Having had more Christmas cheer than I can safely handle, I headed over to Taynuilt on the 2nd to rediscover my inner hermit. Given we’d a smattering of snow and a fair bit of ice, I left the Orkney behind and just took the SIB across to Etive.
After a slow chug up the loch, made chillier by a sun that stayed firmly stuck out of sight behind Ben Cruachan almost all the way, I slithered ashore at Barrs quarry.
Lobbing out a couple of baits on my ancient Zzipplex rods I busied myself sorting out camp and essentials like coffee. At least the quarry basked in the full glare of the January sun, even if it only looked about 10 degrees above the horizon.
Etive was simply picture perfect and offered a stunning start to 2025. It’s an amazing place to visit – when it’s behaving itself 🙂
A little while later my first fish of 2025 duly came along. Predictably enough, it was a small spurdog!
Second cast followed that up with a doggie, so two of the most obvious species ticked off for the new year.
SIB Fishing
By now it was well after 2 and the sun was already starting to head for bed behind the hills, so I headed out onto Etive with the SIB for a wee spinning session.
Fishing was easy in such calm conditions and I picked up 3 small pollack over the next hour – including the unlucky specimen shown in one of the photos below.
It had obviously been caught up in feathers or sabikis at some point and got trapped with a loop of line around its body. The lures had long gone but the line had cut deeply into its body and it looked a right mess (the photo actually shows the less gory bits). I cut it free and it swam off happily enough, so hopefully it recovers!
I headed back ashore as the light disappeared and hauled the Avon safely above the HW mark. On a calm winter night like this Etive is almost completely silent. No traffic noise (no humans!), no waves, no wind in the trees, not even birdsong. Fabulous!
It was still cold though, so I didn’t bother with the shore rods in the evening. There is only so far I’m prepared to go in search of little spurdogs! Instead I settled for a nice warm tent, blazing log burner and a video 🙂 Dinner was chilli con carne – not very exciting but easy, hot and filling!
It was freezing outside, with a few flakes of snow from time to time, so I contented myself with a few shots of the stars instead of shivering waiting for a fish.
A Cold Start
Next morning, I’d a long lie in, waiting for the sun to appear. I did finally stir myself, fire up the stove, and got breakfast on the go. Then did the sensible thing and checked the SIB hadn’t floated away on the high tide 🙂
A couple of casts with the shore rods produced nothing except a nasty overrun. Taking the hint settled for coffee and bacon rolls instead, leaving the reel for later. Much later, in fact, as I still haven’t looked at it a fortnight further on…
Breakfast/brunch finished, I packed away my gear and reloaded the SIB. By now I was down to about 90 minutes of fishing before it was time to potter back to Taynuilt. Another spinning session was more appealing than squishy semi-frozen mackerel, so back to the shads and leadheads.
Four pollack this time, a couple of unremarkable ones but also a set of almost identical twins at 71.5 and 72cm – roughly 8lbs or so. Pretty chuffed with that as a start to the year if I’m honest!
Easily my best from Etive and in good condition too. I’ve noticed a lot more small fish on the surface this autumn and winter, so perhaps that’s encouraged some better pollack into the loch.
That was it really, apart from another long chug back to Taynuilt. Honestly though, I was pretty chuffed with this as a start to the year – a near perfect camp in brilliant weather at the very start of January, and some good fish to boot. Lets hope it sets the tone for the rest of the year!
hi do you never fish loch long gairloch area i have had some good fish inc cod and haddock conger over the years just not as far from where you live i assume thats near dunbar or n berwick
Hi Rob,
It must be about 20 years since I last fished the Clyde lochs, when we had some decent haddock catches from Fyne. These days, most of my west coast trips combine a combination of camping and fishing and I just don’t get the same feeling of remoteness and isolation when I look at most of the Clyde. That’s a bit unfair and there are wilder places like the entrance to Loch Goil, or Loch Striven which I will probably kayak around at some point – but these take me longer to get to than Etive or Linnhe so tend to get pushed down the list 🙂
Cheers, Doug
Great content as always Doug , the Mrs is wanting to head back to Scotland to retire soon , so I am scouting out my fishing spots for the coming years via your superb videos and blogs !!