Since the last update the weather on Skye has improved considerably. The sea is getting noticeably warmer and the fishing is picking up across the island. Having managed a few excursions recently I thought I would share some more photos. There seems to be an abundance of rays on the west coast of the island at the moment with a healthy mix of males & females. The size range is pretty encouraging too, so far from about 3lb up to 15lb.
Also since the last update we have had our first brace of mackerel. Still not huge in numbers but generally they are of a good size. Couldn't help but share this photo of a dab with a napoleon complex who decided to tackle a mackerel bait (bigger than itself) mounted on an 8/0 hook.
Now for the envy... My dad escaped for a few hours the weekend after my last post (without me I might add) over to Loch Bracadale. He said fishing was pretty slow to start with nothing much doing. However he was rewarded for his perseverance with the biggest spurdog either of us has ever had from the shore. When it first took the bait and ran he thought it was a tope, however after a hell of a fight he was amazed when the familiar outline of a spurdog came up through the water. 
Unfortunately our old scales were ruined after they fell in a rock pool during the last outing and my dad had to resort to measuring the fish and calculating the weight online here. 

With some cracking weather on the island, my dad has been out trying a few marks and its nice to see the fishing becoming quite steady again. At one mark he managed a few nice Thornback ray around 8-10lb, however the obligatory dogfish also made an appearance which makes it very difficult for anything else to get to the bait. He hasn't had any mackerel himself yet, however there are reports of small shoals from around the area.

Through the grapevine there have been reports of some decent spurdog and rays coming from Armadale pier. Well worth a cast here if you're up anytime soon.

In case anyone had missed the story on the news, there were a number of Pilot whales stranded at staffin on the second of June. Sadly a number of the whales either died naturally or were humanely euthanized, however many of the pod were successfully re-floated and saved. I would like to share my profound respect for everyone who went to the aid of the stranded whales, both the local volunteers and members of the British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR). The full story is available here.

Not having had much success getting fishing due to work and the weather I was determined to get out for a cast. 50 mph westerly winds were throwing up a nice swell which put most of the headlands out of action which was unfortunate as the tides would have been perfect.

Wanting to try loch bracadale we settled on one of the only sheltered locations in these conditions, Ardreck Point. The weather was less than ideal but we persisted anyway. Three of us tried various methods and baits but the only action we had was multitudes of small coalfish around the half pound mark. 

Thankfully I had my new WaterWolf HD UW1.0 camera with me which broke up the boredom. See the video below and it gives a great insight into whats happening on the bottom. 

Hopefully the arrival of spring will bring some better weather and hopefully a few more fish in my next report.

Tight Lines

2014 has been good to me, unfortunately it has also been pretty hectic. Because of this I havent done nearly as much fishing as I would have liked never mind doing a write up. So here is a belated (and condensed) report on some of the fishing Skye has thrown up this year.

The start of 2014 threw up some great pollack from marks across the island, the first week in January was particularly successful with a new pb for Rubh Hunish topping the 11lb mark. As you can see from the photo the conditions were 'interesting' especially at the change of the tide. The main aim of the session was to test out my christmas present, an Okuma trio 55s spinning reel.

Spring and summer were more or less a write off for me. I only managed a few sessions on the island but my family certainly had a fair bit of success in my absence. Sadly there was a noticeable lack of mackerel this year which posed a challenge for bait collection. However what small shoals there were did hang around a lot later in the year.

In a few sea lochs including Bracadale there was a multitude of small whiting which proved to be a major frustration. Baits were barely hitting the seabed when they would be stripped clean by the swarm of pin whiting. Thankfully these whiting seemed to attract predators and brought in some decent sized thornback ray and spurdog. Still waiting on the photos from my dad but on one occasion in July he managed over 10 thornback ray with an average size of 12lb.

One weekend I was free in august allowed me to escape for a shot at bass at Loch Brittle. Having heard reports from anglers on the island that there had been success with specimens reaching the 10lb mark I was feeling lucky. Unfortunately the entire population of sea trout on the west coast of Scotland seemed to have turned up to migrate up the river that weekend. Having spoken to the bailiff and assured him we would not be targeting sea trout it proved to be easier said than done. After about the 30th sea trout we gave up fishing with lures and tried baits on the bottom. This failed to produce any bass but did throw up a few decent flounders up to around 2lb.

