Gloombusting

Richard Claus

On the one hand you could spend the shortest day of the year moping about shovelling in the pies and chocolates and then feeling guilty (but then having ‘just one more’), on the other you can join in with probably the motliest band of motley kayakers ever to gather together in South West England, for a legendary paddle down the Tamar.

Fifteen kayakers  distributed between one canoe and twelve kayaks…one double and seven single sit-on-tops and four sit-ins. Christmas hats and a goofy look were the order of the day.

Austen issues some paddling tips

Hector and Eric are the picture of concentration. Richard isn't

Age range was from upper fifties , and the healthy sense of caution that goes with it, down to the tender age of twelve and the anarchical disrespect and astounding paddling skills that go with no sense of fear at all, and spending an awful lot of time on the water.

Jack and Josh. Fools....possibly. Future World Surf Kayak Champions...probably.

 As the convoy headed downstream the leading boat saw an otter but with a general noise level that would have done justice to a Motorhead concert the only thing I saw was a Kingfisher flying away…fast.

 

O.K. Malibu 2....probably the most popular Sit-on-top in the world

 We came to the BIG weir and the more cautious portaged while the more confident shot. Not the age split that you might have thought. Yes the boys went down like newts in a pond….but so did some of the more wizened. Like Jeremy:

Jeremy guns it. The Scrote looks on

 Josh was completely absorbed by a maelstrom of foam…..

Josh thumps the stopper

 so Tim and Harry could not turn down the challenge despite almost certainly messing up their carefully contrived ‘One Direction’ haircuts.

Tim and Harry take the plunge

 Time for a tea break at the stunning little beach below the cliff.

Take a breather

Kevin and Bob sport their camouflage gear.

Kevin and Bob

 The post tea-break session continued with thrills and a few spills over the next series of weirs. Jeremy demonstrates the concentration and commitment required:

Exemplary technique

 Team leader Dr. Dave kept his Christmas hat firmly in place till only half a mile from the end when it was consigned to the depths.

Dave…bemused. Tim and Harry….amused. Scrote….confused

And so the gloombuster paddle came to an end and the cold and damp (some a lot damper than others) retired to the obliging pub at Chipshop for chips and pavlova.

Happy to slob it now till Christmas is over. 

 

 

Pollack and Parking Ticket

The season’s not finished yet!

Cuckoo wrasse. Perfect to brighten up a cold December day.

The same thing happens every year but it seems an unpredictable nasty shock every time. The winter is not only very cold but very dark.Actually it’s not been particularly cold down here in the southwest, but never mind that. If you are an outdoor freak like me ( my children leave the ‘outdoor’ bit out), the dark months bring  intense claustrophobia. So when there’s a gap in the gales you go…no question.

By sheer good luck the mighty winds abated to coincide with a couple of days off with no work or family commitments.

Torbay was my first destination:

Torquay marina

This was new territory for me and would provide shelter from the west wind and swell as well as being another piece of coast to add to my long term goal of kayaking the whole of the south-west coast path from Poole to Minehead. Over 1000 miles completed so far, about 50 to go.

And maybe I might catch a fish or two…..

I set out from swanky Torquay marina at dawn and the calm conditions encouraged me to get the headland of Hope’s Nose ‘in the bag’ before the wind got up.

Sunrise at Thatcher rock

I trolled a plug behind in a very half-hearted manner but when I wound it in to remove some weed there was a swirl of a big fish giving chase . Mmmmm. But of course just as my hope was up, nothing more.

I dug in to  a steady rhythm to complete the whole of the Torbay coast . Not exactly the most natural scenery….Torquay, Paignton and Brixham with a few little bits of wildness in between. At least on a cold winter’s day I had the sea more or less to myself.

Typical Torbay

 I switched lures from plug to rubber sandeel for the shallow beaches and was surprised to here my reel buzz as I passed this rather scenic mini sandstone headland.

Roundham head

Into the kayak came a sporty little bass that was dehooked and put back to fight another day (and get bigger…..hopefully I’ll catch it again when its in excess of ten pounds).

Paignton bass

 But it’ll have to dodge the nets of this menacing rusting hulk powering out of Brixham to cause a bit of fishy havoc.

Brixham beast

 The bottom corner of Torbay past Broadsands and Elberry cove was actually very attractive and a fertile bit of sea as there were plenty of Guillemots, Razorbills and Great-crested Grebes busy diving for there lunch. I joined in the fun and hooked three mackerel.

Fishcombe Point mackerel

 My turnaround point was Brixham but I first had to paddle round the back of the breakwater to breakwater beach because that would connect up with my last time here (when I paddled west to Dartmouth).

When I emerged from the back of the breakwater I was greeted with a sea covered in whitecaps which had appeared out of nowhere. Gulp….I had to paddle six miles back to Torquay into that howling wind. Hoping it was just a squall I cowered into the shelter of Brixham harbour and marvelled at the unbelievable small size and unbelievable top heavy appearance of the Golden Hind.

Golden Hind.....you cannot be serious

I coast-hugged my way back up wind and for the return trip the wind did, thankfully, ease off. A few more mackerel and another bass off Roundham head (surely not the same one…it will hardly have grown at all since I last caught it).

