Dunstanburgh Ledges 27th July 2016

Dunstanburgh is one of my go-to marks for summer fishing.  It is a beautifully scenic area that provides a lot of sport on the light gear when conditions are right.

I was due to be heading to Skegness again this weekend but following a change of plans I decided since the conditions and tides looked good to head to Dunstanburgh instead.

We headed over to Craster for around 0630.  There was forecast to be flat seas and a mild breeze which was ideal for this mark.

 We began the 1.5 mile walk up to the castle and when we arrived were surprised to find that the weather forecasters had got it wrong again....

There was a stiff wind blowing around the cliffs and the sea was far from flat.  We set up and got to work nonetheless opting to fish down on the ledges as opposed to on the cliffs where we usually fish.
We tried floats first off but the sea was just too choppy to make it worthwhile so we switched to feathers.
Neither saw any action so I switched us both to just a small rag bait that we fished on the bottom.

Once HW arrived at about 0845 we started to see bites at last.  Within the space of a few casts my mate Shaff bagged a good wrasse of bout 2lb and then a decent coalie on rag to save the blank.

Considering the conditions I was pleased to have seen any fish.

We called it a morning at around 0915 and headed back to Craster and then drove home.

I was a little disappointed that the conditions were not as forecast.  There has been a lot of fish coming in from Dunstanburgh the past few weeks and had the sea not been as rough I expect we may have had a much better day.

Dunstanburgh 8th June 2014

 The time had come around again for the first trip to Dunstanburgh Ledges this year.
The forecast had been a bit hit and miss over the past few days with heavy rain yesterday.  The forecast for today was for warm and sunny weather in the morning turning to rain in the afternoon.  As the tides were favourable we decided to give the ledges a go while the weather was good.

We arrived at Craster at around 0610 and began the walk along to the castle.

There was little to no water movement inside the ledges which was good.  On the point there were some decent swells pounding in.  Considering that the water looked reasonably clear and I was hopeful of catching a few fish on the lures.

We opted to fish our usual mark at the top of the cliffs.

While the sun was shining I made good use of the camera to get a few panoramic shots of this stunning area (Best viewed LARGE)

After little in the way of fish we moved further around the cliff tops to try float fishing rag along the ledges. Unfortunately the fish were scarce and we spent a lot of time avoiding the sea birds nesting on the cliffs.

We stopped fishing the cliff tops when we noticed the numbers of young chicks in the nests. To avoid distressing any of the birds we decided to walk around the castle and spin from the rocks to the north.

We had never considered fishing this mark before.  It was beautiful scenery from the shore and we were very surprised not to have even a single bite or take despite trying baits, lures and plastics.

After a half hour we decided to take what was left of our rag and spend an easy half hour in the harbour back at Craster before heading home.  This gave me a chance to snap off a few more panoramic shots before the rain started.

So it turned out to be a beautiful day with only a few fish to show for it....but plenty of decent photos.

The Middens 19th April 2014

I managed to get out this afternoon for a few hours on The Middens at North Shields.

This mark tends to throw out some decent Plaice at this time of year and seeing as I had not caught a Plaice for a good while I thought it worth a go.

We set out to fish up to and over high water armed with lots of fresh rag.

As it turns out there were no Plaice to be had.  There were bites on most casts, most of which I suspect was small stuff.  

We managed 5 fish between us in a few hours.  They were all under-size but they kept us busy nonetheless.

Drimnin - 27th and 28th August 2013

A last minute opportunity came up for a fishing trip to Drimnin in NW Scotland which we of course grabbed with both hands.
Drimnin sits on the Sound of Mull and has some very deep water within easy reach of the shore.  We fished more or less constantly for two days and saw plenty of fish.  As always with Scotland the scenery was breathtaking.

The two main marks we fished were the Town Pier (lots of Wrasse and Codling and the occasional Conger) and the West Pier (Very deep - down to 300ft. Most species can be caught here) and we did explore a little further out from these marks looking for new species.  There are hundreds of places to fish in this region. Far too many to cover in two weeks let alone two days.  It was worth the 300 mile drive and I hope to get back up here maybe in October this year.

The fishing is very dependant on the state of the tide in this region.  We fished the West pier over high water yesterday and I managed only a few Coalies on the feathers and a Mackerel in 3hrs.  My parents went back 4 hrs later and caught 30 or 40 fish in half an hour including Pollock to 2lb.  We were lucky to have had the time to fish some marks more than once or we may not have had many fish at all.  It's worth doing your homework before making the drive.....

We managed to catch 10 different species over the two days (Cod, Coalie, Whiting, Dogfish, Ballan Wrasse, Goldsinny Wrasse (new species for me), Tub Gurnard (new species for me also) Mackerel and Pollock.  My father had a conger of 25lb+ that snapped the trace while being landed.....

The one that got away..............