Testing Times

Image Above and Below: Mackerel caught on a home made fishing lure.(look at that awful knot)
Location: Sound Of Iona, Scotland

Testing Times.

After an evening spin fishing in the bay with my new teaspoon lures (see previous posts) and sadly no results I took the boat out this morning to drop my wife and the kids over on Iona for playgroup. This left me an hour or so to kill and with a couple of rods on board, clear skies, a light breeze and swell that could rock you to sleep, fishing was almost compulsory. I trolled some homemade feathers and picked up a dozen mackerel as I move back up the sound of Iona. Having fulfilled my quota I tied my teaspoon pirk on and tossed it over the side while I gutted my catch. It is probably not the best lure for boat fishing in any depth of water as it lacks weight and took a long time to get down near the bottom. After a couple of minutes the line tightened and the rod tip danced, I hauled up a larger than average mackerel, but was more pleased with my lure than the fish. On the way back to Iona I rigged the lure six foot behind a paravane to get some depth and picked up another five good sized Mackerel plus a few undersized pollock and saithe which I returned.

Teaspoon Flounder Spoon

Had a little go at making a flounder spoon from the other half of my teaspoon. I masked the centre with some insulation tape and then lightly sanded and sprayed some smoothrite on the spoon. The red tag was cut from an old plastic lid. Hopefully I will get to test it in the next couple of days.

Teaspoon Handle Pirk

I made the lure from an old teaspoon handle. The eye was drilled and then painted with some gloss paint. The slashes on the flanks are hacksaw cuts with red gloss rubbed in. I used it this afternoon with a small spinning rod set-up and after a couple of minutes caught a baby Pollock.