The next day Fowey was my destination as the wind was forecast to be very light first thing and I fancied using some of the fresh mackerel as bait.

I arrived at Caffa Mill car park at first light as my car thermometer read zero degrees and a freezing mist was flowing out of the Fowey valley. No-one else about. I straddled a white line in the carpark to avoid having to get out into a puddle and get wet feet when changing into my kayaking stuff. A single neurone from my extremely- unlikely- scenario department in my brain flagged up an alarm but was drowned out by its seven billion colleagues that rationalised that there were a couple of hundred empty parking spaces in the carpark and these were unlikely to fill on such a cold morning in mid December. Had the maverick neurone had the courage of its convictions it would have instructed me to move my car to exactly within the white lines, but even it conceded that this was superfluous nonsense.

So I set off  through Fowey to the open sea. Sorry to be boring, but the town IS very scenic. Always a safe spot for a winter paddle as it is very sheltered and you are guaranteed a few miles of interesting paddling whatever the conditions.

Fabulous Fowey

 As planned I dropped a fillet of mackerel to the bottom at the entrance to the estuary and let the outgoing tide drift me out to sea. On the other rod I used a smaller hook and a sliver of mackerel.

Didn’t have to wait long…I soon had hooked a couple of (cannibalistic) mackerel. About a mile offshore I was suddenly joined by a trio of porpoises. They kept surfacing all around the kayak while I fumbled with gloves and cameras. When I was ready, they disappeared as quickly as they had come but I did manage one shot:

Fowey porpoise

Suddenly both rods went off … I had snagged the bottom with one but the other produced a 3lb pollack. Unexpected. I went big and dropped a whole mackerel to the bottom and after a big pull this disappeared..was it a fish or snagged on a rock? The thrills and spills of fishing!

For half an hour something was nibbling and tugging at the line virtually all the time. Dogfish probably. Then a more chaotic bite produced this crazily coloured cuckoo wrasse.

colourful cuckoo wrasse

 As the sun rose I was approaching meltdown with all the fleeces I had put on to fend off the early morning freeze so called in at a tiny beach to shed a few layers.

Just got to get back to the carpark before my car park ticket expires at 12 noon. Shouldn’t be a problem.

Left the kayak on the slipway while I went to get my kayak trolley. The local gulls wasted no time in robbing me of my catch. Oi, get off! But then I felt a bit sorry for the parent gull who was merely trying to provide for its offspring so it would stop that unbelievably annoying wingey squealing. Know how it feels.

Don't scoff it yourself

 I thought you were going to share that with your persistent offspring.

That's better...good parenting

I was all packed up and in the car and engine turned on at 12.01. Not bad though I say it myself…..would have been 11.59 if it hadn’t been for the gulls. Anyway no problem with any parking official as my ticket was valid. AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGHHHH!

What’s that on my windscreen.? I know very well what it is but what is it doing there as it has been stuck within about four inches of my clearly visible valid in-date ticket. WHAT?

A ghastly mistake surely

 It was only when I opened the ticket as I was driving home I read the offence and I nearly swerved off the road into Bodmin Asda with shock.

Speechless

Yep there were the words in black and white ’Parked beyond the bay markings’. I immediately felt sorry for my brave little neuron who had probably been made to walk the plank by now.

Reading more I discovered that my car had been ‘observed’ being parked beyond the bay markings’ between 0800 and 0805. Not difficult because there were no other cars to observe in the expansive carpark although certainly very diligent given the freezing conditions.

Who is this guy. What a loser. Worryingly I think I might have passed him in his stupid little van entering the car park just as I was leaving. I think he was trying to get another ticket on my windscreen for outstaying my time. That would have really made his day.

What is going on? There is no way I am paying that. NO WAY.

Fowey...I've just gone off it

Late Season Rod-Benders

End of the day, end of the season

Having shared my kayak with what many would consider to be the fish of a lifetime, I knew I would have to drop my ambition level and be content with the fish of a lunchbreak. And in November you really can’t be fussy so I was pleased to have caught this garfish during a session on the south Cornwall coast at Fowey this morning, even though it was pitifully small:

Fowey Garfish

 And I ‘m not sure how far I dragged this poor little bass along behind my kayak while trolling a rubber sandeel as it pulled no line out of the reel at all. Fortunately it was none the worse for wear after its fresh air foray, and tried to slash me with its gill covers.

Feisty little bass

 As always there were plenty of shags (and a few cormorants) looking reptilian on every headland, and this little gang seemed to be sporting their oily green breeding plumage already….surely not.

A stagger of shags

Actually come to think of it the adults are always that colour.

It was such a warm and sunny Guy Fawkes day that Mr. Fox was sunning himself on a grassy headland and had no idea of my passing.

Foxy being rather more dozing than cunning

 I think I have mentioned before that I have invested in a couple of Penn spinning  reels that were moderately (but still under £50) expensive, as I am getting fed up with ultra budget reels that seize up  with the slightest wiff of salty air, and make a scrunchy rusty noise when a decent fish pulls line off the reel. Or else they just jam up completely and the rod leaps about in its holder for a few seconds before the line breaks.

