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Fished Luce Bay again for fourth and final time in 2013 for the tope and after a dream trip last Monday this one was at the opposite end of the scale.
It started by a late call from the skipper as winds of 55mph had been battering the bay only 24hrs before our trip, he decided on Sunday morning it was worth a try so thinking he must know something I don’t I text Graham and Dave to say the trip was on and the 5.15am meet up was on for Monday morning before the long drive to Scotland.
We set off and had a canny drive up with the sun just starting to break through the clouds as we got close but as we reached Luce bay it was clear to see it was blowing a bloody gale with white tops as far as your eye can see. The skipper turned up with the boat on the tractor and said it was still a go so we jumped on and headed out to catch some bait vital for the target species tope.
We soon had mackerel and herring for fresh bait so we made our way very slowly to the tope mark with waves crashing over the boat and a 30mph NW wind, with the anchor down and we started fishing away 2 rods each. Well to cut along storey short we never got a tope or had a sniff really on the big rods all day but none of us blanked and still caught a few new species.
Dave landed a nice thornback ray about 7lb a PB, along with mackerel, whiting, smoothound and dogfish
Graham landed herring, mackerel, whiting and dogfish
I landed my first ever Bullhuss of 9lb PB, Smoothound, Whiting, Mackerel, Herring and a Red Gurnard about 2lb so not a total lose but I have to say I would of rather stayed at home with fishing uncomftable to say the least all day and little chance of tope due to the colour of the water, weed and the fact we could not make it far to hit the pack tope feeding grounds
Guess that’s fishing for you and will spur me on next year to have a dream tope trip like the previous Monday, I was more disappointed for Dave and Graham than myself as I had hit lucky the previous Monday landing 10 tope.
Now it’s time to have the Norway trip, then followed by a skate fishing trip but fingers are already crossed we get a fishable week in Norway as bad weather is the only thing stopping us getting fish over there
It started by a late call from the skipper as winds of 55mph had been battering the bay only 24hrs before our trip, he decided on Sunday morning it was worth a try so thinking he must know something I don’t I text Graham and Dave to say the trip was on and the 5.15am meet up was on for Monday morning before the long drive to Scotland.
We set off and had a canny drive up with the sun just starting to break through the clouds as we got close but as we reached Luce bay it was clear to see it was blowing a bloody gale with white tops as far as your eye can see. The skipper turned up with the boat on the tractor and said it was still a go so we jumped on and headed out to catch some bait vital for the target species tope.
We soon had mackerel and herring for fresh bait so we made our way very slowly to the tope mark with waves crashing over the boat and a 30mph NW wind, with the anchor down and we started fishing away 2 rods each. Well to cut along storey short we never got a tope or had a sniff really on the big rods all day but none of us blanked and still caught a few new species.
Dave landed a nice thornback ray about 7lb a PB, along with mackerel, whiting, smoothound and dogfish
Graham landed herring, mackerel, whiting and dogfish
I landed my first ever Bullhuss of 9lb PB, Smoothound, Whiting, Mackerel, Herring and a Red Gurnard about 2lb so not a total lose but I have to say I would of rather stayed at home with fishing uncomftable to say the least all day and little chance of tope due to the colour of the water, weed and the fact we could not make it far to hit the pack tope feeding grounds
Guess that’s fishing for you and will spur me on next year to have a dream tope trip like the previous Monday, I was more disappointed for Dave and Graham than myself as I had hit lucky the previous Monday landing 10 tope.
Now it’s time to have the Norway trip, then followed by a skate fishing trip but fingers are already crossed we get a fishable week in Norway as bad weather is the only thing stopping us getting fish over there
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