Mark skippered us out to the first venue, whilst I made up the rods. I decided not to go too heavy and, alongside a lure rod with a 140mm offshore FBM, I also set up a rod with Mackerel feathers and a lighter one with imitation prawns.
First drift, first drop and the FBM was straight in with a nice Wrasse of around 3lb. Mark lost the baited Mack feathers in a snag. The feathers were replaced with a string of hokkais and the prawn rigs started finding Pollack.
Jack was rather pleased to pick up his first ever Pollack, of around 2lb
We had lots like this including quite a few double headers.
I also found my first Coalfish of the year. 1lb 6oz
Jack also caught his first Wrasse. A Ballan of around 2lb
After that, Mark and I both contacted a few much better fish, but got snapped off on the small prawn rigs. I really should have been more ambitious in the original set-up. Sadly, we lost the tide before we could find the again. Such a shame, because the place regularly produces 6-7lb fish. My bad.
After that, we mooched around for a few more smaller Pollack, and we took Jack to a seal colony with around 50 seals basking on the rocks, before heading off for venue no. 2 of the day. This time it was all about anchoring up to target the angry fish on bait. And it didn't take long.
First up was a doggie, but the next was a Huss of around 9-10lb. And that was it. We must have had 20 of them in the 9-12lb range over the next hour and a half. Mark, Jack and I took it in turns to bring them in. Great fun on a 12-20lb class rod.
As we neared the time to up anchor, we finally got the bite we were looking for. A decent pulldown and then some line being stripped. This was to be Jack's fish.
Up he stepped and got onto the reel as I gave him a little support in holding the rod. The rod arched over and a little line was taken against the drag. But Jack manfully hauled it up from 65ft of water. When he looked over the gunwale and saw his catch he was amazed. "wow" he said "that's massive!". His granddad was very proud and hauled it aboard for a quick photo.
Ever made a mistake? I've had plenty of Tope on the boat and the fight off this one had been relatively benign, so I figured this would be easy. Wrong! For some reason this one went mental, thrashing wildly on the deck.
It snapped my Tee bar as I tried to unhook it and tail whipped my bare legs (looking forward to the scabs for the next two weeks ). Anyway, I eventually got it under control and Jack stepped forward for the photoshoot
I reckon it was 25-30lb.
We stuck around for a while and found more Huss but no Tope. Eventually we upped sticks and headed for the BBQ and a well deserved pint.
As for Jack, he didn't stop talking about it all the way home