One is a Penn Pursuit, and the other is a Penn Sargus. Or strictly speaking ‘was’ because the Sargus is currently sitting on the bottom of the Bristol channel following the capsize incident while I was reeling in a tope off Lynmouth. Anyway, I am very pleased with the Pursuit as it still reels sweetly and fish pull line off the reel with an excellent ringing metallic buzz…very satisfactory.

Penn Pursuit......highly recommended

During October I was fortunate enough to hook several decent fish which made the Pursuit sing and give the bendiness of my rod a bit of a workout.

I spent several hours drifting about off Dizzard point with a mackerel fillet on a hefty hook fished close to the bottom. Boredom would have consumed me had it not been for little groups of shearwaters zipping past. Then my reel buzzed and up came the heavy and surprisingly inactive dead weight of an 8lb cod.

8lb cod

And this was followed a few days later by a hat-trick of 3lb pollack, 3lb codling and 4lb ling. Unlike most of my catches, these were kept for supper and the fish tasting trial gave the cod the max points for tastiness, with the ling a close second. 

Pollack, ling, codling

 It was back to Spain for a few days over half-term and the casual observer might have been forgiven for thinking that the rain in Spain falls mainly on the Costa del Sol. I wasn’t hopeful of catching anything big here, as the sea resounds to the throb of trawlers (when the wind isn’t howling) the whole time. And the fishermen on the shore use tiny hooks to catch unbelievably tiny fish. When they saw me coming in with a mackerel fillet on a huge hook they sniggered and made comments to the effect that I was wasting my effort big time. Yes my Spanish is creaky,  if not non-existent,  and in common with many English abroad I just speak loudly and increasingly irritatedly (why can’t they understand?).

But I persisted in my efforts to hook a Spanish whopper and was rewarded in the most unexpected manner. I spent several hours trolling big expensive lures around, miles offshore, in the vain hope of catching a tuna. Not a dicky bird. One day I was forced to keep close to the beach by an offshore wind and was trolling a mini jointed plug when the line from my Pursuit zinged out when I was only a stones throw from land. Surely I had snagged the bottom, but no some beast was tugging away and I spent a good ten minutes getting it to the side of the kayak…..this was one of the most spirited fights I have had.OK I had the drag set pretty lightly coz  no way was this one getting away. I was expecting bass but a long thin fin at the surface made me think….it can’t be….tuna!

Little plug, big fish

 It’s gill covers looked finger-friendly (unlike bass) and I hauled it on board.Quite a fish…well, six pounds in fact as I found out later.

Exotic mediterranean fish.......is it a tuna?

 There’s no tank well in my Disco so it had to share the footwell with my bare feet for the paddle back. Not pleasant for my feet but probably quite a lot more unpleasant for the fish.

Sorry but I’m a bloke so I had to have the ‘trophy’ photo:

Hold it away from your body....it looks bigger

I marched back to the villa and announced we were having tuna for tea but when the fillets were cut it didn’t look awfully like tuna but that’s because it usually comes in a tin ( I explained). And it tastes like mackerel that has been left on the shelf for a week. Not so easy to explain….and I agree….but not a WEEK.

After that big excitement normal service was resumed and it was back to catching little fish, even though they might have a big sting:

Weever on deep diving plug

The Chub mackerel which I gave to the fishermen (who seemed to be impressed with its large size) was sneakily nibbled by a marauding Turnstone.

Might I suggest 'Peckfish' rather than 'Turnstone'

The locals also said we had no chance of seeing any dolphins…… 

It wasn’t until we got back to blighty that , after ages trawling through fish photos on the internet, I found out that the big Spanish fish was in fact not a tuna….it was a rather drably named ‘leerfish’. Gloom.

And, to finish with,  possibly my last rodbender of the season, an 8lb pollack caught on orange hokkais near Land’s End.

Frenzy for Sharks

The turmoil of activity generated by the media about my shark encounter in a kayak would not have been matched by a haunch of beef thrown to a pack of Great Whites.

Within minutes of my photos appearing on the front page of the Western Morning News my phone, with its unbelievably annoying ringtone, didn’t stop being annoying all day. Must change the tune (get my twelve year old daughter to change the tune).

People from press agencies, Radio Cornwall, BBC Spotlight, ITV, Radio 5 Live and some radio station from Canada called. Bit suspicious about this last one as there wasn’t a two second gap between talking but I’ve been told things have moved on since last time I did a Transatlantic.

Yes,yes,yes,yes,yes was my reply to whether I would do an interview or supply photos. I don’t have a problem with sharing my enthusiasm for my thing (and it’s got to be better than Raol Moat). Am I a yes person?. Probably, yes. Oops there I go again. I said yes all day, until that is when I was asked by the presenter on ITV Westcountry Live whether THAT was the moment the shark dragged me half a mile out to sea. Even though this was the event that had stimulated the interest of over 260 press reports across the globe from Ireland to Fiji and the Washington Post to the Sydney Morning Herald, I inexplicably replied ‘No’.

They rapidly lost interest in me and put on something about Raol Moat.

Headline in the 'Sun'

 After the various broadcasts, messages arrived from friends I hadn’t seen for ages…..

‘a good face for radio’ ….unoriginal. you can do better than that, Graham

‘ I must say I wouldn’t have recognised you’…. actually you’re the odd one out, Mike, with a full head of hair at 52.

