Catching enough small Coalies for bait didn't take long.....if I'm honest it was over too quickly. Really enjoyed fighting the fish on the fly rod with one literally every cast!
I was on board with Dale and Brian today, while Mike, Dave and Ronnie took the buddy boat. Both boats had the same idea today and with Brian at the helm pointing us in the direction of the coal bunker we travelled in tandem all the way out!
The conditions at the mark really were good with just a very slight breeze to give us a little drift speed. Down went pirks and shads and sure enough rods on both boats were soon bent into those Coalfish we found the day before!!
There were also a couple of nice Haddock that came to the boats too, although they are still eluding me!
Small Coalfish seemed to out number the better ones and after a several drifts it was time for something different. Staying out deep and taking advantage of the weather we explored some new marks, prospecting for big cod.
After some exploratory drifts we came across a good head of better sized fish. Lots of low doubles and mid teens came to the boat before Brian's perseverance with a whole Coalfish was rewarded......a new personal best of 37lb!
I kept hooking small Coalfish on my pirk so I changed over to a 'Red Edd' to avoid them....this let me keep the lure down there for longer and paid off with a better fish of 21lb.
Dale also switched to a lure, working a big deadly Royber and finding one just under 20lb...
Smaller fish came to the boat along with the odd dropped big fish. It was Brian that had the luck with the big pigs today though. He was fishing a small flyer above a cutbait that was working well for Haddock......it was this small hook that must have caught a small Coalfish! That unlucky Coalfish then got swallowed by another big cod...amazingly the hook held as Brian coaxed a near identical fish to the surface.....this one 36lb 8oz!!
Dave, Mike and Ronnie had also had some good sport with cod to 25lb....
With most of the day spent hunting down the cod we decided to spend the last couple of hours back on the hunt for Halibut.
The fishing was slow and we knew that it would be - with hardly a breath of wind we weren't really covering much ground. The wolfish were on the dead baits as usual and a few small cod came to the lures but the Halibut just weren't playing ball. It was then we looked up to see Mike bent into what was very clearly a very big fish. After watching for 10 minutes we decided to reel up and go over to watch the action.
A de-brief from Dave revealed that the fish had made several long unstoppable runs and had now gone to ground where Mike just couldn't do anything with it. We hung around to watch and listen to Mike's cries of pain!!
40 minutes passed and nothing changed, we started to speculate that Mike was now snagged in the bottom....weather the fish was still attached or not, we couldn't tell. A large lead was clipped to the line and dropped in an effort to spook the fish if it was still there.....still nothing happened. They tried pulling from all angles whilst circling with the boat and after a further 20 minutes the line eventually parted.
I think those guys must have had a very quiet journey back and as we glanced across, poor mike was sat there head in hands and lip on the floor. That is one bucket full of hurt and a bitter pill to swallow but it's something that I'm sure has and will happen to us all.
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