One of my better days up in the borders of Scotland, loads of wrasse and some big pollack in the video. I also get my wooden acting skills out and actually talk in the vid lol!!!! Hope you like my latest fishing adventure.....
Friday, 4 August 2017
Saturday, 29 July 2017
Wednesday, 15 June 2016
Sunday, 22 May 2016
Saturday, 13 February 2016
Northern Stars, Arctic Adventure!
I've managed very little fishing since my last post in August 2015 unfortunately.
A new job that I had to learn from scratch has took up all of my time since. Only dreams of my forthcoming cod bashing trip to Bodo in Norway were to keep me sane during this time away from fishing! They say be patient in life and good things will come and so it came to be, what a trip this turned out to be!
I live near Newcastle and the cheapest, nearest and easiest flight to Bodo is from Edinburgh, via Oslo and then onto Bodo with Norwegian air.
Arriving in Bodo at 7pm it soon became clear that our main tools for the expedition, namely the rods hadn't turned up! Now this happens to me every time I go to Norway so no panic, they normally turn up early the next day by courier at your digs which they did at 10am to our great relief! It was now time to bash some cod!
Saltstraumen Brygge, has all mod cons, fully fitted kitchen, dining area, en suite bathroom, massive tv and lounge area with outstanding views to. Very handy heated filleting room, dry room for wet clothing and a dozen chest freezers for your bait and fish. All you need plus lots of great locations to fish from within a 50 mile radius plus some right on the door step to which hold massive cod, coalfish and halibut.
We stayed for one week mainly fishing from two marks near the apartments and a mark near Bodo about 20 miles back up the road. During the week fishing was awesome with cod to 41lb, Halibut to 21lb, Coalfish to 17lb, Wolfish to 15lb and some cracking Haddock to. The Northern lights made an appearance on the last night capping of the best shore fishing trip I've ever had the privilige to be on.
Bait is easy, bluey, herring, mackerel and mussel are all you need. Standard shore fishing gear from the UK is fine but you will need to up your mono traces to 80lb at least as the Norwegian fish have some serious teeth and extremely sharp gill rakers that quickly damage line and fingers!
Tides are extremely strong on the flood and are often unfishable around Saltstraumen so the ebb tide down to low is the best time to fish, on the open coast at Bodo and to the south of Saltstraumen fishing is possible at all times weather permitting.
Below are some fantastic pics for you to browse......I've also made a slideshow as there are so many great pics, check out the slideshow on you tube to, you'll find it at the bottom of this post.
Highlights of the trip, a 41lb cod and then a 30lb cod in two casts for Gregg Norris, Gregg helped me to land my monster cod of 49lb a few years ago and it was fantastic to repay the favour by helping to land both of his awesome cod on this trip. A trip up to Bodo saw us land over 600lb of fish in a hectic eight hour session with some clonkers among them.
Just to add most fish went back ok however we did keep the odd one that wasn't going to live, unfortunately this is what happens when you stick 8/0 hooks into fish. Having said that I hope you enjoy the pics.....
Anticipation ....
A new job that I had to learn from scratch has took up all of my time since. Only dreams of my forthcoming cod bashing trip to Bodo in Norway were to keep me sane during this time away from fishing! They say be patient in life and good things will come and so it came to be, what a trip this turned out to be!
I live near Newcastle and the cheapest, nearest and easiest flight to Bodo is from Edinburgh, via Oslo and then onto Bodo with Norwegian air.
Arriving in Bodo at 7pm it soon became clear that our main tools for the expedition, namely the rods hadn't turned up! Now this happens to me every time I go to Norway so no panic, they normally turn up early the next day by courier at your digs which they did at 10am to our great relief! It was now time to bash some cod!
Saltstraumen Brygge, has all mod cons, fully fitted kitchen, dining area, en suite bathroom, massive tv and lounge area with outstanding views to. Very handy heated filleting room, dry room for wet clothing and a dozen chest freezers for your bait and fish. All you need plus lots of great locations to fish from within a 50 mile radius plus some right on the door step to which hold massive cod, coalfish and halibut.
We stayed for one week mainly fishing from two marks near the apartments and a mark near Bodo about 20 miles back up the road. During the week fishing was awesome with cod to 41lb, Halibut to 21lb, Coalfish to 17lb, Wolfish to 15lb and some cracking Haddock to. The Northern lights made an appearance on the last night capping of the best shore fishing trip I've ever had the privilige to be on.
Bait is easy, bluey, herring, mackerel and mussel are all you need. Standard shore fishing gear from the UK is fine but you will need to up your mono traces to 80lb at least as the Norwegian fish have some serious teeth and extremely sharp gill rakers that quickly damage line and fingers!
Tides are extremely strong on the flood and are often unfishable around Saltstraumen so the ebb tide down to low is the best time to fish, on the open coast at Bodo and to the south of Saltstraumen fishing is possible at all times weather permitting.
Below are some fantastic pics for you to browse......I've also made a slideshow as there are so many great pics, check out the slideshow on you tube to, you'll find it at the bottom of this post.