‘you looked more like the shark than the shark’….thanks Jeremy. But at least it only refers to the size of my conk (hopefully).

of course the comparison to jaws had to be made...this was the Daily Mail

The highpoint of the evening came, however, when the photos appeared on ‘the One Show’ and drew a comment from Dannii Minogue. As far as my daughters were concerned, it doesn’t get better than that. But for me it would have been a lot better if one of my own idols, Sir David Attenborough (requires no explanation) or Captain Sensible (requires quite a lot of explanation) ,had acknowledged my battle with my gnashing and toothy adversary.

Time to get back to hands-on kayak fishing. My old chum Cush was down for the weekend and of course bravado talk resulted in a plan to catch more Tope. However a very enjoyable wedding party followed by a Rocky Horror fancy dress bash (yep….two parties in one night!), resulted in a slothful and nauseous start on Sunday.

Lynmouth was our destination. We tied our kayaks together and sat around half a mile offshore waiting for a bite. Conversation fizzled out, I caught a couple of dogfish and Cush politely questioned how long I was planning to stay. You mean you want to go home now, Cush.

Mini shark...a dogfish

So we started to pack up and I started to reel in my mackerel bait and, totally and utterly unbelievably,  it happened again. My rod bounced twice and a tope tore off with my line. At exactly the same time Cush somehow tipped his kayak over and ended up wallowing about amongst a raft of flotsam. I was concentrating on holding the shark but was pleased to see our Snickers bars still floating. Oh and Cush, in his drysuit, bobbed like a cork.Phew.

I gallantly volunteered to come and help Cush once I had landed the fish, and started to be dragged away, but it was smaller than the last two (about 35lbs) and I soon had it beside the kayak.

Tope on

Cush heroically reappeared having clambered back onto the kayak. Not an easy feat (mind you its even more difficult to fall out in the first place).

He grabbed a couple of ‘trophy’ photos.

Upon arrival back at Lynmouth I was surprised to be hailed by a gang of lairy beer-swillers outside a pub as we wheeled the kayaks past on their trolleys. They guffawed something about tope and the telly and then dissolved into laughter which was louder and lasted a lot longer than it really should have done. I felt it was a good thing I didn’t catch all of their alcoholic comments. Does Dannii have this problem?

p.s. I would like to put in a claim for the first shark story to go FROM England TO Australia (and not the other way round)

Humungus Tope

Another extraordinary afternoon. The late September weather plumbed new depths of  greyness, cheerlessness and dampness but at least the wind was lightish on Devon’s Bristol Channel coast.

I was after Tope again and  had a load of frozen pollack and mackerel from the freezer as bait. to cut a very long story short I sat and drifted for nearlysix hours and got very cold in the relentless heavy drizzle…..if I hadn’t been wearing a drysuit and had the inspiration to grab my wetsuit balaclava as I left the house I would have packed it in after a couple of hours. The occasional passing visit of a couple of porpoises gave me a flicker of interest, but despite constantly changing presentation of my bait on the end of the wire traces, I had absolutely no bites at all for about four hours.

It was only because the fishing season was drawing to a close I forced myself to stay longer. And there was just that faint hope that something might happen when the tide started to come in.

Woopee. I hooked a dogfish as I was winding in to check the bait. couldn’t even be bothered to take a photo as my hands were so cold and fingers starting to fumble.

As a last gasp effort I hooked up a whole mackerel  and when the weight hit the bottom I let the spool arm off and just let the line feed out as the kayak drifted along on the tide, so the bait was stationary on the bottom for a while. Of course this didn’t work, but I repeated it a couple of times. Nothing to suggest there were any fish within ten miles of here. I tried again in a half-hearted slovenly manner and suddenly the line went very heavy and a couple of mighty tugs followed.

My body wouldn’t have been hurled from such torpor to extreme action if I had sat on a scorpion. The fish set off and the line poured off the reel in an extremely satisfactory manner. I tightened the drag as I was worried I would run out of line but the ‘run’ probably only lasted for five seconds. Like last time I swung the end of the rod over the front of the kayak and let the fish pull the kayak along….a great way to tire it out, surely.

After about ten minutes it at last appeared beside me at the surface and….good grief it was even bigger than last weeks fish…..amazing. I hauled it aboard with its pectoral fin and got the hook out of the corner of its mouth with no problem.

Another huge tope aboard

I made a few crude measurements to try to calculate the fish’s weight. About six foot long and trunk diameter of about ten inches……must be about 65 lbs!!!!!!

65 lb Tope

 I thought I’d better attempt to get a goofy pic of me as well as the shark in case any doubting Thomas thinks I have photo-shopped somebody else’s fish.

The cold old man and the sea

 I can’t quite believe that the only two Tope I have caught have been such whoppers. Clearly skill and fishing expertise can be the only explanation.

50lb TOPE

The run of very unsettled weather meant that the only bit of open sea which would be vaguely calm today would be somewhere along the North Devon coast, offering protection from the moderate SSW wind and meaty swell pounding the western facing beaches.

I launched from Combe Martin and within five minutes was completely absorbed watching a small school of porpoises. They are funny little creatures and show no interest in kayaks (unlike most other marine beasts that usually come over for a bit of a snoop) and just get on with their own thing.

