After being out of action with a damaged leg for almost three months, the last day of May saw a good forecast and I decided to try my luck down at Isle of Whithorn and Wigtown Bay. Alcatraz has managed the grand total of 1 day out in 6 months so it took a while to check everything over (not to mention find it in the first place), but we set off from Edinburgh just before six.
Down at Isle of Whithorn harbour several hours later, the tide was still well out, but I decided to head out overnight and sleep over on the boat. A brief half-hour or so just off the harbour entrance resulted in 6 or 7 herring just as the light faded away and I moved on to anchor for the night. Round at Portyerrock I surprised a couple of shore anglers who clearly weren’t expecting a boat out at that time, and then dropped anchor a few hundred yards into the bay. By this time I was pretty tired and despite the best efforts of the water slapping against the hull, I managed a few hours sleep before waking just before 4 and getting going again.
It was a calm day and it didn’t take too long to reach the Cree estuary where I hoped to put the crab to good use hunting for smoothhound and maybe a bass.
I didn’t have to wait long as first cast saw a pair of smoothhound smash into the crab baits and put up their usual robust struggle on the way to the boat. This carried on for the next couple of hours and gave me a total of 8 smoothhound, a dab and the usual numbers of dogfish. The couple of hours over slackwater proved fruitless with only dogfish showing up, with not even a flattie to break the monotony. Once the flood had strengthened things changed for the better, with a couple of hounds and a brace of good bass up to 5lbs 6oz, before settling down to a lengthy run of hounds.
By the time I packed in around HW my total stood at 22 hounds, 2 bass, 1 dab and innumerable dogfish (at least 35, maybe more). None of the hounds were big, with most in the 4-5lb bracket and the best not making 6lbs, but it was a great start back into fishing after too long away.
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