slow going at first. We persevered though as we knew we were on the best mark with these conditions and as the sun came higher and the wind died down a bit, the fish started waking up... Below a vid form some of the action and some pics...

Stunning bit of scenery at Elgol.

A rainbow for good luck?

Scott braving the wind..

First one..

Stunning big daddy!

First ballan of the season!

They were quite aggressive!

The thumbs up of success!

It is interesting to note that I lost a couple of good fish that simply weren't hooked even after a good strike! I put this down to the new hooks that I was using the Hayabusa worm offset wrm 951 and in close inspection, even while they proved to be very sharp and strong, their shape and narrow opening seem to affect hook-sets with pollock. This cant be a coincidence as I didn't lose other fish with different hooks. I guess I need to watch this more carefully.. Another interesting point is that almost all of the large pollock were caught very close in at the rock wall and after examining the remains of a rockling from a pollock that Scott caught it is obvious that they are resident fish that hunt for sizable prey very close to the rocks. Next time I will probably use some weighted senkos and stickbaits for them as well...
Moreover we were surprised by the lack of codling but I guess we cant draw any conclusions yet...
Below another vid of various fish and some more pics of the stunning Skye! I'm already planning for my return in September!

In all it was a very successful and enjoyable trip and many thanks go to Scott for taking me there as well as managing the logistics (except that dreaded hostel!!) and hope we can do another 'expedition' soon!

Thanks for reading and tight lines!

Lochaline and Skye adventure! Part 1.

Last Sunday I was unexpectedly given 4 days off and as I was planning to meet with my friend Scott anyway, I though it would be a good idea if he managed to get a couple extra days off so that we could go somewhere with more 'potential'...
That he did and we then decided to head northwest starting at Loch Linnhe, then moving to Lochaline where we would stay a couple nights and finish off at Portree in Skye.
Scott was looking to add some more species to his 50 fish for this year and he was aiming in this trip for cuckoo wrasse and ling more specifically among others, hence the choice of marks with deep waters.
After the morning drive we reached Loch Linnhe to find good weather conditions. I was confident that Scott would get his cuckoos here and maybe even a ling even though Ive caught them later in the season from this mark. From my previous sessions recently here I knew that there were fish about but not in the numbers that this mark is capable of yet. Nevertheless we started fishing and as expected it was relatively slow fishing. We were fishing the usual combination of metals and softplastics with Scott even using bait, and after a while the first fish started showing. Pollock and some codling along with poor cod were the order of the day, although I did get some 'wrassy' bites that didn't lead to the fish getting caught though.. Scott did manage his cuckoo though and I was glad the mark came true for him.. After a while we decided to change spots towards the old pier at Kentallen. The tide was rising as well and things started to get livelier with some nice codling taken at distance on cheburashka and small paddletails. I could see lots of bait moving about and decided to 'match the hatch' with a 3" sluggo mounted on a simple 4g, #4 jighead. I fished the lure mostly OTD and then straight retrieve near the base of the kelp and some pollock finally obliged..

Nice codling form Linnhe.

Cheburashka and paddletail killer combo!

Match the hatch and pollock follow!

He wanted the sluggo!

After a while we decided to head off to Lochaline so that we had enough time to fish there as well. On the way there the scenery was beautiful but the weather changed with clouds and rain coming down. We weren't too bothered though as we came prepared and well, this is Scotland and you cant do anything about it...!
Lochaline is renown for the very deep waters close to shore (at the western pier) and Scott had good results there especially on the wrasse species. On arriving there we first got sorted in our accommodation and then decided to head down to the ferry pier wich is at the mouth of Loch Aline and worth a few chucks with the light gear. Metals went on and from the first casts it became obvious that the place was stuffed with fish! There were large shoals of coalies feeding in the channel and they would at times smash fry near the rocks, they started hitting our metals and put a great bend on the rods along with a smile on our faces.. It was a fish a chuck for the most part and I was surprised to see so many and more importantly decent coalies of 1/2lbs-1lbs. They had recently quietened down on the lochs further south (same as last year) but I'm pretty sure all of them came up here now! Among them we caught a few mackerel as well but the coalies seemed to overshadow everything! I tried different lures as well such as soft plastics, crancks, minnows, blades etc but the most effective lures as expected were the metals followed by soft plastics and then hardbaits.
Below a video that shows what it was like...

As the sun went down the fish started hitting fry in shallow pockets near the harbour walls and rocks and I thought it was a good time to try something that Ive wanted to do since that day in the middle of February, to catch them on poppers! I was prepared with some lovely looking mini-poppers from Cultiva and Duel. They were about 4cm each and a bit thicker than I would've liked as the fish were feeding on slimmer profile fry, but after a bit of persuading they started to follow and hit them! The hits varied form full blown smacks while the lure was in motion to fish softly sucking it in while static! Moreover the hits started intensifying the darker it got and as the wind died down. Fishing under the lights and especially the transition from shadow/dark water to lighted, seemed the most productive spot along with areas near structure. I would give the popper a few good pulls to produce commotion soon after landing and would then retrieve it more gently with plenty of pauses. Most fish would hit on the first pulls after a pause. It is an addictive way of catching them that kept me totally focused and of course there is no better way of  fishing than the visual surface one! Unfortunately I couldn't use the action cam (although in retrospect I should've next to the lights) as it was too dark and also the pics aren't great, but I caught plenty of hard fighting, popper-smashing coalies and it was well into the night when I decided to call it a day... Light gear fun at its maximum!

Cheap yet effective metals rigged with micro-assist or single hook.

Lots of hard fighting coalies!

They're plump up here...

At the pier legs with ice-jigs...

Lochaline Ferry pier.

A pug-nosed coalie OTT!

Plenty followed suit...

More to follow tomorrow with some good pollock action! Plenty of pics and a couple videos as well...

Tight lines!

Gear used.
Rod: Majorcraft Crostage CRK-T782AJI, MC KG Evolution, KGS-832ST 2.53m, 3-15g
Reel: Shimano Stradic 1000 fc, Shimano Stradic ci4 2500f
Mainline: YGK G-soul x3 PE 0.4,  Duel Hardcore X4 PE 0.8
leader: Toray premium fluorocarbon, 6lbs. YGK Nitlon DFC fluorocarbon, 8lbs
lure: various.