Combe Martin porpoise

 You can hear them blowing from a long way away but they are very difficult to photograph as the delay in their appearance at the surface to the desperate click on the shutter usually means a photo of a disappearing fin. You don’t want to know how many pics I took just to get these two images.

Porpoise. Unobtrusive and aloof, but endearing

I followed the outgoing tide west past Watermouth and Rillage point towing all manner of lures and plugs and caught no fish. And on past Ilfracombe.

Oh Blimey. The weather was drab and I was pulling into a stiff headwind and seemed to be making very little progess. Bull point, my intended destination, was four miles away but I really couldn’t be bothered. And the tide appeared to be coming in an hour early. Weird.

Ifracombe.

 So I turned around and with the current and wind in my favour drifted back east a lot faster than my outward trip. I towed a Rapala and on the other rod used feathers near the bottom. Still nothing so I added a ‘Gulp’ sandeel to the feathers. And at last, just when the towel was about to be thrown in, up came a pathetically small pollack. I very, very nearly put it straight back but as I had made the effort to come all this way  I crudely cut a five inch fillet off its side with my scissors and attached it to my wire trace (starting to get a bit rusty!) and dropped it to the bottom.

I lay back in my seat and consumed not only my five weetabix I had brought for breakfast (highly recommended) but also half a packet of chocolate digestives and a Bounty Trio I had bought for lunch. It was one of those days. Then it started to rain as a thunderstorm rolled past up the west coast.

Wet Exmoor

I was vacantly watching the distant display of lightning when my line buzzed out for a second and I sprang to life. Something was repeatedly knocking my pollack fillet. Then it was gone. Back to the lightning show.

I have recently invested in a decent reel. I nearly bought a multiplier but wisely (in my view) opted for a Penn Sargus fixed spool reel. It’s so much more straightforward and, much more importantly, makes a very satisfactory clicking noise when a fish pulls the line out. Not that that has ever really happened in nearly ten years of kayak fishing and approaching 6000 miles of paddling. Until now.

The line buzzed briefly so I wound in a bit because I assumed I had snagged the bottom. Wallop! The rod bent over and there was a mighty downward tug.BIG fish. Get it off the bottom quick.

I reeled in but had the drag set fairly cautiously so as much went out as I took back. And then the fish took off and the line buzzed out (to say the reel screamed would be over-egging it) for a good five seconds. A tope run? As the weight got heavy again I swung the rod tip over the nose of the kayak and got the fish to pull me along. I wasn’t in any hurry and towing me around the bay would soon tire anything out. Another run and probably six or seven minutes later the beast started to come to the surface. At last it came into view.

Tope on the surface

 Yippee it’s my first tope but O.M.G. it’s a whopper! A bit more thrashing about and I got it to the side of the kayak…..hook doesn’t look very well attached!

Hope you're not planning to use those teeth.

I was very concerned about causing damage to this extraordinary creature as I hauled it on board so grabbed hold of its pectoral fin and its tail stock and in it came. Fantastic.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Quick. Get a few photos and then get it back into the water as soon as poss.

A bit of kayakfull

 The hook was in fact not easy to extract but one more pic and the fish slipped back into the water and swum away gently.

Phew. Didn’t fancy getting chewed by those teeth or tangled up in a wire trace (or struck by lightning) while half a mile offshore by myself.

 

So how heavy was it? Severe danger of exaggeration here. I had guessed 30-40lbs when I had it on board but taking measurements using reference points of it in my kayak I calculate it was in excess of 50lbs.

 

Wow, my slothful and achy muscles were injected with adrenaline and on the three mile paddle back to the car, against the wind and tide, I  overtook a couple of serious sea kayakers. I was virtually planing.

 

A final cup of tea while absorbing the view of the receding storm.

 

Another personal ambition ticked off, to match finding a Dotterel’s nest on top of the Cairngorms, meeting Captain Sensible, kayaking from Scilly to Cornwall, and sitting in the cockpit of a Sukhoi Flanker. What next?

 

 Afternote:  From the photos the Tope was 28″ from nose to back of its dorsal fin so that would make it 56″ total from nose to tail notch. Girth diameter was at least 9″ (probably 10″) giving a circumference of 28″. This gives a weight of 55lbs.

KAYAK-FISHING SPAIN

THE COSTA DEL SOL.

You either love it or you hate it. Over 50 miles of  one legendary seaside resort of white hotels and apartments slurring into the next without a break, and all hemmed in against the beaches by the legendarily lethal coast road.Torremolinos, Fuengirola, Puerto Banus, to name but a few.

I’m non-plussed about beaches like this:

Heaving Med beach

But if you can lay your hands on a nice comfy sit-on-top kayak, within a few strokes from the shore you can be in your own little dream world and the vista is transformed to something more like this:

That's better

 And it’s so warm that you don’t have to wrestle into wetsuits or drysuits…..beach shorts and a generous dollop of suncream are all that’s required. And when you get out of the water you don’t have to towel yourself off before hypothermia sets in. In fact the temperature is so pleasant that kayaking suddenly becomes fun for all the family.

Prowler 13 vs RTM Disco (or equivalent)

 So next all you have to do is wait till your family get out of the kayaks, and hope there’s a few fish knocking about. You fear the worst considering the background noise for the entire day is the powerful drone of a hoard of trawlers.

