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!

Spring has sprung!

At this time of year, I usually turn my attention to freshwater fishing (namely trout fishing) but various projects and developments have really limited my spare time the past couple months.
Its something I'm planning to do in conjunction with the guiding here in Skye over the Summer and Ill reveal more when its all set up and ready to go!
Anyway, I managed to have a great day out last week from the SIB and was amazed at the amount of life in the water. Seabirds everywhere and I could see small shoals of baitfish near the bottom (spawning herring?) on the fishfinder.
I targeted a 18-20m point at first and used the LRF setup for some smiles... That I got after a shoal of good sized coalies turned up along with a few small pollock. Fish were in a relatively subdued mood and required plenty of stops and free falls on the lures.

Nice sized coalies at the moment.

After the tide started picking up a bit, I moved to my favourite spot, where I was keen to see if there were still fish there as its only 10m deep...
I switched to the heavier gear and put on a 12cm chartreuse shad on a 25g jighead. Got fish from the first cast OTD and they were some good ones!
There were some bruisers among them that seemed to have gone through battles (!) and they were all on the skinny side due to spawning.
I weighed a couple fish that seemed like 3kg+ only to have them register 2.4kg on the sling...
Among the pollock, I got a few very good coalies and one that I suspect, beat my UK coalie pb. Unfortunately, the camera's sd card had filled up and it missed most of the action on the second mark. Nevertheless below is a short vid of the action.

Efficiency... 3 pumps.

Bruiser but slim...

Things are coming along nicely and I'm hoping to start going out more in the following months. I'm hoping to get the SIB on some new areas and target some other species with bait. Ideally, I'd like to have a go at catching a skate with the XH gear. Now that should be fun from the SIB!
More to come soon...

Tight Lines

Gear used.
Rod: Majorcraft Crostage CRK-T782AJI. Tailwalk Saltyshape Dash Power Rock S90H,
Reel: Shimano Stradic 1000fc. Shimano Stradic Fk C3000
Mainline: PE0.6 PE1.2
Leader: 7lb fluoro, Daiwa Tournament FC fluorocarbon 20lbs - 25lbs
Lures: 7g metals and 5cm shads on 7g articulated jigheads. 25g Fiiish black minnow imitation, 15cm slim shad on 30g jigheads.

And another new travel rod!

Ive recently received the second travel rod that I bought mainly for LRF and UL spinning. The rod is the Spro Mobile Stick 80 UL, 2.40, 0.6-8g and I thought it would suit well my needs for travelling LRF as it's length and casting weight seem perfect for the technique. The rod as I discovered has a parabolic action without being floppy though. I took it on a session at my go-to pollock mark and used a variety of lures, mainly focusing on blade baits as I wanted to see if the rod would work them well and how easily I could pick the vibrations, in order to judge the sensitivity of the rod. Well even though its a parabolic rod, its a far cry from the usual cheap American trout sticks that you can almost tie a knot with! It worked the lures well and the fun started when I managed to get a couple pollock on it, as it was a pure joy fighting them on it! I got a video and hope you enjoy it although towards the end the lens got a bit foggy because of the heat and the biggest fish cant be seen very well!

Tight lines!

Weekend action.

The past weekend I had my two days off and I was looking forward in making the most of them trying some different presentations especially targeting perch and trout. Unfortunately the extremely beautiful and sunny weather in Saturday saw me doing a BBQ with my brother and this limited my fishing time! Nonetheless a new colleague from work wanted to go fishing and I thought it would be nice to introduce him to LRF and also possibly get him to catch a fish or two... Thus we set off for Loch Etive at my favourite mark in order to target the pollock. The water was quite low, the sun was high and there was little wind, exactly the opposite conditions for pollock fishing! But still I was positive that we would catch.
I started with a small blade but changed to a Fiiish Black Minnow 70 as I thought the reflections were a bit too much with this sun... My colleague was using a Black minnow 90. From the first casts we started getting bites OTD but the fish weren't committing hard and most of them seemed to be coming from small fish. I caught a couple small pollock, a coalie and a codling but my colleague nothing, although he missed a good fish that bit towards the end of the retrieve but he stalled on the strike and didn't hook it. I thought a move inside the basin to target the smaller fish was in order so that he would get something.. On the first cast from a rock in the new area he got hit OTD and the fish seemed good, after a while I managed to slip the net under a nice codling that had grabbed the Black Minnow while still having a large crab in its throat! My colleague was very happy with this as its the first time he caught a cod and didn't think they can be caught from the shore on lures! After this fish we both caught plenty of little codling before moving to a new area where we caught nothing. We did find some mussels though that we collected and they were excellent for dinner that night..

