This week I once again headed back to South West Scotland to target hard fighting pollack. Most fishermen are very superstitious and I’m one of them. During a long trip such as this one, I know that I’m going to have a great days fishing if all the traffic lights I come across are green and vice versa if they are red it’s going to be bad! On this occasion they were all red! Oh! but how wrong these red lights were to be!
I met up with Alex who is a fan of my YouTube channel on the shores of Loch Ryan near Stranraer in Scotland to have a short lure session using top water lures for bass. Earlier in the day Alex had caught a small but stunning sea trout however we tried for an hour for bass but to no avail! I get itchy feet when fishing is slow so I suggested we hit some deep water kelpy ground for pollack instead a little further down the coast to save the day.
Alex’s sea trout above.
Within half an hour we were on the rocks and I was immediately hit by a hungry pollack of around 2lb on my silver metal 28g Temu lure. Followed in quick succession by three more 2 to 3lb’ers, get in we were on the fish!
This mark is a spot I found many years ago and it doesn’t look very fishy at all. Anglers probably disregard it as not a likely spot but how wrong they are! I was last here ten years ago and the fishing was just as hectic today as back then!
Alex hasn’t done a lot of this type of fishing and his personal best pollack is or was a 2lb’er until this day. I really wanted to help him smash his record fish so I guided him in where to cast his lure and how to retrieve it successfully which is basically with a fish hanging on the end of it haha!
Four or five casts later and Alex was hit by a steam train of a fish on his 60g silver minnow lure around 40yds out, I could see it was only lightly lipped and the hook was precariously about to slip from the fish’s mouth. Fortunately we managed to get the net on it and Alex was in proud possession of a stonking 5lb pollack.
We continued fishing until dusk catching around fifty pollack between us on various metal lures and the trusty white redgill which was absolutely smashing them.
It’s fair to say this one of the better sessions I’ve had haha! All but one fish went back to fight another day. In between the hectic pollack fishing we also had a try for ballan wrasse on peeler crab baits with great success. I had a chunky beauty close in on my really light gear which ensued in an almighty battle to get it to the surface for the net!
I have added a couple of very short videos for you to watch, including a sea otter that waved us off as we heading home, absolutely incredible stuff!
I was home for midnight after a long but successfully stunning day on the fish. Pollack, coalfish, wrasse and a sea trout, not bad at all. I really hope you enjoyed this read and the blog of course, please leave a comment if you did I love to read them and reply. Tightlines and all the best, David.
A few more pictures below
Leave a Reply to Ben Cancel reply