A Little Bit Of Lure Painting

We did a bit more experimenting with this video aiming for a bit of cinema look rather than a straight how to video, it was also great to show some of the details without doing the whole talking thing. I have also made some changes to the Patreon page which is a way you can support future videos, thanks Link to Patreon https://www.patreon.com/user?u=661130

When will the mackerel come back for summer

Making of '4 Mackerels' screen print from Studio Amok Island on Vimeo.

Possibilities

Above: Mario Doiron painting a beach scene

I don’t often know what to make of the internet, it seems like a place of infinite possibilities. If I wanted to get up tomorrow and build a high powered rocket to attach to a bicycle it wouldn’t be a big ask to a least find some instructions and possibly a video floating about the web. I wonder where those possibilities will take me. 

Early next year I plan to start another series of videos, with better production thanks to some new camera equipment, editing kit and help from a video making course I have been attending  part time for a couple of months. Content wise I want try some new stuff, stuff that is new to me and dig out some of those wackier ideas I have been sitting on for too long.  I want to push myself out of my comfort zone and maybe make use of those infinite possibilities the web has to offer, who knows a rocket powered lure on a bicycle.

Today while trying to draw something on the computer, answer e-mails and deal with the rest of the things that ping at me to tell me, what somebody has posted or commented on, I got a message about a video an artist had posted. The video was of painting a beach fishing scene, and the scene was inspired by an image from a mackerel fishing video I made on Chesil Beach. I watched the video it is fair to say a few times and felt privileged to be part of one those infinite possibilities.  

Thanks Mario

The T Shirt Action Camera Mount

I am dead baiting for pike. For a lure builder this feels like surrender or the start down a slippery slope. I take comfort in the fact that at least I have made my own float from a couple of corks and some bamboo. This is the second swim I have tried and despite the sunshine it is bloody freezing and I am conscious that I may be found frozen to death with a rather healthy tan.  

My float is finally showing some signs that the mackerel a few feet below has drawn something’s attention. I wait until whatever is down there has decided to don a napkin and tuck in. The float starts to move as if propelled by its own outboard motor and then like Nemo’s Nautilus  it sinks below the surface. I wait for what feels like an indescribably long period of time but probably amounts to a couple of seconds and then strike. My rod is bent and there is a thud of fish while simultaneously the cold that has been gnawing at my toes disappears. I attempt to wind in but nothing seems to move and there is crunch inside the reel housing, I try again while the fish continues to exert some pressure on the rod but the reel is not moving.  

 I have one quote that I keep for moments like this, it comes from that literary masterpiece, The Viz and was often used by Timmy Timpson (aka spoilt bastard)  when things were not going his way; here goes   “bugger, bastard, bugger , bastard, wank”.  I consider hand lining the fish, but with branches touching the water either side of me it wouldn’t be the best of approaches. Realising I have only one barbless treble connecting me with the fight I tip the rod down and wait, the pike takes the float for a tour before managing to slip the hook . Never mind, I walk back with the rod up in the air and get the bait out of the water before pissing round with the reel ; my feet are suddenly cold again. 

The Easiest Fish In the Sea

Mackerel at sunset on Chesil Beach

The light is failing fast and it is already too dark to film. I forget about the camera for a moment and enjoy the sunset and the stray mackerel that I have managed to snag. I am back on Chesil Beach for another chance to throw some feathers, but it has been slow; slow enough for me to fit in an hour or so of wondering if I know anything about catching fish. The wind, tide and light have dropped and finally the Mackerel have decided to put in appearance, my doubts are laid aside maybe I know enough to catch the easiest fish in the sea.

Mackerel Fishing With Homemade Feather Rigs

There are those rare times when I am fishing that a fear creeps in. It is not the fear of going home empty handed but the fear that it is all a dream and in a moment the lap of the water and the tension on line will fade and I will wake up in an office with only the hum of copier machine for company.  

