Dropshotting on the canal

After having seen some lovely perch caught by a guy called Tony Chesworth who is a face book friend of mine from Plymstock down south, I decided to give this dropshotting lark a go with some savage gear rubeer worm type things I got a while back.

Arrived around 8pm on a lovely evening hoping the fresh air would help lift this terrible head cold I seem to have.

And set about tackling up with the savage gear artillery

Mooched around for about an hour in the drop zone initially using a jig based dropshot rig but had no luck on this so changed over to a traditional set up with only one worm on a single hook tied off with a Palomar knot with an arsely bomb about 2 feet below.

Had absolutely no luck with this method but my set up may have been too crude for the water which is only about six feet deep at this part of the canal.

So I decided to swap for a wee abu shallow diving lure and went for a troll in an eastwards direction. As this was only my second time out this year it took me a wee bit to get the set up fine tuned but I was soon paddling at a reasonable rate towards Falkirk. 

Around a mile into my paddle I had a nice hit and the rod set about bouncing like a punk rocker on speed so I pulled the rod and to my delight had a nice wee Jack about 4 pounds right to the boat and - will I never learn - as I tried to extract my camera for a fish in water shot, the fish got off.

Hey ho, no pike pictures but there are some lovely chestnut trees down this way and I'll need to bring the kids down in the autumn.

Paddled on for about another half mile then turned for home and just about where I had the first hit, I had a second which was much better but by the time i got the yak in order and the rod into my hands it was off.

No worries there's always tomorrow now I know where the pike live :-)

Strange stuff on a wild weekend on Loch Etive

Kayak's bothies and strange stuff while kayaking with the sit on tops on loch Etive.

Picked up David Blair in Shawlands on Sat 23rd November 2013 after having to go back for my fleece and jacket which were over the back of the dining room chair - DOH!  Then went onto meet Marc Banks (Sparky) at the Harvester Hillington.

Drove up across the Erskine bridge, through Tyndrum and onto Taynuilt in almost perfect winter conditions.

Met Thomas Sharp and Murray Young who'd paddled across from the quarry on the other side then we all paddled up the loch

                                

Marc and Murray

Myself ( Brilliant photo courtesy of Thomas Sharp with many thanks )

and on to one of the bays before Cadderlie where they had some lunch and coffee.

Murray, Marc and Tommy

Murray Fearnley Whittingstall

Dave in special ops mode

Said our goodbyes around 2.30 pm. It was a shame the guys couldn't make it all the way to the bothy but time is always of the essence on these short winter days.

Anyway, as time wasn't on our side we headed up to the bothy

and were a bit disappointed to find it occupied by 8 what seemed to be rather noisy ex varsity types. But they had been on the singing ginger early and didn't make it much past dinner time much to our relief.

Anyway, as soon as we got to the bothy, myself and Marc, as planned got to the wood chopping. David however didnae and headed out on the loch to fish and drink most of the Russian potato spirit he'd brought with him. Light fading and most of the voddy gone, he reappeared just in time to find us nicely settled in with a good fire set and dinner on the go.

Dinner done, we spent most of the night chatting. With David hitting his kip once most of the Uisge Beatha that me and Marc had brought was gone. Myself and Marc stayed up a bit chatting with Ian from Worcestershire but to be honest much of the purpose of the chat was lost on us all by that point anyway.

Next day, myself and Marc thoroughly tidied up whiled David bugged off fishing again leaving us to it. Back on the water by 10 a.m. we paddled back down the loch

where I had some luck with a few codling and a reasonably sized pollack on some hokkais tipped with mackeral. David had had some spurdogs the previous evening but they didn't reappear today.

I managed to hook up on a wierd rope thing I'm assuming is for catching mussels which had some very alien like attachments I'm assuming were mermaids purses or dogfish egg sack type thingies ?

So around 2 p.m., we all headed off the water and home to a warm bath and bed through some of the most magnificent scenery Scotland has to offer.

Many thanks to Thomas Sharp who unfortunately doesn't appear in many of the photo's having seemed to have been behind the camera most of the time taking some excellent photographs.