Making the most of it

This weekend i thought i would have another try for the wrasse whilst conditions still allow, Col reckoned sea temperatures were still good and with low wind speeds over the last few days i hoped that water clarity would be ok too. Fishing was slow to begin with but in one area inside the harbour i was getting regular bites, eventually hooking one of the little critters, a first for me, a Sand Goby!

 out front i caught a tiny Cod and a coalfish but still no sign of the wrasse, i resorted to casting the dropshot rig out a little and twitching it back slowly, this resulted in two or three welcome Pollack to help make up for the lack of wrasse activity .

 eventually i started to get the familiar tap tap bites from the wrasse with the tide half way up

  the fishing got better and better up to high tide, with both Ballan's and another first for me the pretty little corkwing wrasse

sea scorpions put in an appearance too, there not very cooperative when it comes to having the hook removed, they lock their mouths shut and vibrate in your hand!

only downside on Saturday was when i hooked a real cracker of a Ballan, i had him played out and estimated him to be around the three pound mark, i had to hand line him up the sea wall and you guessed it, we parted company, i was a bit gutted! think i need to look into getting a drop net. Still it was a great fun day with some nice fish landed.

Today i was back for more, again it was slow to get going but i occupied myself  fishing for the sand gobys for a while

once the tide was well in i started to get the familiar taps from the wrasse including this little goldsinny

managed a couple of codling today as well, good fun on the light gear

and this, think its a yarrels blennie like the ones Col and Scott caught? another uncooperative fish for unhooking i found out.

a nice ballan  

  

an enjoyable couple of days fishing, don't know how much longer we'll get before the wrasse go off the feed but its great fun whilst it lasts.

Wrasse me up when September ends

The back end of the trout season has been a bit of a disappointment to be honest with the rivers and burns now down to their bones,  and with the season soon coming to an end  I doubt I'll be fishing for trout again until next year now. Not that I'm too bothered as there's plenty of other species to target in the months ahead.

The dry and mild September has been great for Col's wrasse fishing exploits on the other hand so when he suggested that we go over to Burntisland on Sunday I jumped at the chance, I've had a couple of short visits there myself this summer failing miserably on both occasions so I was keen for Col to show me the ropes. We arrived an hour before low tide and our first job to do was dig some rag worm, Col has a garden fork conveniently stashed in the undergrowth so he doesn't need to carry it on the train all the time!  after twenty minutes digging we had more than enough rag to do us the afternoon.

ain't nothing like the real thing

Once at the harbour we fished away in the inside wall for an hour or so without much interest apart from the odd tap, then Col took the first Wrasse of the day, a little Ballan in what could have only been a couple of feet of water max followed by his first Goldsinny wrasse of the day

switching between fishing on the inside and outside of the harbour wall the familiar tap tap bang bites of the wrasse became more frequent as the tide came in,

Col was broken by this one only to catch him a little while later on and get his hook back!

a goldsinny and a ballan

Col was using a size 18 hook with Corkwing wrasse in mind

no fillings required here!

on the light gear even the little wrasse put up a scrap, every now and then a bigger one would come along, and most of the time they won the fight, you really have to keep them out of the snags to have any chance of landing them.

after getting snapped on the cast before i was pleased to keep my last ballan of the afternoon out of the snags

at the back of five we had to leave to catch the train home, i can see why Col's been so addicted  to fishing for them this summer, brilliant fun on the light gear.

Another bash at the wrasse

The tide times looked good so i headed for Burntisland for another go at the wrasse  . At lowtide i first dug some lug and even managed a few king rag. With the bait dug plus some prawn and of course the power-isome and gulp  sandworms i set of for a bit dropshotting. At first bites were hard to come by the sea was  a bit green looking  for my liking and i wondered if the lack of clarity was a factor. Before long i hit into a wrasse but i just couldnt stop him and and he broke me, Think it was a good one .

A few nice ones followed though all the way up to high tide on small sections of lug and rag , the prawn only seemed to get the interest of the odd sea scorpion .

 My wee shimano alivio reel is playing up a bit , so a new  Aernos is in the post.  On this occasion the goldsinnys didnt show, though they have on previous trips .

and there has been a oddity or two as well including this wee fellae which i think is a Yarrel's blenny?

yarrels blenny?

Just came doon from the isle of Skye

We had an early start on Thursday morning driving up to fort William where Col and I had arranged to meet up with his brother Lindsay, after a much needed coffee we then continued on the journey to the Isle of Skye for a long weekend of non stop fishing, yippee!
After what seemed like an age we eventually arrived at our chosen mark, a sea loch at the north west of the island, firstly we tackled up our lrf rods to see what was about on the rocky outcrop in front of us, and It didn't take long for the bites to start coming to bits of raw prawn, we landed some small pollack, coalfish, poor cod and the ones we were really after, Ballan wrasse.

nice orange one for col

the sea was a little too rough with the northerly wind to comfortably fly fish for Pollack so later on in the day we upped sticks and went of to try another more sheltered mark which was a new one to us, it looked great but despite trying every rocky outcrop around the bay we failed to connect with any pollack, never mind it had been a long tiring day so we went back to our accommodation for some food and a couple of beers to end the day.

Friday morning feeling revitalised after a good nights sleep we decided to fish the same venue as the day before, we did have other marks in mind but this one seemed like the best bet what with the wind direction and it also had the benefit of only being  a short drive from the cottage where we were based. Over coffee in the morning we discussed how cool it would be to catch a cuckoo wrasse, and would you believe it, it only took Col about five minutes after starting to fish, jammy sod!

 

another couple of females followed from the same area

Lindsay caught a monster of a sea scorpion!

Col and Lindsay seemed to be catching plenty of poor cod, it took me a while on the other hand but i got one in the end, pretty little fish.

 plenty more ballans about too

another new wrasse species for Col, a rock cook 

later on in the day Col landed a couple of pollack on the fly from his "rock" before the wind picked up, all in all a great days fishing

On Saturday morning we headed into Portree to see if we could buy any more raw prawns and some leads, we got the leads ok but no luck with the prawns, we did notice however that the harbour was stuffed with Mackerel so we grabbed the rods from the car and caught a few for chucking out a bait on the big rods later on. So after some food we were back at the same spot yet again! Col thought there would be a good chance of a goldsinny and he was right!

Lindsay's big rod with the mackeral bait registered a bite, it turned out to be a dogfish which was quite exciting for us as non of us had ever caught or even seen one before.

Col took some more rock cook wrasse on tiny bits of squid

after a while we decided on a move so headed around to Neist Point where we took some nice Pollack on the fly, orange clousers worked well as did chartreuse, great fun on the fly rod.

on Sunday morning Lindsay headed for home whilst col and i had one last chuck for an hour or so, i failed in my attempt to catch a rock cook wrasse but Col took a few Pollack from his rock to end a great weekends fishing, can't wait until next year!