What was fun over the summer was trying out a new portable creel at some marks. This produced some lobsters and edible crab along with a multitude of other crustaceans. If you have kids they would love having one of these in the water :-)

November threw up some cracking wrasse sessions from Aird. We had both male and female cuckoo wrasse, corkwing and ballan. All the fish fell to peeler crab and ranged from half a pound up to around 2lb for some of the ballan. Annoyingly a family of seals were teaching their pups how to fish and decided that our hooked fish were an easy target. It was a good work out for the spinning rods but resulted in quite a few 'half' fish coming to the surface.

For the year ahead I intend to be more active in keeping the blog up to date so please keep an eye out for updates. A new christmas prezzie this year was a Water Wolf underwater camera designed for fishing which I will hopefully be able to use for a view under the waves.

Happy new year and tight lines for 2015!

At the end of August now and its been a funny month. 40mph winds, torrential rain with some glorious days inbetween. If one things for sure the Skye weather keeps you on your toes. A bit of a mish mash of updates here from the past month but a few nice fish regardless.

On the second of August I decided on trying a rock mark on loch Dunvegan just north of the Castle. It was blowing a strong SSE so I resoned it would be pretty sheltered here. Bait was fresh mackerel fished on a 4/0 pulley rig. Fishing at about 100yds I was in around 50ft of water. Pretty much from the word go it was a succession of small ling ranging from about 1 to 3lbs. Eventually after a few hours one of the bigger brothers turned up weighing in at 6lb. Not a bad day considering the weather everywhere else and I now know where to turn if I want some ling for the BBQ.

With my dad desperate to get back up to neist point we managed to get a day when we were both off work and decided to make a day of it. Unfortunately we picked a day with one of the biggest tides in August a 4.7m dropping to 1.4m. Suffice to say it was like looking onto a raging river. First few casts were futile with my 7oz grip lead being swept past me at what felt like 50 knots. After an hour we approached slack water and managed to hold bottom eventually. My dad was into a fish first and pulled in a nice Spurdog of about 7lb. A few more around the same size came to both of us all on a 6/0 pulley with frozen mackerel. A new species for 2013 made an appearance in the form of a Short Spined Sea Scorpion. Beautiful fish through not the easiest to handle. Kind of like a hedgehog of the sea with all those spines. Impressed it managed to gulp down a 6/0 sakuma though. With a distinct lack of mackerel we were being fairly frugal with the baits. This gave me an opportunity to try a new game though which involved trying to catch as many fish as possible on one mackerel head. I was amazed by my third pollack when the bait was looking a bit sorry for itself but by the fourth I was properly impressed. Halfway through our session a creel boat came by and pulled his pots up literally 50ft from the shore. I have no idea how we managed to avoid snagging his ropes but upon inspection of the rope as he pulled it onboard we could see an array of feathers, spinners, rigs and gripleads. Beautiful sunset on our departure and a few bottlenose dolphins gave us a sendoff.

Following almost a week of incessant rain I grabbed the opportunity on a bright dry day to try a mark on loch bracadale. On arrival the water was still fairly coloured due to the amount of freshwater that had came off the hills. Baited up a 6/0 pulley with frozen mackerel which produce the usual swarm of dogfish. Finally the rod tip started bouncing signalling something better than a 1lb dogfish. Got a cracking fight off this lovely 8.5lb thornback. Im really starting to fall in love with these Sakuma circle hooks, lip hooked every time which minimizes the stress on the fish and makes unhooking so much easier. Once weighed it sat in the water for a bit before gliding back to the depths. After about an hour of nothing I struck into a bite which I would've bet money was a dogfish. No fight all the way in then as soon as the shockleader broke the surface all hell broke loose. After the belated fight I got it ashore and into the scales. Weighed in at 10lb but as you can see by the photo the wingtips were bright pink. This indicates the fish is stressed and needs to be returned to the water immediately but gently. Can only guess that because it spent so long fighting in this layer of freshwater on the surface it was in distress. 

