Tue Aug 31, 2004 5:16 pm
Herewith the report from Hamish Lambert. Enjoy!
Both Andy and I went over ‘loaded for bear’ with spinning rods and a beach caster apiece, plus about a ton and a half of kit! His uncle, a retired commercial fisherman, however had other ideas. He took one dismissive look at our gleaming kit and mumbled something which I couldn’t quite make out but had “feckin” in there quite a bit. I gather, from the way he stomped of to his garage-which overlooks Cruit Sound, that we were to follow him, which we duly did.
After taking in the barrels of fish curing in drums of salt around his garage he promptly gave a wooden framed handline to us and told us to sit down. He then measured out 30 fathoms (I kid you not!) of heavy braided line and wound this onto the hand line frame. Attached to this he fitted a trace, about 6 feet long, with about 5x 2inch hooks. He then took a length of electrical cable, stripped of the red plastic insulation sleeve and proceeded to fit this insulation over the hooks….. instant red hooks ……. “yeah, right” I thought…..
From there off we went out in his 18 footer out to Cruit sound, trolling at about 3 knots. Ten minutes later I’m wondering if I’ve hooked a submarine as two Pollack hit the lines simultaneously. The smaller weighs in at 4 pounds, the larger however hits the 7 pound mark!! At the end of the first night, all three of us have pulled in at least a dozen fish each, all Pollack, smallest being about a pound (went straight back over the side) to the largest which just nudged the scales to over the 9 pound mark!
“Feckin’ poor, so it is…” was all Nealy, Andy’s uncle said of the evening. Suffice to say, compared to the more reserved trout fishing Andy and I are used to over here outside Edinburgh, this was a VERY big deal indeed.
During the course of the week we were out almost every evening and Andy and I were usually to be found using the ‘big gun’ beach casters from the rocks by Cruit Island golf course during the day. Rock fishing using the big guns is spectacular with catches ranging from small dogfish, lots of Pollack, plaice and some evil looking conger. All from moderate casts from the shore.
Picture to accompany this is in the gallery on page 11.
:shock:
Tue Aug 31, 2004 6:09 pm
Great anecdote but isn't this just 'catching fish' as opposed to angling?
Tue Aug 31, 2004 8:19 pm
Hi guest
Yep. I would have to agree with you there but I suspect when you're a guest on someone else's boat you do as you're asked and they did put back the smaller ones. It does provide proof of how fertile a mark Cruit Island is...
Wed Feb 23, 2005 5:39 pm
Hi guys, as this was realistically my own first trip sea angling, I would have been extatic catching a single mackrel! The fact of the matter is that the experience has set me up to go and do some 'proper' sea fishing with a little more 'subtlety' in what I'm after. Other than that, I had an absolute ball that week - roll on this summer!! Hamish :-)