As I mentioned in my last post, our fishing plans for Galloway were literally blown out the water by the forecast wind. Instead of 5 days we managed just 2, one of them in fairly marginal conditions. At least the tope were there, and in good numbers.
We set up at Port William campsite on Sunday afternoon, but didn’t bother to wet a line given the wind. Instead we anchored the tent properly and then headed for the pub – the Steam Packet Inn – for our only edible meal of the trip.
Next day looked distinctly bouncy but just about fishable. We were heading out of Port William and towards the relative shelter of Drummore when “road closed” signs stopped us in our tracks. Resurfacing 🙁 That kind of threw the dice in favour of Port William, so we went with it.
Launching just at half tide we headed out towards marks just off Barsalloch Point. Having overcome their initial reluctance to become cannon fodder we chucked a few mackerel baits out for tope. Perhaps predictably, Ian was first to register a bite, with a nice teenager tope being first aboard.
Trev also got in on the tope action, and their scores started to add up. As for me, I was cabin boy, with almost no interest in my exquisitely presented mackerel bait 🙁
Trev carried on his winning streak with a nice huss, whilst Ian boated more and more tope.
I did eventually score a hit with a nice huss. At 14lbs I think it’s a personal best – and it actually came up with a pal, both of them trying to share the same mackerel bait.
After that I started to catch up with Trev and Ian on the tope stakes, but Trev managed fish of the day with a nice 36lb specimen.
Species were relatively few and far between, as we were focussing on whole mackerel baits rather than chasing smaller fish. However, Trev managed a fine thornback, which proved to be the only one of the trip.
For reasons unclear to me, Ian then proceeded to test the build quality of his Penn Liveliner by feeding it to a tope. I’m not quite sure who won, but there are some impressive battle scars on the reel…
We couldn’t return to Port William until around mid-flood, so it was close to sunset by the time we raised anchor. By this point I was quite glad to escape the sea, as the wind was now against tide and things were quite uncomfortable. Back at Everest base camp we tucked into burgers and a beer before hitting the sack. Sanitation might be better than in the Himalayas but the catering certainly wasn’t!
Day 2
Next morning the wind had eased a trifle as we dropped the Longliner back into Port William. Even the sun popped out!
I parked us pretty much on the same spot as yesterday and we fairly quickly acquired mackerel for bait.
I picked up a stray Scad amongst the mackerel. I’ve no idea why, but I do like to catch them – probably it’s just not a fish I come across often.
We were fine for bait, but the tope were quite slow to start and we had little interest for a couple of hours.
Eventually they did play ball and we picked up a good number over the rest of the day. Not many photos I’m afraid, as most were simply released at the side of the boat.
I’ll not describe it as my fish of the year, but I was about to chuck some seaweed back over the gunnel when I spotted a little eye staring at me. Turned out to be a little baby lumpsucker – quite a cute little fish, which promptly stuck itself to my finger.
Our species count was well down this year, due to time and weather, but we managed a respectable tally. From memory, tope, huss, thornback, mackerel, herring, scad, whiting, dab, LSD, grey gurnard, tub gurnard and smoothhound. I don’t think we can count the lumpsucker though! Twelve species would be great on the east coast, but is OK at best for fishing in Galloway.
It’s hard to tell how many tope we caught, but I had just 7 on day one, and was well behind both Trev and Ian. So possibly 30 in quite awkward conditions, and another 20+ on day 2. Really not bad considering I thought we might not get out at all, given earlier forecasts.
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2 days salvaged out of 5 Doug and to be honest, sounds like a decent return for your efforts. Well done.
Thanks Liam – I reckon we did pretty well considering the conditions. It’s just a trip I look forward too most years, and most years weather is the biggest constraint. Probably the biggest frustration shared by all UK sea anglers!
Quite a result, considering you were lucky to launch at all. Well done the boys!
Hi Ash,
Weather’s generally the big enemy at Galloway, I find. The fish can be a bit hit or miss but you can usually find them given a day or two of trying. At least this time we dropped more or less on top of them from the off! Bouncing around all day in overcast, breezy conditions for no result would be pretty miserable!
Great result Doug and really nice to read that it was a success after all! I tried off Ardwell in SIB, in mid June, but couldn’t get out far due to strong breeze. Nearest I came to tope was when one came to look at an LSD I was boating but that was it – but I had 4 nice bullhuss (with attitude!), which was an experience! Also had great fun with smooth hound in Cree estuary – amazing in such shallow water – thanks for the inspiration from your diary!
Hi Martyn,
I think I’d have mixed feelings about a tope on a SIB – it could get a little too exciting. I’ve done OK with tope sometimes off Ardwell, near the yellow buoy, but have found Port William more consistent – but they do move around quite a bit. We were fishing less than a mile out from Barsalloch Point at PW, so you don’t need to go far. There’s no specific mark as such, although the mix of rays vs huss does vary a bit depending on the mix of sand vs cobbles. The Cree can be great fun, and even baby tope can be lively on a lightish spinning rod. The smoothhound in the Cree seem happy to take ragworm, but we’ve seen decent numbers of hounds off Port William if we use crab (does attract doggies though…)