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Highlands What a strange day.

Skaterboy

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I was on the rocks on West Skye just after sunrise this morning to avoid traffic on the single track roads. It was a bright morning with a light NNE breeze, just enough to keep the early morning midges off. I started deep spinning with frozen sand eel and started catching straight away with a few mackerel and a steady stream of small pollack to just over 3lbs. Hoping that some bigger fish would come on the feed later I changed over to bottom fishing with big frozen mackerel baits and on the first cast I had a few taps on the rod tip but it didn't develop into anything. When I reeled in for a bait change though there was a bit of weight on the line and I pulled up a nice 2lb 4oz lobster, a nice bonus. The next hour or so produced four spurdogs of 7, 9, 10 and 11 pounds. I like to catch spurdogs every now and then as they are a strong hard fighting fish in deep water but I soon get tired of wrestling with them so it was back to pollack fishing this time with deep spun jellyworm baited with a long strip of the fresh mackerel. Final tally for the day was 13 pollack, 3 mackerel, 4 spurdog and a lobster. It was fresh pollack for dinner tonight and there's a lobster salad for tomorrow.
I'm not one for "the one that got away " stories usually but I'm going to tell this one and you can make of it what you will. When I was fishing the baited jellyworm I was reeling in what felt like a good 5lb'ish fish when everything went solid and then started to move powerfully again. I've had pollack taken on this mark by big grey seals and occasionally by tope so I was thinking it was going to be one of these two. The fish continued to come up through the deep clear water and I eventually saw a light coloured shape deep down which I thought was going to be a big tope but it kept circling and coming up and getting bigger and bigger and eventually there was a big shark swimming around just under the surface with my pollack clamped in its jaws. I called my wife over and she saw it clearly as well. We were directly above the fish and both agreed it was 8 - 9 feet long and had a very broad back and was pale grey in colour. The fish soon got tired of showing off and headed off for the horizon at a steady pace. I was still attached to the pollack but I managed to get a leather glove on and clamped down on the spool before all my line was stripped and I only lost the trace. My wife said that if she hadn't seen the shark herself she probably wouldn't have believed my description of how big it was which is why I don't usually bother with these stories. Before the shark appeared I had been getting plenty of bites but afterwards it was a good 2 hours before I got another fish. As the title said, It was a very strange day indeed.DSCN0559.JPGDSCN0555.JPGDSCN0586.JPGDSCN0567.JPGDSCN0571.JPGDSCN0573.JPGDSCN0575.JPG
 
I was on the rocks on West Skye just after sunrise this morning to avoid traffic on the single track roads. It was a bright morning with a light NNE breeze, just enough to keep the early morning midges off. I started deep spinning with frozen sand eel and started catching straight away with a few mackerel and a steady stream of small pollack to just over 3lbs. Hoping that some bigger fish would come on the feed later I changed over to bottom fishing with big frozen mackerel baits and on the first cast I had a few taps on the rod tip but it didn't develop into anything. When I reeled in for a bait change though there was a bit of weight on the line and I pulled up a nice 2lb 4oz lobster, a nice bonus. The next hour or so produced four spurdogs of 7, 9, 10 and 11 pounds. I like to catch spurdogs every now and then as they are a strong hard fighting fish in deep water but I soon get tired of wrestling with them so it was back to pollack fishing this time with deep spun jellyworm baited with a long strip of the fresh mackerel. Final tally for the day was 13 pollack, 3 mackerel, 4 spurdog and a lobster. It was fresh pollack for dinner tonight and there's a lobster salad for tomorrow.
I'm not one for "the one that got away " stories usually but I'm going to tell this one and you can make of it what you will. When I was fishing the baited jellyworm I was reeling in what felt like a good 5lb'ish fish when everything went solid and then started to move powerfully again. I've had pollack taken on this mark by big grey seals and occasionally by tope so I was thinking it was going to be one of these two. The fish continued to come up through the deep clear water and I eventually saw a light coloured shape deep down which I thought was going to be a big tope but it kept circling and coming up and getting bigger and bigger and eventually there was a big shark swimming around just under the surface with my pollack clamped in its jaws. I called my wife over and she saw it clearly as well. We were directly above the fish and both agreed it was 8 - 9 feet long and had a very broad back and was pale grey in colour. The fish soon got tired of showing off and headed off for the horizon at a steady pace. I was still attached to the pollack but I managed to get a leather glove on and clamped down on the spool before all my line was stripped and I only lost the trace. My wife said that if she hadn't seen the shark herself she probably wouldn't have believed my description of how big it was which is why I don't usually bother with these stories. Before the shark appeared I had been getting plenty of bites but afterwards it was a good 2 hours before I got another fish. As the title said, It was a very strange day indeed.View attachment 13714View attachment 13715View attachment 13716View attachment 13717View attachment 13718View attachment 13719View attachment 13720
I was going say 'seal' before you told the rest of the story. Ive been nearly spooled there, but the seal was gracious enough to give me the pollock's head back.. (Estimated about 7lb if hadnt been decapitated).
I'm of the opinion that anything can happen there.. We once had to stop fishing when a group of whales came past, surfacing and blowing noisily through their blow holes, not 20yds out.
If you hazard a guess at your shark species id be more than interested..
Thanks for the write-up.
 
Great write up mate of a busy session, well done ? what species would you reckon the shark was?
I've seen a few porbeagles and it definitely wasn't one of those and it was the wrong colouration for a big blue. I'm beginning to think it might have been one of the rarer deep water species that occasionally feed in shallower water. There's 600 feet of water just offshore there so anything is possible. I'm just looking through the possible suspects to see if I can narrow it down a bit.
 
I've seen a few porbeagles and it definitely wasn't one of those and it was the wrong colouration for a big blue. I'm beginning to think it might have been one of the rarer deep water species that occasionally feed in shallower water. There's 600 feet of water just offshore there so anything is possible. I'm just looking through the possible suspects to see if I can narrow it down a bit.
Mako????
 
Mighty long net handle you have, home made?
Yes, I extended the standard boat net handle with alloy tv aerial poles with bolted spigot joints. I have another two sections I can add but it gets a bit hard to handle at that length. I've landed a lot of big fish with it that would have been impossible to land without it. I even managed to squeeze a 42lb tope into it. It only takes a few minutes to put together at the start of the day but it's well worth the effort.
 
Yes, I extended the standard boat net handle with alloy tv aerial poles with bolted spigot joints. I have another two sections I can add but it gets a bit hard to handle at that length. I've landed a lot of big fish with it that would have been impossible to land without it. I even managed to squeeze a 42lb tope into it. It only takes a few minutes to put together at the start of the day but it's well worth the effort.
When next out would you mind posting a couple of pics of the joints?
 
Yes, I extended the standard boat net handle with alloy tv aerial poles with bolted spigot joints. I have another two sections I can add but it gets a bit hard to handle at that length. I've landed a lot of big fish with it that would have been impossible to land without it. I even managed to squeeze a 42lb tope into it. It only takes a few minutes to put together at the start of the day but it's well worth the effort.
Weird question, but did you make that landing net handle about 15 years ago, and did you used to post on wsf around 2006? Forgive me if ive mixed you up but i remember a report on there from around then..
 
When next out would you mind posting a couple of pics of the joints?
You need a section of alloy tube to fit tightly inside the main poles, permanently bolted to one section and fixed with wing nut bolts to the other section. I also reinforced the spigot with a hardwood dowel Araldited into the full length of the spigot.
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