Sunday looked to be a nice day so the target was to be Dunbar pollack, codling and ling again. Boat and gear were sorted and I set the alarm to give me a fighting chance of hitting the slip before boats started to stack up. As a result a rather bleary-eyed angler edged his boat out of the harbour and parked just outside the Yetts to try for a few mackerel. Fishing whilst struggling out of bulky neoprene waders isn’t really a sensible idea, but I did pick up 5 small/tiny mackerel as I did so.
Drifting along further whilst I sorted out other gear and a caffeine hit saw a few more mackerel, with some better sized ones hiding below the tiny ones nearer the surface. Having sorted out the bait it was time to cruise down towards Barns Ness for a longish drift or five.
The breeze was a little strong for the River Garry wreck, but the drift speed was generally OK and a bit less than I thought it might be, given the lightness of the Longliner. Somewhere in the 1.2-1.5 mph range, which is fine for fishing with.
Codling were rather thin on the ground and mainly on the small side, but I’d two or three before my spinning rod dramatically keeled over as it got hit by a pollack (the video captures that quite nicely). The next couple of hours were much the same, with only a scattering of fish showing.
Eventually I decided to head a few miles eastward to try some ground that is occasionally kind to me. I didn’t have great expectations, but it was a good excuse to get another hour on the outboard and edge a little closer to completing its break-in period.
Weaving in between the pot markers on this mark I set up a few drifts but had little in return bar a couple of pollack and some decent sized mackerel. A little disappointing but I wasn’t too bothered given it was a nice sunny day and there wasn’t much doing elsewhere anyway.
I took my time heading back, doing my best to heed Yamaha’s run-in advice, and stopped off at a couple more marks to add one or two more codling.
So 4 hard-fighting (rather than big!) pollack, and 12 or so codling, plus a fair number of mackerel to add to winter bait supplies. I’ve had far better catches but the sunshine certainly helped take the edge off the day.
And a video of the day…
