Sunday 10 August 2008

A good weekend fishing.


The pics are all dated 05/01/2004 because I
could'nt be bothered changing the date after
fitting new batteries.
Had a 24hr session on my favourite place in Scotland, Loch Oich, with Sandra, Meggy and my mate Stuart. This is my boat, Chrissie11 taking a rest. Quite important to find a nice sandy bit to beach the boat. This saves unneccessary scratches on the hull.
Weather on the Friday evening was fine, and we sat out till 11pm and had a glass or two of wine and a barbecued burger, pulled in the baits and hit the sack.
Saturday morning as usual for this part of the world it rained for about 4 hours then heavy showers for the rest of the day, but I was still up and about at 6am, getting a wee fire going and casting out fresh baits. Altogether I had 7 pike ranging from about 5lb to 15lb, all carefully unhooked and returned to fight another day.



This is me about to return a wee pike of about 5lb, the first of many.

And another one goes back. You will have noticed that
Meg is never far away when I have a fish.
Apart from all of the electronics, floats and clickers
she is my best early warning system. She carefully
watches the reels and floats, and listens for beeps
alerting me to the first sign of a bite.


Best fish of the session was this one of about 15lb. She took bait no. 4 and after a good hard fight I was able to unhook her in the water allowing her to swim off. 5 minutes later she took bait no.1 but had to be netted this time as I could'nt see the hooks. Check those teeth! This old battleaxe has chomped through many a small fish in her day.
Nice to see this ocean going yacht going through the waterway under a big genoa. Most of them use engine power as the loch is so narrow its hardly worth the amount of tacking they would have to do, but the wind was just perfect on this occasion.

These 12 foot Fox Warrior rods are all fitted with Abu 6501 c3 multiplier reels, big orange floats or bobbers and set with the clicker on these "Fox mx blue" electronic bite alarms. When a fish picks up a bait I want as much warning as possible so I can strike before the pike has a chance to either swallow or drop the bait.
Nice to have the same reel on all four rods. so whichever rod I pick up, it will always have the same action.

5 comments:

Mungo said...

Wow - the teeth on that 15lb-er... scary! Glad you had a good time... So you find a place on the beach to put the boat, and then do you set up a tent and sleep in it, etc...?

I found Loch Oich on the map - interesting place!

Cheers,

Mungo

Gordon Mills said...

Hi Mungo.
We just park the boat, set up rods and place baits at different depths. The tent we use works the same way as an umbrella and is erected in a couple of minutes. We have folding camp beds and 4 season sleeping bags, so its quite warm and comfortable under the circumstances. We usually have a small fire for warmth/cooking by the waters edge, so that next day when we leave I can kick the remnants into the water leaving no trace. It truly is an awesome place. If you look at the pic of the sailing boat, to the right is the ruins of Invergarry Castle.
I fish in the narrow area between the island and the south bank.
Great fishing spot only reachable by boat or a very long walk.
All the best
Gordon

D.Cans said...

Hello everyone
I will have to say WOW as well! I never thought you could catch such large fish in Scotland.
I come from Cairns in far North Queensland in Australia, we have excellent fishing here, but it was an eye opener to see you guys can catch some decent sized fish there also.
I am planning to go to Europe in the next few months and I will have to serious consider Scotland as one of my destinations.
I also run a website called Pond Reviews as fishing is a passion of mine. I found the Loch Oich videos below if this also helps other potential Scotish Anglers!
http://www.pondreviews.com/Loch%20Oich/
Also some footage from my hometown Cairns if Anyone is interested!
http://www.pondreviews.com/Fishing-Cairns/
Anyways I hope you find the videos useful!

Dan
PS: Great blog webmaster!

Gordon Mills said...

Cheers Dan, thanks for looking in.
If you do decide to visit Scotland you can contact me at
m1llsyno1@hotmail.com
We can perhaps "hook up" and put you on to a fish or two.
Gordon.

Pike Lures said...

Nice specimens.well done