Win some, lose some, but today’s skate session turned into a bit of a struggle to catch anything. You can’t fault us for trying though!
Ian and I launched my Longliner at Puffin Divers before skirting the south side of Kerrera. Out past Bach Island we despatched the anchor to the ooze some 500 feet below. Today we meant business, bristling with skate rods and suitably heavy lever drag reels!
Bait of choice was my usual coley attached to a 10/0 Cox and Rawle Chinu and short 400lb nylon trace. Normally I use a Mustad 12/0 bronzed O’Shaughnessy, but the Chinu did the job for me last year on a couple of occasions so here was a chance to give it a more serious trial.
Unusually there were several other boats within a mile or so of us – Oban normally feels crowded with just a couple of dinghies out. Baits out we settled down to coffee and bacon rolls and waited for the big flatties to show. And waited and waited…
Time for a move
By early afternoon growing panic suggested we shift to a different mark, given absolutely zero interest by anything bigger than small spurdogs. A couple of kilometres north and closer in to Kerrera the water is shallower – a mere 360 feet – and we dropped anchor at the base of underwater cliffs.
Results were no different however, apart from a few more spurdog appearing – all small. At least the weather cheered up a bit, with some broken sunshine replacing the light rain. It was still a little depressing watching our chances of a fish shrink as the hours went by 🙁
We stuck it out until the sun set over Mull and things got chilly. Darkness was creeping in as we hauled anchor and headed back round Kerrera, tails throughly between legs!
We retrieved my boat at a deserted Puffin Divers before heading to Oban for a fish supper. Not that we deserved it for this performance!
That’s a shame Doug – win some lose some I suppose. By all accounts there’s been quite a few decent Skate reports recently, from the shore at least.
Hi Liam, as you say, you can’t win them all. We had a run of good skate trips in recent years so maybe we just needed a reminder that it’s not a nailed on certainty! It’s certainly been a relatively slow start to the year for me despite having a few trips under my belt. That said, the pleasure factor has actually been pretty high and that is the main thing, after all!
Hi
We launched and fished the same area for skate late September last year.
Hooked into one just off submarine island. It took all my line and kept going.
We also tried various reefs for pollock , only small stuff was caught.
We also tried SS Breda , this was very disappointing . Several drifts and only 1 small pollock.
Im not sure what is happening with the fishing in this areas as it seems to have declined over the past 20 years.
Some blame the fish farms , some blame over fishing.
Aiming to get back there fro August . Let hope the fishing is better this year.
Hi Peter,
To be honest I think it’s just me! We had a series of successful skate trips in recent years and it’s just the past couple of trips that have been poor. I know Leigh Taylor has been doing well from the charter boats, so I put it down partly to just not fishing the area often enough to keep a finger on the pulse. One of the hazards of flitting about to different areas of the country all the time!
Cheers,
Doug