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Winter Competition


richi

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Just received Spanners entry and all I'm going to say is that you all have some work to do :D

 

Well done Spanner, your King for today, but that may all change tomorrow :D

 

SM :)

 

 

Good luck everyone for tomorrow. I'm carless until next week so won't be able to fish this competition now :(

Kaskazi Dorado - Yellow

Location: East Dorset
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Ok, here is my report from the 27th.....

 

After a slightly late start due to the icy roads and the fact it’s a 4hr drive to the launch site I finally got on the water about 11am.

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I could have taken the easy option and just fished off the beach but some guys I know, AN regular SpurHound and his mates, were shore fishing about 3 miles up the loch so I paddled up there to say hi and fish close to them.

 

On the way up I picked up some shoals of fish in the rocky margins and found out there were mini Pollack, 1st species of the day. And by mini I mean mini…….so small the camera didn’t focus properly!

gallery_4086_75_14096.jpg

 

When I got to the deep water mark there were 8 guys all fishing close together on a rocky point, look closely and you can see them. Putting down a nice scent trail for me …. how nice of them.

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As you can see it was really calm …

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As I was fishing in 315ft of water I didn’t anchor but I only drifted about 50yds in an hour and half…

 

Pretty soon I was into a steady stream of whiting, all between 8oz and 1lb, I ended up catching about 10 of them …

gallery_4086_75_36434.jpg

 

In Loch Etive, where there are whiting there are usually spurdog close behind, and sure enough I soon got into them as well, mostly tiny pups, I got 5 of these…..

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But the odd slightly bigger one as well, I got 3 of these…..

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I decided to head back down the loch as I wanted to fish another mark closer to the launch point after dark and I wanted to get through the tide run at the narrows around HW. I stopped for a wee while on route and tied up to a buoy at the edge of a mussel farm looking for other species but it was pretty quiet and I only caught 1 more whiting there.

 

Back at the launch site there were 2 guys shore fishing, turned out to be Dale, another AN regular, and a mate. Chatted to them for a while, warmed up a bit, got my camp stove out and had a hot meal. It was sub-zero all day long and my toes were going numb!

 

By then it was well into dusk and I paddled across the loch to Airds Point, the point on the extreme left of the 1st picture. I got anchored in 165ft of water and was into fish immediately again......more whiting, probably another 10 but I wasn't counting anymore. Twice I got good thumping rattles and pulled up whiting with bites taken out of them so there were some better spurs about...but I didn't hook up with one.

 

I did get a doggie, and very unusually just the one.

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Shortly after that I got a small thornback ray.

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So that was 5 of the 6 species I reckoned were certs, and I was just missing Grey Gurnard, but it all went quite around 7:30pm and try as I might the bites dried up.

 

So made 1 more move around 8pm and anchored closer in to the rocks at the bottom of the drop off, 80yds offshore and only 120ft deep. A big conger, >40lb, was taken from here from recently, and there was the possibility of ling as well as gurnard. But I didn't get one single bite. By 9pm I my feet were getting really cold again, my seal skinz socks don't seem to be waterproof anymore and I had wet feet. The rest of me was fine but cold feet are a bugger, so I packed in called it quits for the day.

 

I paddled back following my GPS track and generally heading for the lights of anglers on the shore, which I took to be Dale and his mate on my launch site. As I got in close I ignored the GPS and came in at the side of the anglers to be sure and avoid any flying 6oz leads... only to find they were a different group slightly further up the beach. I should have stuck to following the GPS.... anyway a 30 sec paddle back down put me bang on. It's amazing how difficult it can be to find the right patch of shoreline in the pitch dark when there is nothing to go by.

 

It turned out Dale had left earlier, having caught 6 species including dab and gurnard, and a 12lb spurrdog. Maybe I should have anchored just off my launch point and stayed there all day. But I wouldn't have had as much fun :D

 

So not quite as many species as I'd hoped, I thought 6 were deffo and maybe one or two more if I was lucky, but plenty of fish and a cracking day out, if a little cold. All in all "A Grand Day Out" I'd say...so thanks for inspiring me to get out there in such cold weather :D

 

Oh and the final count (roughly):

10 pollack

20 whiting

12 spurdog

1 Lesser Spotted Dogfish

1 Thornback Ray

Edited by spanner
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Well done you,I hope all those little fish went back to fight another day, Looked just great in the pic,s terry

If only I had all the money for all the toys I want,;-(

Got most of them now, Just working on that Harley in blue ;-)

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Sounds liks a cracking day out Spanner and a good variety of species caught for this time of year. I enjoyed reading your report - nice to see some fish being caught.

 

From your photos its seems a bit surreal catching sea fish from what looks like freshwater surroundings but its different up your way what with lochs, great depths, Nessie, haggis etc. :D:D

 

For an 8 hour round trip to your launch point, fishing at this time of year and into the dark you deserve to win the comp - with the number of species you caught you probably will. Well done.

Edited by SpeciMan
Kaskazi Dorado - Yellow

Location: East Dorset
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Everything went back except for the doggie .... I like a good fish curry... yum :)

 

 

Do you have a recipe Spanner or is it as straight forward as cooking your fish, chopping it into small pieces and adding it to curry sauce?

Edited by SpeciMan
Kaskazi Dorado - Yellow

Location: East Dorset
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From your photos its seems a bit surreal catching sea fish from what looks like freshwater surroundings but its different up your way what with lochs, great depths, Nessie, haggis etc. :D:D

 

Yep, its certainly a 'different' environment .... the surface layers are pretty much fresh water anyway, very peaty and brown, while the deeper saline water has a very low recycle rate, i.e not much of it gets changed out with the tide due to the two signifcant narrow and shallow bottlenecks at Connel and Bonawe.

 

 

For an 8 hour round trip to your launch point, fishing at this time of year and into the dark you deserve to win the comp -

 

Well I did tell you guys just to stay home and keep warm infront of the fire ......... :D

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You can just chuck it straight into a curry sauce and cook it in the sauce, but I prefer chop the doggie into 'scampi' sized chunks, egg and breadcrumb it, and fry just like sacmpi. Then you can either eat it with a sweet thai chill dipping sauce with a rocket salad, or pour the curry sauce over it, either your own or out of a jar.

 

I've used several curry recipies .... and can recommend the coconut based ones for fish dishes. They tend to be monkfish recipies but work just as well with doggies :)

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Brilliant job Spanner :)

 

In my book you deserve to win the comp for all your efforts, It must have took a lot of determination to stick it out in the cold and dark. If that's what we're up against in future comps then I think we'll have our work cut out to bring the crown back across the wall :D

 

Bloody well done,

 

Stuart.

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