Holiday fishing!

Recently returned from a week and a half back home in Greece. It was my cousin's wedding but of course the fishing rod came along with me.
As I was travelling down to Glasgow for my flight, I thought a good idea to checkout the sea-lochs as I want sure how much fishing I would manage to do back home. On the drive down the weather was relatively good with sunshine interspersed with light drizzle.
First stop was Loch Leven and then Loch Linnhe. Both marks produced and it was good to get some more of the variety found in the lochs. Cuckoo wrasse, codling and pollock showed up in the usual sizes.

Such vibrant colours on the sea-loch fish!

I miss codling a bit...

Usual size of pollock down there..lol

On a Vassalo with Savagear prawn...

Back home I only managed to fish twice! Once in the breakwater of Kavala's harbour where the painted combers wouldn't leave me alone and then on a more serious session, where I introduced my friend Stelios to the joy of fishing for freshwater perch!
It was Stelio's first time fishing in freshwater and our venue was the Thisavros dam in Drama prefecture. This is my go-to place for perch, but on this occasion it took us a while to find the fish, as I haven't fished there in years... I managed to locate the better fish towards the end of the day, feeding aggressively at the base of a rock-filled dam and we thoroughly enjoyed our fishing then with multiple catches! It would've been worthwhile to stay the night and fish the sunrise but time was very limited...
Below pics and videos of both sessions.

Kavala breakwater.

So greedy! If only they got bigger...

Thisavros lake.

Usual size of perch...

My friend Stelios with a perch.

After arriving back to Scotland I drove to Loch Etive and managed some pretty codling before continuing my drive back to Skye..

Posing...

Well conditioned codling..

A re-caught codling.

Now I'm back to the lovely Skye weather! Cant complain about the fishing though...

Im back!

First cast...

Tight Lines!

Catch up.

I have been very busy lately making several trips to both sea and freshwater for my fishing. The results haven't been anything out of the ordinary but it was good to revisit my old marks and see how they fish.
I went back to the Thisavros dam for perch fishing and this time I was hoping for some better numbers of bigger fish.. Reaching my spot I saw zero surface activity but was confident that the fish would be there. I decided to start with 5cm paddletails on a 4g weedguard jighead in order to cover ground and find the fish. After several casts and without even a nibble I was getting concerned but the presence of baitfish gave me confidence that there was something there. A couple more casts and I felt a single tap but didn't strike, retrieving a bit I felt a solid take and I struck into a good fish. After a good fight I managed to land a beautiful perch estimated around 700g. I kept fishing after the first fish hoping there would be more of a similar size, but even though I changed various lures and techniques including dropshot, cranckbaits, cicadas/blade baits and spin-tails, I  could only get smaller perch. As it got darker I packed up and headed home.

The largest perch.

cicadas seem to work well on the smaller ones..

Spintails are very useful in deep waters.

After the perch I concentrated  on my usually short light rock fishing  sessions. I have really been obsessed with lrf and seeing that I'm not gonna have many opportunities for saltwater fishing in the winter I have been making the most of it.. I concentrated on already familiar grounds and as usual got plenty of beautiful little predators. Cannot fault tiny 1" curly tails on #10 jigheads and straight lures on mini carolina, mounted on #12-10 slim offset hooks.

A nice-size painted comber.

Tiny creatures are very good for large-mouth species.

A hungry rock goby.

Stunning Scorpionfish..

Tiny baby groupers are common in rocky areas under the boulders.

Greater weevers are sure to come from the sand!

Beautiful and predatory rainbow wrasse.

Very sharp teeth!

A nice goby.

Ornate wrasse.

Five-spotted wrasse are hard fighters  despite their small size..

Two banded bream.

One of a few blennies I caught, they like very tiny lures,,

Annular sea bream..

The last days before my return to the UK were spent targeting the pike on my local canal. The fish were small (jacks) but I caught and lost a few, really enjoying myself in the process. Unfortunately the canal is regularly fished by netting hence the lack of larger fish, but I was happy to see that at least the pike were still there... I caught mostly on spinnerbaits and spinners as the pike were very aggressively feeding in order to fatten up for winter.

Very promising if only it wasn't netted...

A typical stretch.

C&R always..

Well that was the last of my fishing in Greece and I'm going back to the UK now. I had a superb time on my holidays and even though I didn't target the 'monsters of the deep' or devoted as much time to fishing as I imagined, still I fill like I recharged my batteries and I'm full of good memories.
Now I hope to meet again with the pike and perch of the Lancaster canal and maybe some other targets as well...

Thanks for reading and tight lines!

Gear used.
Rods:Major Craft KG Evolution KGS-832ST 2.53m, Major craft Solpara SPS-S792M (7'9", 0.5g-5g), Tica Seha Graphite, 2.70m, 1/4oz-1/2oz.
Reel:Shimano Stradic Ci4 2500f , Tica Libra 2500fd, Shimano Stradic X GTM 4000.
Mainline: Spiderwire Ultracast Fluorobraid 10lbs-YGK nitlon DFC fluoro leader 12lb, Toray Bawo Upgrade Fluorocarbon, 3.9lbs, Daiwa Tournament 8 braid 12lbs-Dragon 20lbs Titanium trace.
rigs:various
Lures: various