Wednesday 15 July 2015

A few species on my local patch 15/07/2015

Today I had a small window in the weather and work to get out between the school runs so headed out later than my usual dawn launch the water was clearer than I was expecting so paddled out expecting the trolled lure to get hit along the way in the usual spots but sadly the lure was spared any action things weren't going to plan,I headed out deeper to do some jigging this resulted in a few small Codling with the odd better fish mixed in but all returned to fight another day




I soon lost interest in this and made my way closer to the Grey seal infested exposed rocks I have been wanting to catch a Ballan Wrasse local on a soft plastic lure for a long time but they seem to be few and far between so persisted working a Fiiish Black Minnow in very shallow kelp and boulder strewn water I soon had a few small Codling aboard one a nice golden Kelp coloured fish and one that was pushing 4lb or so but still not the intended target




I had the pleasure of a young Puffin hunting alongside the kayak for a while so had a drop down with the feathers quickly and snagged a Launce

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Back onto the soft plastic lure and had a small Coalie

Then I had a few tentative plucks that I couldn't connect with or bumped off but kept at it and was delighted when a small Ballan surfaced target achieved



Happy with that I trolled back to the outer scaurs and picked up enough Mackerel on the plug to feed the family for tea so decided to head in


There was a slight Northerly swell pushing back to shore so made the most of it and managed to clock up 7.5 mph on the paddle in with very little effort a great finish to another great morning afloat
Andy

Sunday 12 July 2015

St Abbs 12/07/2015

Myself and Jack headed up to St Abbs yesterday with Mark to try and find some Pollack and clear water after an early start we were on the water for just after 5am and it didn't take long to get Jack attached to a really angry Pollack he did great controlling such a powerful fish but Dad had to drag it from the kelp once he didn't want a trophy shot of the fish as it wasn't a pb at around 3lb+ so I released it in the water and set off to find its bigger siblings

I managed one around the same size on a Fiish minnow worked hard in the kelp and also had a Mackerel but the fishing was tougher than expected with Jack only managing a few small Coalfish on the plugs


I had one drift close in to the cliff face and managed a real scrapper of a Pollack around 6-7lb really sporting on light tackle and great to see swim back to the depths to fight another day too


We decided on a paddle south crossing the harbour and getting in tight to the rocks at Coldingham bay I managed to winkle out a couple more Pollack but the swell picked up a bit on this side making getting tight tricky
The numbers of jellyfish of all shapes sizes and colours was amazing to see and fired me up to get back up with my snorkel soon



Really exciting to be in the narrow channels threading your way through the gaps in time with the swells but as Myself and Jack shot through a gap on a swell I turned around to see mMark coming through the gap just as the gulley was emptying I shouted a warning to him of the Rock directly in front of him but it was too late as he turned the swell slammed him down on to the rock and it sounded bad so we headed for the harbour to asses the damage

On inspection it had just caught the scupper cover and pulled it off and tore the bond from the scupper tube so had taken on a bit of water this prematurely ended our trip we could have temp repaired with the 2k epoxy from our kit but would have made the at home repair a lot more time consuming good thing about the Glass kayaks pretty easy to get looking like new
So myself and Jack took the opportunity to brush up on some skills in the harbour just as much fun as the fishing we really enjoyed ourselves and all preperation for him if he ever has to deal with a real situation









A really enjoyable day



Andy