Birth of a swimbait

Image Above: Mackerel swim bait drawings 

I seem to be in the mist of at least half a dozen new (new to me) lure building projects at the moment and wondering which one to make a video out of or if I will every go fishing again to catch fish rather than to test prototypes. So far, ahead of the pack is a swim bait I am working on which is a first for me and I am quickly learning it is all about the joints so rather than try and construct something from wire I am experimenting with a polycarbon chassis and hinges with a balsa body or maybe foam. The trouble with experimenting is it often leads to other places and the original lure gets lost so I am trying to concentrate and also simplify some of the my more ridiculous ideas.  Eventually I hope to make a lure that looks like a mackerel and I can finally use if I ever get to do any sea bass fishing.  

Image Below: First attempt to make a polycarbon lure chassis, (a little rough)  

The lost fishing trip

Looking toward the Burg from Eilean nan damh (island of the stags) Mull, Scotland

I drove four hundred miles crossing the border into Scotland and taking the ferry to the Isle of Mull, I thought I had outran my pneumonia but there it was like a heavy suitcase that someone had chained around my neck. For the best part of a week I sat staring out of the cottage window or the windscreen onto the bay and beach while the ocean and my fishing tackle rested easy. Not fishing is hard; not fishing here is almost criminal.

At a loose end I read the guide books and some of the history of local settlements that had been emptied in the Clearances almost two centuries ago. Sad letters from old men begging to stay on the land where they were born and had made lives,  sad letters that were answered with bailiffs. While the words penned are now only a matter of historical record the voices they conjure have lost none of their power to tug at my own feelings for land and loss.
   

The empty villages still haunt the glens, un-roofed carcasses sleeping in moorland grasses or remnant hearths and stacks that have the look of giants stalled by the soft peat.

A little further up from the bay my friends are carving out at new life from that same island soil on a small croft. The first beds have been dug and the kelp collected from the beach has been laid as a blanket to rot down and replenish. 

 Their boat lies in the grass awaiting some minor repairs before it too returns to the bay a little ahead of the returning summer mackerel.  Maybe I will return but a little less weighed down with luggage. 

Mackerel Feather Rigs Revisited

I have been back over some old ground, creating some more mackerel rig videos but I felt the original needed some improvements. Hopefully the addition of new patterns and videos will make the process of tying your own a little easier and maybe I can move on to breaking some new ground or at least get out fishing.

Stop Press. 

Depressingly the Marine Stewardship Council have taken mackerel off the ‘fish to eat list’ due to the threat of overfishing to its breeding stock in the north east Atlantic. 

How to tie Mackerel feather rigs (Sabiki rigs) PT2

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.

A Fish Called Jesus

Vid Above: Shameless Self Promotion


I had forgotten that the wind can blow here for days if not weeks on end without pausing to draw breath. In Italy when the bora blows people are driven mad by it, here on the Isle of Mull people live leaning into the wind that blows off the ocean and on rare days of stillness they find themselves unbalanced like cliff top trees.

It felt like a long week of watching for a break in the weather while the dinghy hung on its mooring in the shelter of the bay. Isaac the young son of the friends we had come to visit was almost as eager to get out into some depth of water as myself. Earlier in the week we had tried a bit float fishing from the rocks at the head of the bay. After a slow start we tried to charm the fish from the sea with Isaac promising them fish tanks and all you can eat fish food buffets. Later rather desperately I tried summoning the support of the fish god but Isaac suggested that the Jesus of the fish world might be a better bet. I tried to image what the Jesus of the fish world would look like between bouts of crippling laughter.

When the wind finally ran itself out on the last afternoon of my short visit Phil, Isaac’s father grabbed the petrol tank while I and Isaac followed with the fishing rods. Out beyond the reefs the chop hindered our pace throwing up the plumps of spray to wet down my jacket and remind me that too long at the lakeside had made me soft. A short distance down the sea loch Phil idled the engine just off a rock one of the longer residents of the bay had showed him.

I let the line off the reel and on my first drop I pulled up a single undersized mackerel which I slipped off the hook and dropped back into the blue. On the other side of the dinghy Isaac’s spinning rod whipped over and there was some confusion whether it was his oversized lead weight or a fish. He hauled it back up with some help from his father and landed a nice cole fish (Coley, Saithe) and a good sized mackerel. Over the next five minutes we hauled up just over twenty mackerel some a little on the small size were slipped back into the sea. The Feather rigs had done their job again and we were on our way back to the bay for a fish dinner.
Our prompt return was taken by those who had stayed behind as a sign that we had been beaten by the conditions and as we tied up a pan of pasta was put on the hob as standby in the absence of a fish supper.