An early start is essential. Dawn always seems to produce the fish and forcing yourself to get up early on holiday means that you have to also force yourself not to have too much San Miguel the night before. Not easy. But it’s worth it for a sunrise like this:

I'm beginning to like this place

.....and it looks like it could turn out nice

Let’s try some high speed trolling behind the very shapely and fast sea-kayak-looky-likey Disco. And within a minute the rod rattles and your first Spanish fish is on……and what a little beauty……an Annular Bream. Didn’t know Bream went for plugs.

Annular Bream. What a little beauty.

There are loads of fish swirling at the surface so it can’t be long before another hit on the plug.Rather surprised nothing happens so wind in and check the lure is OK and there is a scad. How on earth did that hook itself without me noticing- it can’t have put up any fight AT ALL.

Scad. As exciting to catch as kelp.

OK it was only the first half hour of Day 1 of a week’s holiday and I was very happy I had caught fish, but I had put myself under a bit of pressure to catch something BIG. At least that is the impression that was given by my suitcase bulging with deep diving plugs and all sorts of other ferocious, and clearly suspicious-looking ,fishing clobber which caused red lights to flash at the airport check-in and uniformed officers with furrowed brows to mobilise from distant rooms.

So I felt I had to head offshore to get as much depth as possible below me as surely there lurked the school of tuna. Yes I know tuna in the Mediterranean are as good as extinct but I only want to catch one, and I promise to put it back.

No tuna of course but I was completely enthralled by the seabirds which were sitting about on the surface, plunge -diving and cruising around and zipping past my kayak with inches to spare. Cory’s Shearwaters, with their four- foot plus wingspan justifiably called the ‘Little Albatrosses’ of the Mediterranean.

Confiding Cory's Shearwater

 One kept circling particularly close and was perhaps mistaking me for a pile of oceanic offal (one of their favourite snacks). Good photo opportunity though:

Charismatic Cory's Shearwater

 I gulped when I noticed my GPS showed I was two miles offshore…no wonder the trawlermen were looking at me a bit funny. Time for breakfast. I trolled a mini plug on one side and a Rapala Sliver on the other as I paddled back in . Closer inshore I hooked a load of Chum Mackerel on the smaller lure, and my Sliver really buzzed out but whatever it was got off.

Next day dawned a bit threatening.

Dodgy day dawning

 Blooming typical. Why is it whenever we go anywhere where it is almost guaranteed to be sunny and not to rain, the clouds roll in and the heavens open? Aha, but the fishing is often better. I trolled along the coast as I didn’t fancy being offshore in the freshening wind and swell. Yes…..a swell in the blooming mediterranean. In fact when I passed a headland there was a decent point break that would have done credit to the north coast of Cornwall. Including surfers!

What is going on……is this really the Med?

 My line with the Sliver on reeled out…..FISH ON, and it was a bit of a fighter. I reeled it in very cautiously and a chunky garfish type fish came on board.

Looks a bit like a Barracuda to me

 It thrashed about a bit and succeeded in sinking a hook beyond the barb into the flesh of my inner thigh. Maybe not wearing a wet suit isn’t such a good idea after all! It took some yanking out with forceps and not a little blood.

Anyway back to the fish. Surely that’s a Barracuda…not the biggest but a Barracuda none the less. Top entertainment.

Baby Barracuda

 For the rest of the week normal service was resumed in terms of sun and heat but there remained a bit of a swell. Family fun on the kayaks.

I hope those feet don't belong to the same person

 Time to get offspring inspired by kayak fishing……..’Dad, I’ve caught a fish,what do I do?’…. ‘Just gently try to take it off the hook…..it’s probably a mackerel….it won’t hurt you…..what does it look like?…. ‘It’s long and brown with blue dots on it’s side and it’s eyes are pointing upwards and its got a spiky fin on it’s back’…..’,aaaargh, don’t touch it whatever you do….sounds like a WEEVER FISH….yikes!

Watch that weever

 I thought weever fish lurked on the bottom waiting for unsuspecting swimmers to tread on their spiky fins. They’ve got no business getting caught on a trolled lure. When I tried a bit of bottom fishing using mackerel feathers spiced up with a mackerel strip I did indeed catch more weevers.

Greater Weever

 When I let the one in the photo go I was absolutely gob-smacked when the gull (which you will have noticed lurking in the background), swooped in and grabbed the fish before it could come to its senses and crash dive to freedom. I would have pointed out that it’s really not a good idea to mess with a weever and its poison spikes and gill covers but being a Spanish seagull there was something of a language barrier.

Unsuspecting gull thinks it has got an easy lunch

 Bottom fishing half a mile from the shore produced quite a few small brightly coloured fish which I think are called ‘Combers’.

Comber, I think

So at the end of the week I had caught a decent amount of fish but not the great beast I had hoped for despite dragging around some seriously business-like lures for over 50 miles. Mind you , with idiots like this around we were lucky to get back without being pulverised:

Speeding King of Bling

But hang on what have we got here, a ferocious fighter on the line and half way between a tuna and a mackerel.It’s a Bonito.

