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...
Once again on my days off I decided to head up to my familiar marks in the sealochs. This was not what I would've preferred at the moment as I had other plans for this time of the year but the lack of car has really limited my choices and of course fishing is fishing!
Thus I took the bus to Oban and then got picked up by my brother (not before I had some chucks in the little stream there though!), left him home and drove up to kentallen for an afternoon session there.
It was about this time last year that this mark really shone and although the session was productive, it wasn't as good as last year. something very noticeable is the scarcity of mackerel which I think is one of the reasons for the larger fish not showing up here... Still I had some codling, pollock, a ballan and a cuckoo wrasse on a combination of metals, shads on cheburashkas and stickworms.
An urban trout..
Lovely ballan on Linnhe..
Codling on the inchiku.
Love getting them on stickbaits!
Well hooked.
After a good few hours I got in the car and drove to loch Etive where I usually spend the night. I had a few casts around but it was already dark and other than a couple finicky bites I got nothing.
On the morning, things got much better and I lost a good fish on the first few casts that took the braid over a rock ledge. I think over-confidence by me was the main factor for loosing that fish though. I then decided to hike towards the northern part of the loch as there are some marks that I wanted to try there. The weather was turning noticeably more sour by the hour but I was hoping that the fish would still show. I stopped on the first mark were I had done well last time and the fish were there! I had some nice pollock and a few small codling until they stopped biting. I was surprised by not getting more codling as they are usually found in good numbers at the bottom of the rock ledges there..
I kept walking north and after a while reached a well known mark that surprisingly didn't give anything. I moved again towards a rocky outcrop that looked very fishy from afar, but it proved less so up-close and with shallower water than I thought. By now the wind was howling and the rain intensified and as a consequence the fishing suffered. Cant remember of a day that it wasn't like this in Etive for this Summer...
Unfortunately Ive got almost no pics from the sessions as my phone is
playing up. I did manage to make two videos though from Linnhe and
Etive.
A couple days later I went up to Loch Fyne (that I haven't been in a while) with a friend. This was a good opportunity to try a new rod that I bought and since the plan was to keep some fish for the pan, I decided to start with metals and a teaser tied 40cm above the lure.
The rod is a Majorcraft KG Evolution Basic KGS-902L, 7-23g, 2.70m and it was bought with my next trip to Skye in mind as well as fishing heavier metals at distance without losing the 'finesse' character that I love on my rods.. I paired it with my Abu Garcia Soron STX 40 and the balance was very good. The only think I disliked was that the reel was spooled with much heavier line than the rod is meant to have and this decreased the sensitivity and casting distance. I have now changed the line to a finer braid and I'm sure the setup will feel much better. Even though I had the heavy line, the rod still made excellent casts with the metals and I have now ordered more in the 14g-20g weights. Being Loch Fyne, the fish started coming from the off and pollock after pollock were landed. They weren't of any great size and didn't gave much of a fight on my rod, but I had set up my friend with my spro UL mobile stick and Shimano Biomaster 1000fb combo on 3lbs flouro straight through and it was a different story on that setup! After getting a few fish I got hit on the end of a long cast and was bringing up something relatively decent when all of a sudden the fish got heavier and started taking line at an alarming rate! The runs were heavy and strong with the culprit moving near the surface and making powerful runs from side to side. The rod was bent to the maximum and drag was peeling from the reel and for a few seconds I thought I had hooked the mother of all trouts or salmon! After a few minutes of this tug of war I started slowly bringing it in and then with the help of my polaroids I realised there was a fat seal on the end of my line!! Thankfully she wasn't hooked but just holding tight to my fish and then she let go of it (the only part remaining anyway!). Obviously she must have thought that this wasn't as easy a meal as it looked! This was the first time this happened to me and hopefully the last! Nevertheless, the rod performed admirably and I seriously recommend it... lol
The serenity of Loch Fyne
Couldn't resist having a go at them with the light gear!
The lack of mackerel was evident in loch Fyne as well and I'm not so sure as to why this is so... Very disappointing as I absolutely love them on my plate! Moreover the usual masses of anglers there, were nowhere to be seen although I'm thankful for that. I didn't try much with softplastics as we didn't have much time so again no major fish (or more species) were caught. I then proceeded in gutting and cleaning our catch and soon couldn't believe the amount of fish that were attracted.. Various wrasses along with gobies, blennies and even two strap congers came to feed on the fish guts. I tried luring the eels with the Marukyu crabs but only wrasse would nibble them...
Anyway they were a very enjoyable few days but to be honest I got my eyes on a second visit to Skye in a couple weeks and I cant wait! Until then I'm sure Ill have a couple more sessions on the sea lochs or even the East Coast with my friend Scott.
Tight lines!
Gear used.
Rod: MC KG Evolution, KGS-902L, 2.7m, 7-23g.
Reel: Abu Garcia Soron STX 40
Mainline: Varivas uper PE. 0.15mm (too thick)
leader: Pline Halo 10lbs.
lures: various
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...
