I am lucky in having a wife that lets me indulge in my passion for angling, even when we are on a family holiday. I had arranged for us to rent a small boat for the afternoon on Loch Etive.
After getting some advice from Doug the boat owner, we motored out from the stone jetty at Taynuit up the loch towards a fish farm, where I tied up to a bouy.
The target species were a spurdog and a grey gurnard and I set up two rods, one with a fillet of bluey on a flowing trace and the other with small strips of bluey on a mini hokeye rig.
The weather had been changeable for the last few days, and today was no exception. We had motored out in the rain and within minutes the sky cleared and we were bathed in glorious sunshine.
It didn't take very long before the rod tip nodded on the hokeye rig and I had my first grey gurnard which was quickly followed by another. I then took a decision to change to a set of large hokeyes and larger baits to increase my chances of a spurdog.
Although I was getting bites I couldn't connect, I suspected that either LSDs (lesser spotted dogfish) or small fish were demolishing my baits without getting themselves hooked. A foul-hooked small codling seemed to back up my theory. After several missed bites I found myself connected to an obviously larger fish which I unfortunately lost in a snag. Apart from a baby thornback ray, which Jacky thought was extremely cute, that was it.
I had enjoyed my first small boat session, and the "skippering" was as much fun as the fishing.