Bonito

So farewell Spain and farewell this kind of dawn (probably).

Last Spanish sunrise for a while

Sliver Delivers

I have only ever bought one Rapala Sliver, and that was about ten years ago. I took it trolling in Dorset and lost it to the bottom after about five minutes. I challenge anyone not to grind their teeth and mutter unmutterables in that situation when you have just forked out in excess of a tenner for a little bit of floating wood. Well OK, it actually sinks very slowly  but you know what I mean, and don’t be picky.

However I HAVE noticed that around the southwest the closer a lure looks like a sandeel the more joy you will have. And experience of Porthcurno suggests that the very large number of launce (big sandeels) which you always catch when using mackerel feathers is probably what keeps the large numbers of birds, fish and mammals excited. And a Rapala Sliver is nice and thin and looks like a Launce. So I shelled out another tenner (or a bit more,actually) and off I went.

Before I tell you how I got on I must brag a bit about my recent Gurnard hat-trick. Well…nearly. All three species in three days anyway. I do like Gurnard as they are very un-Britishly brightly coloured (remember I have a birdwatching background ) and make a ridiculous grunt when you catch them. First was a Red at Porthcurno:

Red Gurnard

 Three days later I caught a Grey and a Tub on my local patch near Bude. I used to write under the pen-name ‘The Grey Gurn-nerd’ but nobody seemed to twig what it meant and in fact not a lot of people read what I wrote anyway. I thought it was excellent.

Grey gurnard

Tub Gurnard

 I was joined by my chum Pokey who always looks like a cool dude and is in total command of the situation (at least when he is in a kayak).

Pokey poses

 After that major digression let’s get back to the Sliver which I am making a big thing of.Here it is, having survived being dragged around the sea for three or four hours:

 Not having caught a single bass all season ( yes, alright I’ll concede to a degree of incompetence but I also havn’t really tried that hard yet……well , incompetence then) I wasn’t expecting much but within a couple of minutes of setting off from Porthgwarra my line buzzed out and I groaned as I thought I had lost more hard earned cash to the depths. But hang on, there was a BIG lump repeatedly,slowly and powerfully pulling on the line. Major panic! I reeled in slowly and in typical bass fashion the line went light as the brakes came off and I was getting ready for the big plunge when it got near the kayak. There it was, and OH NO there goes the fish. Never saw it so clearly it was a record breaker.

 

A minute or two later I had a 3 pounder on board:

Bass (at last)

 And then another right in front of the Minack theatre.

Crossing the green water of sandy Porthcurno bay I wasn’t expecting a bite but a pathetic tugging on the line produced a launce barely bigger than the Sliver itself. Surely it wasn’t serously thinking it could eat a fish that size. Amorous intent would be more a more feasible explanation.

Launce vs Sliver

 Porthcurno usually resounds to the occasional scream of excitement from the beach , or applause from the Minack audience, but today it was a bit more cacophonous as the Royal Navy were fine-honing their rescue skills on Logan rock.

Search and Rescue Sea King over Logan Rock

 So I’ve still got my Sliver and looking forward to it’s next outing. I notice it really makes the rod end shake as its jointed body ‘swims’ through the water…more so than any other lure I have used. This can only be an advantage because more movement surely means greater attractive power to the hungry predator.

 

Eight species Fish Fest

LAMORNA DOES IT AGAIN

Couldn’t sleep and rolled into the car park at Lamorna Cove at 6.30 am which was before even the parking meter had woken up. Unbelievably a day ticket didn’t start till 7 so I left a polite note explaining my predicament plus the correct money in FULL view on the dashboard and promised to pay when I got back. Surely common sense and an appreciation of all that is reasonable would prevail. (fat chance).

I was fairly bursting with anticipation as it was a cracking sunny day with light winds forecast, plenty of marine wildlife to expect and I was in severe need of catching more than mackerel and pollack. However my first encounter with a fish was not on the end of my line:

First glimpse of a sunfish

 I hadn’t come across an Ocean Sunfish for several years so was keen for a closer look but this one s was possessed by an inexplicable turn of speed. However I managed a couple of ghostly underwater images as it spooked past.

Sunfish

 Sunfish eat jellyfish and have no teeth so the taxonomist must have had his (or her) tongue firmly planted  in his (or her) cheek when he (or she) gave it the Latin name ‘Mola Mola’.

This exciting start was hotley pusued by a fair tug on the line which produced a , yawn, mackerel but it was a real whopper.

Monster Mack

 My weapon of choice for the day was a string of big blue Hokkais spiced up by a couple of mackerel strips but I was surprised when this smart little cuckoo wrasse managed to get caught on the big hooks.

Mr.Cuckoo Wrasse

 It was so calm I headed well offshore to maximise the chance of a BIG encounter. An incessant stream of gannets cruised overhead and shearwaters zipped past.

Manx Shearwaters

 About a mile off Porthcurno it was so deep I ran out of line before my weight hit the bottom! However my rod buckled over and I hauled something very heavy up from the depths…..alas only a foul-hooked codling.

Codling

 The Scillonian was fairly groaning under the weight of passengers as it lumbered past. Just looking at it made me feel claustrophobic….thank goodness for sit-on-top kayaks.