I filleted the fish in the sun just above the beach by the cottage doorway as the boat’s owner the local telephone engineer stopped for a chat. He was off for a bit of rock climbing and Phil promised him a share in the catch when he returned from the rock face. When I had finished and my hands were blooded I walked down to the water and tossed a fish spine into the air; even before it splashed down the gulls had left their meanderings to swoop in. I left the scraps at the water’s edge as the gulls’ calls echoed off the row fishermen’s cottages at the head of the beach.



A final note.


Two days later the Boat’s owner Steve sadly passed away. He leaves two young children and a wife. I knew him as BT Steve a name he acquired while repairing the island’s telephone lines for British Telecom (BT). On the morning of the boat trip he had seen me fishing from the rocks at Uisken beach while perched atop a telephone post. When I saw him again later outside the cottage he asked if it was myself who had been fishing at Uisken and we talked about the fishing marks along that part of the coast. He told me about a deep channel that runs between a headland and small rock offshore where big pollock hold up and I told him if I get back to the island I will give it a go.

Image Below: Eilean Corrach (Steep Island, Approx Translation from Gaelic) at the Entrance to Kintra Bay, Isle of Mull, Scotland

Hand Lines

Image above: Homemade Hand Line

A little while ago we spent a few days in Wales trying to look for a future. We stayed with couple who were friends of a friend in a converted barn. As a thank you present I got together a hand line as the guy had said he had a small boat but he didn`t go fishing. The hand line handle I routed out of oak and used an old cork place mat to create a hook hold while it is being stored. The feather rig I tied from holographic curling ribbon and the weight is one I cast in the small video I made (see earlier post).

I had forgotten that I had once done a bit a hand lining many years ago while holidaying in Devon. I paddled across a wide bay and about half a mile out the line I was towing cut through a shoal of mackerel and the rest was history. Despite the obvious advantages of a rod it is still dull compared to the urgency that hand holding a line gives.

If you are looking for some feather rigs for the summer influx of mackerel or a bit of Pollock fishing follow the link below. These are rigs I hand tie from  designs I have used for the last few years to take a few thousand fish.

Fishing the big Murky (Mersey)

Image Above: A rod at rest on the River Mersey.

Image below left: 2 Hook Flapper Rig

The tide has past exhausting itself amongst the flats and concrete elbows of the inner estuary. The deep, mud laden waters of the river pause as if contemplating their next move.

 I lean on the promenade rail in the sun feeling the warmth drain from me in the chill breeze. A line is out from a rod propped on the handlebar grips of my by bicycle. I close one eye and line the rod tip up with the corner of one of the giant sheds of a shipyard on the far bank. The tip traces a diagonal route over the cladding, down to the river and back marking a gentle breath and exhalation as the tension of each passing wavelet is transmitted through the taught line to the rod.

The  line is anchored into the riverbed by a spiked weight and a little above, two junctions carry short lengths to baited hooks that would ordinarily flap in the current, hence the name ‘flapper rig’.  I tied the rig last night as part of the preparations that have found their way into the ritual of a fishing trip. Other preparations included a trip to the tackle shop to buy line and pick brains.

The owner is never fearful of handing out advice despite the audience of misplaced fishermen that hang about ready to argue for some other rig, rod or just something else. I tell him about the tide carrying my weights off when I cast. He tells me not to let any more line out once the weight hits the water and that slack line will just act like a spinnaker giving the tide more leverage over the weight. He tells me other things as well and the stories build until only fishing and fish matter and everything else is pushed into the gaps. 

I buy mackerel from the fish counter in the supermarket and the sales assistant asks me if I am going fishing, I laugh and ask is it only fishermen looking for bait who shop here, he doesn’t answer.

I was away early this morning before the cars filled up the shopping streets hiding the takeaway cartons and cigarette butts that fill the gutters.

The river is moving again and I am reminded that I am fishing the shipping lane by the prow of a vessel that is folding back the water as it pushes on upstream.

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