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Ok so 2 fab weeks in NW Scotland.
Found it amusing watching the rest of the country suffer lots of storms and rain. Only rained once in a fornight. Never seen such calm conditions up there as the first week:
ok a bit sheltered but in more open water:
not even any waves!
at night time it was even calmer:
and thats the atlantic out there!
so out in the boat. dug lots off these:
(tackle shops note: these really are lugworm!)
and took lot of shiny bits and pieces.
for the first 3 days I didn\'t once manage to get through the mackeral. no matter where I went even in 100 metres of water. drop it over the side and within seconds thump thump thump as mackeral after mackeral committed hari kari.
did eventually get through them only to find...... heaps of herring! Nice suprise and released everyone bar a few that were badly hooked (usually in one eye and out the other)
then one bright day, dropped over the side and nothing! bliss, good rough bottom, 6o metres deep, whats gonna turn up???
Easy answer there...Nowt! tried varies things and loads of combinations oif baits but nowt. Sat and sunbathed for an hourr then pulled the line in and found I\'d caught this:
not so much hooked as got the bait elastic caught in its teeth bless it!
did also catch something I\'m not sure about - see elsewhere for that one.
so thats was pretty much the boat fishing story for a fornight. Either squillions of mackeral or sod all!
the boat cam in handy as we had tons of these:
and these:
the locals reckon they\'ve not had a year as good as this for edible crab in decades, often 10 or more in a pot every day and at least one lobster every other day.
this crab was a bit of a monster. It managed to climb out of the bucket, so in order to keep it quiet whilst the pan came to boil I though I\'d kill it, knife between the eyes fashion. So I plunged my dive knife which is huge a good 2inches deep between its eyes. It grabbed the knife and puilled it out and refused to let go of it (I kid you not) So I dropped it in the stainless steel sink. It managed to get a claw in the plug hole and actually started to tear the stainless steel, so It was fished out I offered it the table! it grabbed hold and stayed there for 10 minutes till it was bath time. It was nearly the size of the biggest pan there was but I measured it up before putting it on to boil and worked out that if it went in upside down I could press the claws in with the lid and that would be that. So in I drops it an shoves the lid on. The bleedin thing kicked the lid off! but soon gave up the ghost after that. It tasted lovely mind!
so back to fishing off the rocks.
usual story of millions of pollack and loads of mackeral so that were fun. Used an 11ft 1 and 3/4 lb test curve carp road and a small multiplier for spinning with. worked a treat got much better distance than the usual set up whilst been light enough to be fun.
so mackeral from the rocks and the bairns tea on the beach:
carved them a stick each from driftwood, they\'d come over, wait till I had another mackeral which I headed/gutted and thread on the stick and then over they go to the fire to cook it, scoff and then come back for another! Heavenly times indeed.
best pollack from the rocks only 3lb ish but I don\'t care. Best fortnight ever up there. Came back to house that had been hit by lightning, had a small landslip at the back door, everything thats was earthed in the house live at mains voltage, no phones and hot water coming out of the cold tap. this was caused by the live/earth in the house shorting out and going straight out of the earth spike to ground, the track in the back lane was too hot to touch and by wednesday the fire brigade were called out to put out the underground fire that has started! So now feel like we never went.
to counter this, booked another week in october!
Found it amusing watching the rest of the country suffer lots of storms and rain. Only rained once in a fornight. Never seen such calm conditions up there as the first week:
ok a bit sheltered but in more open water:
not even any waves!
at night time it was even calmer: and thats the atlantic out there!so out in the boat. dug lots off these:
(tackle shops note: these really are lugworm!)and took lot of shiny bits and pieces.
for the first 3 days I didn\'t once manage to get through the mackeral. no matter where I went even in 100 metres of water. drop it over the side and within seconds thump thump thump as mackeral after mackeral committed hari kari.
did eventually get through them only to find...... heaps of herring! Nice suprise and released everyone bar a few that were badly hooked (usually in one eye and out the other)
then one bright day, dropped over the side and nothing! bliss, good rough bottom, 6o metres deep, whats gonna turn up???
Easy answer there...Nowt! tried varies things and loads of combinations oif baits but nowt. Sat and sunbathed for an hourr then pulled the line in and found I\'d caught this:
not so much hooked as got the bait elastic caught in its teeth bless it!
did also catch something I\'m not sure about - see elsewhere for that one.
so thats was pretty much the boat fishing story for a fornight. Either squillions of mackeral or sod all!
the boat cam in handy as we had tons of these:
and these:
the locals reckon they\'ve not had a year as good as this for edible crab in decades, often 10 or more in a pot every day and at least one lobster every other day.
this crab was a bit of a monster. It managed to climb out of the bucket, so in order to keep it quiet whilst the pan came to boil I though I\'d kill it, knife between the eyes fashion. So I plunged my dive knife which is huge a good 2inches deep between its eyes. It grabbed the knife and puilled it out and refused to let go of it (I kid you not) So I dropped it in the stainless steel sink. It managed to get a claw in the plug hole and actually started to tear the stainless steel, so It was fished out I offered it the table! it grabbed hold and stayed there for 10 minutes till it was bath time. It was nearly the size of the biggest pan there was but I measured it up before putting it on to boil and worked out that if it went in upside down I could press the claws in with the lid and that would be that. So in I drops it an shoves the lid on. The bleedin thing kicked the lid off! but soon gave up the ghost after that. It tasted lovely mind!
so back to fishing off the rocks.
usual story of millions of pollack and loads of mackeral so that were fun. Used an 11ft 1 and 3/4 lb test curve carp road and a small multiplier for spinning with. worked a treat got much better distance than the usual set up whilst been light enough to be fun.
so mackeral from the rocks and the bairns tea on the beach:
carved them a stick each from driftwood, they\'d come over, wait till I had another mackeral which I headed/gutted and thread on the stick and then over they go to the fire to cook it, scoff and then come back for another! Heavenly times indeed.
best pollack from the rocks only 3lb ish but I don\'t care. Best fortnight ever up there. Came back to house that had been hit by lightning, had a small landslip at the back door, everything thats was earthed in the house live at mains voltage, no phones and hot water coming out of the cold tap. this was caused by the live/earth in the house shorting out and going straight out of the earth spike to ground, the track in the back lane was too hot to touch and by wednesday the fire brigade were called out to put out the underground fire that has started! So now feel like we never went.
to counter this, booked another week in october!
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