Catch report - Sound of Mull

[catchalot]

Hiya,

Just back from a long weekend up at the boat with Bill Little, Linda and
Mark.

Saturday, Bill and myself set out for a skate bash, it\'s been 7 years since
Bill was up there. We dropped anchor in one of my usual marks and put
down the skate rods.. All was quite till the tide turned, then Bills rod folded
over and he was into his first skate for years. After a good fight a female of
140lb broke the surface. Next up was myself with a male of 95lb, then Bill
was into another on his light rod but after 40 min the hook pulled.
We then started to pick up Congers to 16lb and the odd Spur, we also had
a few dropped runs from Tope.

Sunday: we decided to give the Tope a proper shot and anchored up in 80\'
of water, almost as soon as the baits hit the bottom we had a dropped run.
As the tide eased we continued to get dropped runs, the Tope seemed to
be mouthing the baits then letting them go. Then Linda\'s rod folded over
and the line screamed off, this time she made contact and after a good
scrap she boated her first ever Tope, a male of 42lb.

After the tide turned we went back to the dropped runs with us only
managing to bump off one fish. Then I had a good take on my rod, I hit it
and the fish powered off up tide, right away we knew this was a very good
fish, but alarm bells started ringing when the fish hung below the boat.. My
big Tope had just turned into a big flat thing with wings. After a very
interesting 20 min I had a good female Common of 162lb in the boat. That\'s
now the shallowest we have seen or caught a Common up there and it\'s
gave me a new burst of confidence to try fishing shallower for them.
Today we planned to go back to the same mark but the wind was against
us. We anchored up in another likely looking place. 20 min into the
session we had a screamer of a run, Mark hit it and the fish just kept going
and going and going. After over 80 yrds of line was taken from a 30lb class
outfit in no tide he managed to turn the fish and work it back to the boat.
All was going well till about 30 yrds from the boat , the hook pulled.. We
were gutted to say the least :-(

 

[Topecatcher]

So your not a tope expert yet then Davy
I would imagine the Skate go well in shallow water

 

[DaveMason]

Dave- did you get my E-Mail ?

 

[Ell]

Great post thanks

 

[LING_BASHER]

Fishing for large skate is something i would love to get into, the only problem is i know nothing about this species, how to catch them,gear,tactics,marks and so on. I have the basic jist of it but i cant see luck on my side for a fish that is the size of my bath

 

[catchalot]

Hiya,

Topecatcher.. is there any tips going to inprove my hookup rate?

Dave: when did you send it?.. I dont remember any mail coming in my addy is: [email protected]

Ling_basher: I\'m quite sure I can help you out there

 

[DaveMason]

Sorry Davy , I meant Dave Brown . Good post though m8 . I\'ve had a 148lb from Laura Dawn , did not want another one like

 

[Topecatcher]

Yes Dave M (this is getting confusing) I will email you my mobile although the weather doesn\'t look good but if we go just bring yourself and plenty of sarnies
Davey how big are your baits we use either a head or tail section about 4 inches long, hook the head just through the lips and with the tail remove the fins and nick the hook through the thin end of the tail section, Leave the whole of the hook exposed. Try using a tube boom rigged with the lead on sliding free on the leader. Put a bead on to the leader before the boom, when a tope takes after running 15-20ft the bead and boom stop at the leader knot hopefully hooking the tope in the mouth every time. This rig works best with a 6/0 strong fine wire hooks and as I\'ve already said a small bait. The best leader line we\'ve found is 100lbs dynon 3000. Hope this helps and good luck

 

[catchalot]

Hiya,

K dave.. thats how I couldnt find the mail

Topecatcher:

we were using flappers on 6/0\'s fished on 2\' traces with a 8\' leader, very similar as to what I use for skate.

I\'ll do some modifications for this weekend

BTW I take it you use mono hook lengths.. what B.S do you use?? the reason I\'m asking is once or twice a year around this time I get a skate trace chomped through, same kind of take as the Tope only they chomp through 200lb mono.. any ideas????????

 

[Topecatcher]

Well I don\'t suppose its the six gilled featured in SA although another possabilaty is porbeagles, is it worth experimenting with a wire trace? Having seen very large fish in the past I always carry some heavy gear just in case. I know a lot of anglers frown on the use of wire traces but the average size of the Tope here is 40-60lbs with quite a few bigger ones I use 150lbs plastic coated wire. A snagged fish soon strightens the finewire hooks as is proved often enough when I take anglers out who try to stop the fish running.

 

[catchalot]

Hiya,

True I dont think that six gill will be doing much now

I\'m fishing with wire all the time now as biting lenghts on the skate gear
but I aint made contact whith whatever it is on that gear. In saying that I\'ve had 250lb wire bitten clean through on the 30lb class a couple of times

I know we get some very big Tope up there, I know of a few over 80lb taken on long lines in the past in the same areas I\'m fishing.

 

[Doc]

Small baits all the way Davy, recently a couple of lads from Nottingham were out with us on Dave B\' s boat, they wanted to fish mackerel flappers but soon learned smaller baits (as dave describes) are the best method. I tried this out in wales a few years ago and the hook up rate increased dramatically.

Have you tried any of the wrecks in the sound of Mull; Hispania, Shuna, Rhondc,Thesis etc. I know Pelican is probably a bit tight but there used to be some nice conger on her, all the others have some stonking pollock, wrasse and conger on them, although I guess Rhondo might be a tad difficult to line up a drift

 

[catchalot]

Hiya,

Ok I\'m off back up tonight for a pure Tope trip so we will see how it goes


Doc... I\'ve tried most of the wrecks with very little to show for the efforts, the problem is the divers, they always seem to be on the wrecks you want to fish.

 

[catchalot]

Hiya,

I\'m just back from the boat
I had taken my dad up to try and get him a Tope, on Saturday we had 6 dropped runs before the weather got the better of us.
We planned to be out at the mackerel mark for first light this morning but hit a small technical hitch. The oil seal on the oil filter blew out , thankfully I managed to get an old one to fit
Again we had 5 dropped runs before finaly connecting to a decent fish and 6 min later I boated my dads first ever Tope, again a male of 42lb

I think I need to get a middle weight set of scales to cover in between 40lb and 100lb... I dont think the Avons like reading in the black and the big set is just a tad too big

Topecatcher: I tried small baits, but they were only interested in full flappers and even at that it was half hearted. What I did find out is the mark was thick with 8\" whiting so the Tope are probably stuffed to the gills... hence the half hearted feeding.

 

[Topecatcher]

Whiting and dabs for that matter are underated but very good baits for tope, theres a clue there somewhere Davy I don\'t believe for one moment thet a tope can actually catch a mackeral but feed mainly on dabs, whiting, eels and squid. The dropped runs still sound like the baits too big to me, did you not get any runs on the smaller baits?

 

[catchalot]

Hiya,

Whiting and dabs for that matter are underated but very good baits for tope, theres a clue there somewhere Davy

Yup .. gonna give them a go this weekend.

I don\'t believe for one moment thet a tope can actually catch a mackeral but feed mainly on dabs, whiting, eels and squid.

Dont underestimate them, they more than capable of catching Mackies, just ask in the Sea Life centres ;-).. they\'ll tell you just how good they are at nailing mackies. if Common skate can catch them easily and yes they do in the wild.

The dropped runs still sound like the baits too big to me, did you not get any runs on the smaller baits?

Nope not a touch.. they only interested in the big baits