How To Tie Mackerel Feather Rigs (Sabiki Rigs) PT1

Here goes a bit of illustration to go with the  Youtube Video I made earlier this year.

Foil, fimo, felt tips and fish

Image Right: Coal Fish on another home made Lure

After four years, my time on the island is coming to an end and there are still so many fish I never got to catch.  

 Overnight the wind along with the swell dropped until a stillness settled over the bay and Sound. Just after nine I padded up the street to collect Ryan who despite the prospect of holding a fishing rod while being sat in a boat on the North Atlantic, was in bed. I encouraged his would-be mother in-law and girlfriend to eject him using any means necessary before stomping off to the pier to sort out the boat and tackle. I don’t understand the idea of being late for fishing, every minute spent in bed is a minute stolen from the possibilities afforded by a fishing rod.

I checked the fuel, started the engine before stringing lines through rod eyes while I waited. Ryan finally made it to the pier and we headed out into the soup.  Our first mark was a small reef that had just become visible on the falling tide. I was fishing with another prototype made from Fimo (polymer clay, see pre. Post), and a little nervous, wondering if all the energy I had invested in the lure would bring any reward now I was out on the water.  First cast and a fish takes it, shit I was happy even after it threw the hook close to the boat. Second cast and this time it came home with a decent sized coal fish, at this point I didn`t care about the rest of the trip and to be honest it was not the best fishing trip on record.  Foil, Fimo, felt tips, wire, a bit of weight and a hook. 

Image below: Looking Back to Jura from the Sound of Iona

Birthday Presents

There is an expectation when I borrow the island’s boat for a bit of fishing that I actually catch enough fish to feed the island’s population. Including guests this is never more than thirty and usually between ten to twenty. Today’s trip was a little more pressured due to a certain youngster who is celebrating his birthday tomorrow and has demanded his favourite meal, fish and chips. I suspect for the rest of Britain fish and chips for twelve is a large order in a fish and chip shop, here being a little over fifty miles from the nearest chippy it means catching the fish and using our own potatoes for the chips.


From the pier the wind looked to be blowing somewhere between five and six and the tide was a little further out than I would have liked but the swell seemed to have petered out despite the chop drummed up by the wind. Apart from feeding people the main reason for the trip was to test my jointed sand eel lures. Testing lures and catching volumes of fish don’t always go hand in hand so for insurance purposes I took a boat rod with some homemade feather rigs, equipment usually guaranteed to fill a quota.

The wind carried me to my first mark a reef centred on a rock that dries at low water. Not used to casting from a boat I lost confidence and began by bashing the sand eel lure into the water and then hooking up with the bow rope. Eventually after prating round for ten minutes I gave up and got the boat rod and feathers out. It wasn’t long before I lost the weight to patch of kelp and began to wonder, why fishing? Having drifted in the wind just into the sound I decide to motor back and have another go with the eel.

I took things a little slower this time and put the boat in reverse to hold my position against the wind. The casting improved as I relaxed and gradually I got some distance. There wasn’t much depth of water over the kelp beds around the rock and feathering vertically probably would have been a chore. Casting and retrieving the lure at a steady rate kept me out of the weed and it wasn’t long before I hit into to some coalfish. The bites came hard and fast one fish actually left the water but many others broke the surface in the chase. At one point I was taking a fish on every cast and even in the falling light I could see the water explode as I began the retrieve. Out of the twenty or so coalfish I landed I kept eight which looked to be easily larger than the minimum size, the rest I returned. Just before setting off back to the pier I remembered the camera and hoped my luck would hold out and I could get some video.


Does the lure work? Shit yes.

Pendulum Casting

Image Above: Pollock on home made feathers

Sunset has made its way into the afternoon and an hour’s fishing before dinner has become a race against the light. Today I was trying distance casting from my favourite rocks at the northwest corner of the island. I hand been out in the boat a couple of days ago fishing over a reef which runs parallel to the shore about 90meters out and taken a mixed bag. Getting out beyond the reef from the shore would take a bit of doing with a lure so I opted for a string of home feathers and lead bomb. Having never really fished in places where long distances where required I thought I would try out pendulum casting. It took me a while to remember the stance and swing from a DVD I had found in a charity shop but it wasn’t long before I was completely emptying my spool which was carrying about a 120 meters of braid. Once in the deeper water over the reef I hit into a shoal of juvenile coal fish and Pollock. Getting them back over the kelp covered reef wasn`t easy but I think the cleanly tied rig helped.

I was hoping some larger fish would venture in from the sound as the light dropped but it wasn`t to be. I headed back to feed the cows before it got completely dark.

Homemade mackerel feathers

Image Above: Homemade Mackerel feathers

Luckily today I found an hour between transporting people on and off the island to get in a bit of boat fishing. Realising the time constraints and the fact that a swell was still breaking heavily in the sound of Iona I stayed in the shelter of Easter Island fishing a reef that runs in a line from the island’s pier out into the sound.

No bait this time just homemade feather rigs jigged off the bottom. It didn`t take to find a shoal of baby pollock and cod. I moved into deeper water in an effort to find some large fish and struck into some saithe that were just on eating size. The real reason for the trip was to test out some rigs I had bonded rather than tied and then held with no problems even after a few encounters with kelp.

I am still waiting for a good calm day to get a little further out where the big fish live and really test some homemade tackle.

Image Below: Saithe (coal fish) caught on homemade feather rigs