4/8/17

Last Friday I had a few daylight hours spare, but the weather forecast made choosing a productive mark a bit tricky. In the end I decided on heading to the north of the island to try and get out of the worst of the wind. This particular mark has fished well for me in the past at night, so would be interesting what would turn up in daylight.

With it being a relatively short session, fishing 3 hours down to low, and being a fairly long walk from the car I went for a slightly lighter approach, taking a spinning rod for some lures, float and feathering, and one heavy rod to fish big baits for possible tope or huss perhaps. Despite the strong current I was able to keep the terminal gear away from the snags, save for a couple of feathers. 

Yet again as I've found recently was a lack of mackerel. Fortunately a few pollack were obliging, though mostly small they were ideal fresh bait, as I've often heard tope have a particular taste for them. I also managed a solitary launce, or greater sandeel, on the feathers which unbelievably is the first one I've ever caught. Sensing a chance for a bigger pollack I fished the launce live under a float, letting it drift around. It had plenty of energy left, but it seemed the bigger pollack weren't around.

Acton on the heavy rod was much harder to come by. I had two bites all session, both were pretty good pull downs mind, but both times the fish dropped the bait. Interestingly both bites came to a fresh pollack bait, frozen mackerel not getting a sniff. 

Will be exploring this area much more in future. So much potential, and I've rarely seen anyone even out for a walk, never mind fishing. I feel starting light is the way to go, cover more ground and find the productive ledges, before bringing the heavy gear along.