The Skipper's Blog

2009 was a mixed season - the fishing was great but the weather kept us in too often.

We had an excellent range of species and some specimen bull huss, pollack and tope. Mackerel were very patchy throughout and we sometimes struggled to get enough for bait. Herring and launce were quite plentiful though.

Big tope were not plentiful but this splendid 64 pounder won Harris Campbell a prize or two.



We had many excellent "species hunts" throughout May, June & July.

Depending upon tide direction and time of day we fished the usual banks, reefs and headland tide runs ranging south as far as the Mull of Logan bank and the Logan wreck or north as far as the Haileybury wreck and then inshore to the Larbrax Reef as the tide strengthened.

We still have areas that need to be re-explored with modern tackle and techniques - particularly the deeper waters. We didn't manage it in 2009 - it has to go on the 2010 "to do" list. We also have some excellent flattie marks that will reward dedicated anglers but these are frequently ignored, the excellent pollack marks being too attractive to many anglers.

Throughout the summer  the weather had been quite mediocre but it really fell  away during August. Many of you who had  booked for August dates were disappointed , although  most were able to re-book later dates. Some of you who did get out in had to put up with some pretty rough conditions.

By mid-September the weather improved again and the fishing continued good right through to mid-October. On our last weekend we hit big shoals of herring on the Saturday and then on the Sunday had a total of 16 species, none of them herring!