Highlights of the trip, a 41lb cod and then a 30lb cod in two casts for Gregg Norris, Gregg helped me to land my monster cod of 49lb a few years ago and it was fantastic to repay the favour by helping to land both of his awesome cod on this trip. A trip up to Bodo saw us land over 600lb of fish in a hectic eight hour session with some clonkers among them.
Just to add most fish went back ok however we did keep the odd one that wasn't going to live, unfortunately this is what happens when you stick 8/0 hooks into fish. Having said that I hope you enjoy the pics.....
Anticipation ....
Monster cod
Great weather...
Check out the slideshow here on You tube https://youtu.be/H96avKxlgNk
Wednesday, 19 August 2015
A Bish Bash Bosh type of post held together with sellotape!
Sorry for the crazy sounding title but bish bash bosh has been the theme of my life since my last post in June. Not a lot of time for blogging never mind much else just lately! So my apologies this time around for the quick blog report held together with sellotape and the odd fish scale or two!
I've had three fishing sessions since June, from Eyemouth, Druridge bay and Horden, a stretch of coastline from the rocky borders of Scotland to the clean beaches of Durham in North East England. A one hundred mile stretch of coastline north to south.
It's so true that pictures speak a thousand words and more!, so I'll give you a quick upshot here as to how things went and you can then browse through the pictures at your leisure.
Firstly Eyemouth which has been so poor this year so far where I had a couple of nice pollack on redgill type lures, an elusive wrasse and an even more elusive shore caught ling.
I've had three fishing sessions since June, from Eyemouth, Druridge bay and Horden, a stretch of coastline from the rocky borders of Scotland to the clean beaches of Durham in North East England. A one hundred mile stretch of coastline north to south.
It's so true that pictures speak a thousand words and more!, so I'll give you a quick upshot here as to how things went and you can then browse through the pictures at your leisure.
Firstly Eyemouth which has been so poor this year so far where I had a couple of nice pollack on redgill type lures, an elusive wrasse and an even more elusive shore caught ling.
Secondly a crack at catching a Durham, thornback ray from the beach at Horden! What a result a belter at 6lb 10 ounces.
Finally I headed up to Druridge bay in Northumberland where the weather was absolutely fantastic and all the woes in the world were soon forgotten when this lovely bass took my bait.
So in the end it was bish, bosh, bass, hahaha!!!!.... here's to more fishy tales at Viking Valhalla very soon. Tightlines, JV.
Saturday, 13 June 2015
Kirkcubright: Let the rod see the cod!
My usual haunt of Eyemouth in South East Scotland has been fishing like "pish" as my scottish friends would say! So I headed over west to Kirkcudbright on the Solway coast of Scotland in the hope of a wrasse bash, a fish that has done it's best to elude me so far this year! I quite like fishing the rocks in front of Brighouse bay golf course simply because it's the first fairly good rough ground, rocky spot that I come to as I drive west from Tyneside.
I tried my favourite spot first, a small island just off Borness point which is an absolute mare to get down to and made even worse if it's fishing poor like it was today! A couple of doggies, small pollack and a codling soon seen me off to pastures new, a high rocky outcrop about midway along the cliffs. Here there is a deep, kelp filled hole that often holds fish, cast ten yards to the side of it and you miss the fish. Luckily for me this time it was full of codling that often take on a reddish hue at this time of year due to living in the brownish, reddish kelp fronds.
Peeler crab is what these fish want and they were hitting my bait seconds after it hit the water. I ended up with five codling, some of which I'd have been proud to catch on my home turf along the east coast, a very nice surprise!
I tried my favourite spot first, a small island just off Borness point which is an absolute mare to get down to and made even worse if it's fishing poor like it was today! A couple of doggies, small pollack and a codling soon seen me off to pastures new, a high rocky outcrop about midway along the cliffs. Here there is a deep, kelp filled hole that often holds fish, cast ten yards to the side of it and you miss the fish. Luckily for me this time it was full of codling that often take on a reddish hue at this time of year due to living in the brownish, reddish kelp fronds.
Peeler crab is what these fish want and they were hitting my bait seconds after it hit the water. I ended up with five codling, some of which I'd have been proud to catch on my home turf along the east coast, a very nice surprise!
Info
I find that I catch far more fish during summer using "lighter tackle" as long as I keep my mainline heavy to cope with the terrain, 40lb mono is my choice, even though it is a bit tricky to cast lightish weights as I use. A bass rod combined with a penn mag 525, capable of casting a three ounce weight thirty yards is perfect and I've had cod to 14lb without a problem at all from the rocks using the gear in the picture. My terminal tackle is always as simple as can be in the rocks and kelp, basically a three way swivel, a twelve inch 30lb snood with a 3/0 sakuma manta extra hook doing the pointy work. To my three ounce weight, a three foot length of 30lb mono with an overhand knot tied in it which acts as a weakness to break the line if my lead becomes snagged. I never fish more than 40yds out with this set up and have great success with fish practically under your rod tip at times.
Unfortunately I didn't manage that elusive wrasse during this fishing session but had dogfish, beautifully coloured codling and a few small pollack instead. Tightlines, David.
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