Fly Fishing For Pollock

Image Above: Pollock on the fly

Image below: Ripple tail fly cut from washing-up gloves

Image Bottom: Fly fishing into evening

I once believed the fly fishing was about the most ridiculous and inefficient way to catch fish, like attempting to drive a car while locked in the boot. Despite owning a fly rod and using it regularly my opinion has changed little, I know there are endless books and magazines that extoll the almost religious nature of fly fishing but I am an atheist.

With all that said I ventured onto the island’s pier yesterday afternoon holding a fly rod loaded with sinking line, an eight pound tippet and homemade fly. As a full moon rose out of the mountains on Mull across the bay I landed a selection of pollock and saithe from the shoals of fish that move in from sound as darkness gathers. Few were of any size but it but I briefly found some kind of casting rhythm and fly fishing didn’t seem that much of a task after all.

I was most proud of the fly a true junk item made from copper wire stripped out of and appliance, a tail cut from a plastic bag, insulation tape and a bit of nail varnish. Beautiful it isn’t but deadly none the less.

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