Awesome stuff, and a new record for me. Four skate for a total of 65lbs in one day. No, there isn’t a missing zero in the title 🙂 I’m used to small skate from this mark, but there’s usually something in the 50-100lb range as well. Not this time – they went roughly 21, 19, 16, 9lbs….
We did get a pile of thornies as well, although nothing bigger than the skate. For a short, shivery, trip in freezing conditions at the end of November we did OK really. In this case “we” meant Ian and myself, and most of the photos here are Ian’s rather than mine.
We met up at Lochearnhead in the 6.30 darkness and proceeded west across a snow-carpeted Rannoch Moor. The Glencoe mountains looked particularly striking and quite foreboding as we headed towards Ballachulish.
The carpark and rough slate slip was icy but manageable and we launched with incident and were soon heading out.
Once past the bridge we turned north, up into Loch Linnhe and towards our mark for the day.
Fishing here is for thornback rays and smallish skate, with the chance of other species. I dropped anchor in a light ebb and we settled down to fish in 300 feet of water.
I’d be fibbing if I claimed the fishing was spectacular but there was certainly enough to keep us going. Perhaps not quite enough action to keep us warm though 🙂
Our catch was split rather strangely though. We both had 10 fish, but Ian’s were all thornbacks whilst I had just 6 thornbacks and 4 mini-skate (little bigger than the thornbacks).
(Dis)honourable Mention
I feel I have to confess to a less than stellar performance at St. Andrews a few days before our Linnhe trip. Conditions were a bit bouncy as we lurched along the Fife coast but hopes were still high, given Ian had plenty of fish on recent excursions.
Not so on this occasion! Ian cuffed me with a few codling to my solitary coalfish. Decent enough for skate bait, but not quite what I was hoping for. C’est la vie, I guess!