A couple of this size..

A nice codling on the Black minnow...

Greedy!

Plenty of these...

On Sunday I had one thing in my mind: Perch on dropshot! First though, I tried for the trout on my way to the perch mark. I wanted to target them with small pilkers and soft plastics instead of the usual spoons and spinners, but the fish weren't playing ball with only one caught after several bumps. The water had receded alot and there were loads of insects in the water that may have affected the fish's behaviour.

The only one of the day..

I then went on my perch spot and after a few casts with the Lunker city ribster on dropshot I got a typical bite and after striking, a feisty fish on the end of my line. After a short fight I landed a nice perch of about a pound and felt quite pleased at managing to get the result I wanted. I also managed to get the action on the camera.

Pretty fish..

 I persisted but no more fish came so I decided to do some run and gun down the lake in order to find some new spots. I identified some very fishy locations and I fished fast with my heavier gear and Salmo sliders as I can cover water easily and effectively.  I have great faith in this lure for both pike and perch and in the shallow bays its a killer. I managed another perch from a bay next to a point and got some hits without hook ups from some other areas that I will have to check out better soon...

Hungry!

Fishy...

It started to rain heavily at some point and after being out for most of the day, I decided to call it a day and head home to rest! I didn't get any pike but I'm sure Ill get on them again soon..

Thanks for reading!

Gear used.
Rod: Various
Reel:various
Mainline: various
Rig: dropshot, articulated jighead
lure: Fiiish Black minnow, lunker city ribster, Salmo slider

Where are the big ones?!

I haven't had much time for fishing lately, but on my day off I had an enjoyable session in the north part of the island. I decided to carry the medium and heavier setups, so that I could hopefully target the larger fish while not saying no to the smaller ones if their parents didn't play ball!
I reached the mark on high tide and started fishing the shallow bays while moving towards the tip of the point. Setting the lighter setup first, I used a carolina rig with a 45cm fluorocarbon trace and two 4g sinkers followed by a bead. This increases the noise and the long trace helps keep the lure floating over the thick weed on the bottom. The bites weren't coming fast but I managed some small wrasse.
Getting closer to the tip and with the tide starting to move out, the fish turned on and the fishing got better. They were no monsters, averaging a couple pounds, but there were plenty of them to keep me happy.

I changed rig to a weighted hook and swimbait/jerkbait lures and the fish kept coming. A very successful swimbait was the 4" Daiwa D'fin. although a very sensitive lure that gets ripped rather easily after a few fish.

Having my fill of these smaller wrasse, I decided to change to the heavier setup and the bigger lures. I put on a 25g Fiiish Black Minnow, and started casting and working it from top to bottom. The bites didn't take long to materialise but not from the fish I was after.. There seemed to be loads of smaller wrasse feeding hard and they appeared to really like this lure.

After a while I decided to change back to the light gear as the big fish weren't around, and after a couple casts near an area with some good flow, I managed to hook something serious. The fish made a nice long run but managed to spit the hook!
I kept working the area but got more small wrasse, until I decided to move back to the shallow bay I  started from. Usually around this time (near sunset) wrasse hit well on cranckbaits and the place being shallow and with lots of rocks seemed ideal for crancking. I put on a deep diver and started to bounce it along the bottom, feeling for snags and letting the lure rise and giving it a sharp pull again. I managed two more wrasse and then decided to call it a day.

Well I may not have gotten the big fish but with the limited time I've had lately it was really enjoyable to get amongst so many of these feisty little wrasse.. I was very impressed with the Fiiish Black Minnow as it really looks nice and attracts the fish. I have also had a much better wrasse on it but the photo is terrible.. I think the designers would be surprised at the effectiveness of this lure on wrasse!

Thanks for reading and tight lines!

Gear used

Rod: Major Craft KG Evolution KGS-832ST 2.53m, 3-15g. Shimano Beastmaster BX STC, 4pc, 14-40g, 8'-9
Reel: Mitchell Mag Pro 1000, Abu Garcia Soron STX 40
Mainline: Berkley Nanofil 0.10mm, YGK nitlon DFC fluoro leader 10lbs. Daiwa tournament x8 braid, 0.12mm
Rig: weighted offset hooks and wide gape jigheads, sizes 2/0-4/0, weight 5g-7g. Carolina with double 4g sinkers and 45cm trace.
Lures: 4.5" Big Bite Shaking Squirrels, 4.5" Hogy Sandeels, 4" Daiwa D'fin, 4" Reins Rockvibe shad, 12cm Fiiish Black Minnow.