I didn’t fancy the hassle of a boat today, so just chucked the shore rods in the car and headed west. The idea was to split the day, with a few hours fishing at Loch Leven and then spend the afternoon having a bash at Loch Creran, which I’ve never tried before.
Leven was both calmer and sunnier than forecast and I was starting to overheat by the time I reached my mark, a well known spot on the north shore but not one I’ve fished before. I started off by dropping my camera and buggering the auto-focus 🙁 which is why some of the images ain’t the best. At least it was a cheapo lens which I was looking for an excuse to replace anyway…
Half an hour later I reeled in a small ray and things were looking up as the sun kept shining and only the snow on the hills reminded me it was winter.
Sadly this was the high point, and a succession of dogfish suggested that the rays had better things to do than play with my bait. In between the doggies came a surprise winter mackerel – I’ve had them often enough from the boat at this time of year, but this one took a lump of mackerel sent out on a 4/0 and fished hard on the seabed.
By half-twelve it was decision time – stick with Leven for the rest of the day or move down to Creran and give it a little try. I elected to stick with the plan and headed down to a mark I’d identified earlier as a fairly deep candidate in an otherwise shallow loch.
Loch Creran doesn’t really feature on most angler’s list of possibilities – it’s small and further to travel than both Etive or Leven. It does hold Pollack and sea trout for lure anglers, but I was interested to see if there were any numbers of ray available as well.
The mark was easy enough to fish and went into reasonably deep water (it felt something like 45-50 feet) with no obvious tide run. However baits were stripped fairly quickly and proper bites were distinctly lacking until shortly before I packed up for the day, when a consolation doggie made an appearance.
OK, so Creran was a waste of time but never venture, never gain and there are a couple of other possibilities that look worth trying so I might be back one day.
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