Have to say in was nice getting out fishing among the poor weather but I was a bit dissapointed by the state of Neist point. Not wanting to have a rant but the amount of fishing debris there was disgusting. Bundles of line, rusting hooks and bait packets littered the rocks. Along with this there were multitudes of beer cans and juice bottles jammed in cracks in the rocks. I know some of this may have been from sightseers but the fishing gear is definitely from anglers. Unfortunately there no bins at Neist point but when driving back through glendale and dunvegan you pass quite a few bins where you could easily dump your rubbish. I filled two carrier bags of detritus just from where I was fishing and it didnt add that much weight to what I was carrying back up to the carpark. Seriously if you can carry it down with you then carry it back up. Neist point is a stunning place with some of the best wildlife on Skye. I hate to see it being littered by the small proportion of anglers too lazy to take their rubbish with them. Rant over. 

First of all I would like to apologise to everyone who has contacted me that I havent yet managed to reply to. Im working my way through my inbox but unfortunately things have been pretty hectic as of late with work and family commitments. On the plus side the weather on Skye has been brilliant the past few weeks and the Mackerel are definitely here in good numbers. Only been out for a few sessions over the past month or so but had a few decent spurdog up to about 13lb.

Very Kindly I have been passed a few photos from fellow anglers Ben Waddington and Dunan Bates. Ben managed this cracking pollock on a dexter wedge from the headland at elgol (top right) whilst Duncan caught a lovely 3lb pollock on a firetail jellyworm from staffin. Both great specimens Im sure youll agree.

If anyone else has any catches they would like to report please get in touch and ill upload them to the site.

Tight lines, Iain 

Desperate to get out again and wet a line we set off for a mark near Ardtreck lighthouse on Loch Bracadale. Rigged up with 100lb wire pulley rigs we were trying out new hooks (Sakuma 6/0 circle) to see if they made unhooking easier for us and less stressful on the fish. Fishing was slow to start but soon had the welcome surprise of an 8lb Spurdog. Following this we had another 3 in the course of our session ranging between 12-14lbs. In between the Spurry action we were spinning for mackerel and managed to replenish our bait supply for the meantime. Whilst spinning we managed to pick up a sea trout about half a pound. Throughout the session we were plagued by loads of small bites which turned out to be dogfish, luckily the bigger hooks meant only a few of them were landed. Towards the end of our session my dad got a cracking bite and pulled in a nice Thornback about 9lb. Trying a limpet fished directly down the side we managed a wee ballan wrasse. Not a specimen by any means but the first of the year none the less. All in all it was a great session. For anyone interested I would highly recommend the sakuma circle hooks we were trying. The only adjustment we made was to crush the barb. All fish went back without a problem and the unhooking was 

A break in the weather and a few mackerel in the freezer prompted a visit to Neist point. Arrived around an hour before high tide and fished half of the dropping tide. Managed a Ling of around 3-4lb on the bottom but missed umpteen other bites. Reckon there must have been a plethora of smaller species picking at the baits. Things went pretty quiet for a bit until my dad got a cracking bite on a 6/0 baited with a mackerel fillet. Turned out to be an edible crab about 8 inches across the back. Little bugger wasnt even hooked, just held on for the ride I guess. A few minkes were surfacing further out and began moving closer and closer in shore. At the end up one surfaced less than 20 feet away from our feet. A sight I wont soon forget. Unfortunately Im not the best

Feeling as though its been a lifetime since I've been able to wet a line, a brilliant warm calm evening prompted a visit to Ardtreck Point on Loch Bracadale. Nothing much doing on the beachcaster but managed a few decent pollock around the 3-4lb mark on a black and red jellyworm. A very welcome catch was a few Mackerel, my first for 2013! Kept four but there was plenty more there. Always my signal that summer is on its way :-) A few Minke whales surfacing in the distance was a great spectacle but unfortunately a sign I need to upgrade my camera, my photos were pitiful to say the least.