Me and my rod

[esoxlucius]

Well, it's Friday afternoon, I'm home from work and can now look forward to my fishing trip over the weekend, and, as promised, I'll report back with details on how it goes, successful or otherwise.

We're setting off up to Stranraer in Scotland at about 5am tomorrow morning, and will get there about dinner time.

We may do a bit of fishing tomorrow I'm not sure yet, but Sunday is meant to be the main day where we will be going out on the boat early and spending all day on the water. Weather reports are favourable.

It's just inshore fishing, we're not going miles out, so I suspect we won't be catching anything huge. Whatever happens I'm just glad to be getting away for the weekend.

The map below, for those interested, shows where we're going. The blue spot is home, the black circle is where we're headed.

For now, I need to be getting on with my Saturday morning water change early, and pack some stuff.

Wish me luck guys!

A very excited Esox signing off, speak to you guys soon.

 

[jjohnwm]

Sounds like a great trip. Is this saltwater fishing? Fresh? Lures, bait? Is it just throw a line in and see what bites or are you targeting a particular species? Is this...hushed tones, here...a Salmon trip?

Are you in London, or are you the blue dot on that map?

I'm always interested in doing a bit of fishing locally wherever I might visit in my travels...although I don't travel much nowadays. I always travel super-light, usually just a maximum-allowable-size carry-on, but it always contains my binoculars (I'm a birder) and almost always a supercompact multi-piece rod and some basic tackle.

Looking forward to hearing more about your trip; good luck!

 

[esoxlucius]

This is a sea fishing trip. No specific species, just whatever's biting! I know that we're collecting lugworm on the beach tomorrow at some point, and I know some lures are involved too. Whenever I've sea fished in the past we've always end up using slithers of mackerel as bait too.

Whatever we use I'm expecting fish. Sea fishing to me is far easier than the fresh water fishing I'm used to. I find freshwater fish to be a bit cleverer than their seawater brethren, lol.

 

[jjohnwm]

I know that we're collecting lugworm on the beach tomorrow at some point...

Honestly, I don't know if that means you are collecting bait or getting ready for a cook-out! Either way, have fun!

 

[esoxlucius]

Honestly, I don't know if that means you are collecting bait or getting ready for a cook-out! Either way, have fun!

I don't think we'll be cooking any lugworm on the barbie that's for sure, ugghhh! Lol.

They're just a common beach worm which are a great bait, they take some digging out too the little blighters.

You probably have them too, or something similar. More than likely they'll go under some different name!

 

[jjohnwm]

I don't think we'll be cooking any lugworm on the barbie that's for sure, ugghhh! Lol.

They're just a common beach worm which are a great bait, they take some digging out too the little blighters.

You probably have them too, or something similar. More than likely they'll go under some different name!

Yeah, I think we have those disgusting pallid soft things on our beaches as well...we usually call them City Folk...

Seriously, though, I am so far from salt water that I'm not too familiar with marine beach critters.

 

[esoxlucius]

Got back from our sea fishing trip a few hours ago. We couldn't go on the grounds we preferred to fish because the water was way too choppy for our small boats. We were a bit early in the year, the calmer smoother water tends to be around June to September.

So we fished in a large relatively shallow bay. The action was fierce once we got into the shoals, though the size of the fish wasn't great in the bay. Not too many photos either. Slimy wet hands aren't great for taking pictures!

We had lots of small pollock and mackerel on feathers and if we baited the bottom feathers with strips of mackerel we could get lesser spotted dogfish too. Bigger baits anchored on the bottom, meant for tope, would attract greater spotted dogfish (bullhuss). Sadly, we didn't get any tope.

Seals were a problem at one point too because in the mayhem of us winching up four or five fish at once on the feathers, they would try and nick the fish from the hooks!

A few photos below. I would have loved to have taken a load more but for the safety of my phone it was best it remained zipped up firmly in my jacket pocket!