Scillonian III

 I was half way through demolishing my five weetabix when a load of splashing with the odd fin appearing made me paddle like crazy to investigate. Fantastic….Common Dolphins and as usual they came over to investigate and swam right underneath my feet, and as usual I failed to capture the moment on film. Five or six of them, and they aren’t quite so inquisitive or showy offy as Bottlenose Dolphins so they were soon on their way.

Common Dolphins

 I sat and fished off Porthcurno and watched the world, or a tiny bit of it, go by. The beauty of this bit of coast never fades. The great granite monolith of Logan Rock and the impossibly white sand of the beaches and turquoise of the water. Need some therapy….come here. (I don’t ,by the way)

Logan Rock and Porthcurno

Bloatboat ruining the peacefulness of Porthcurno

Bingo at the Minack (Bingo's the name of the yacht)

 Although I put most of the fish I catch back I kept a few mackerel and chucked the guts out for the expectant fulmars. I like fulmars as they are basically mini albatrosses in seagull’s clothing:

Friendly Fulmar

 The local gulls soon got in on the scene and the fulmars really got stressy about it . I apologise but I find all the squabbling and bickering quite entertaining  although don’t suppose the birds feel the same. But they do get a wholesome meal out of it.

Fractious Fulmar

 It was time for a leisurely offshore paddle back to Lamorna cove. I had dropped a mackerel flapper to the bottom without success but as I paddled off with it trolling behind me something kept pulling at it and when I reeled it in all that was left was the head.

I stopped for a final drift off Boscawen point when the wind had dropped to almost nothing. The only sounds to be heard were the splosh of diving gannets and the ‘piffing’ of breathing porpoises, and the distant squealing of a young peregrine from the black cliffs at Tater Du. Two fish in quick succession on the hokkais:

Whiting

 

Astonishingly red Red Gurnard

 The gaudiness of the Gurnard was equalled only by the yellow of Warlord’s hull:

Warlord by name, warlord by appearance

 Remarkably my final two bites were two other species of fish, a pollack and then a first for me…..a ling.Not the biggest specimen but an attractive fish nonetheless.

First ever Ling

My eighth species of fish was a pouting which unfortunately wasn’t too photogenic when it came up from the depths.

That was it , but one more curiosity on the final paddle in were the half dozen or so Red Admiral butterflies and single Large White that passed me heading landwards after clearly crossing from France. An extraordinary feat, especially as during gusts the delicate little creatures were temporarily blown backwards.

I was still quarter of a mile away from my car parked above the harbour wall when I noticed a yellow note stuck to the windscreen. Oh groan. Unfortunately all that was reasonable had not prevailed.

Extreme wilderness kayak-fishing Scotland

At 3.59am I was fast asleep tucked up in bed in Holsworthy; fourteen hours and 750 miles later I was paddling across a peaty loch in the far northwest of Scotland, under sunny skies and beneath the gaze of Arkle, one of the spectacular mountains of that part of the world. I had soon hooked the protein portion of my supper on a mini Rapala.

Brownie trout in front of Arkle

I found the perfect sandy beach and set up camp to cook my trout. I was pretty peckish (only had one extra large pasty on the drive up, much of which ended up in the footwell) and pretty pooped. Just as I settled down I noticed a pair of Ringed Plovers getting very agitated close by and I knew I was camped more or less on top of their nest. So I packed everything away again and shifted fifty yards down the beach. The plovers then seemed even more touchy and I soon found out why:

Ringed Plover's nest

 I had plonked my kayak about a foot away from their nest so, with a groan, packed everything away again and went back to where I was in the first place. Mrs. Plover seemed very pleased about this and snuggled down on her eggs. I however was so tired that, despite having brought with me a small container of Lurpak specifically to fry trout in,I burnt one side of the fish to a cinder while the other side was still very much sushi. I gave up cooking and instead demolished half a Genoa cake for main course. And the other half for pudding.

Happy incubating Ringed Plover

 I slept like a newborn sloth and awoke at dawn (alas about 3.15) to the sound of some fantastic Scottish breeding birds. A pair of Black-throated divers circled the loch with weird croaking calls, a Greenshank displayed, a snipe drummed and cuckoos cuckood. What a campsite!

Loch Stack camp

 I paddled back to the car and headed on down to the sea at Scourie’s nice little curved beach where I packed up my kayak ready for the trip to Handa island. I could not believe my luck with the sea conditions-light winds, small swell and mainly sunny skies! The locals seemed a bit dour:

Unphased Scourie local

 I paddled out into the sound of Handa and the great vista of cliffs and steep mountains and faraway islands….unbelievable.  A small group of sandy beaches on Handa lured me on and I was greeted by a noisy welcoming committee of Arctic terns. And then I hooked a decent pollack on my Dexter wedge lure. Fishy action in the most spectacular of settings.

Handa island beach-more like a marble floor

Arctic Tern

Handa pollack

My number one aim was to paddle right round the island but when I was on the exposed west coast beneath the huge cliffs , the swell and its bounceback combining with windchop and tide gave me quite a bouncy ride and I felt very small and vulnerable.I had done my homework and watched the fantastic video on youtube by Frank Needle of GB Paddling about his tour round Handa by kayak….I think he managed to pick the calmest day in history (and it was his images that inspired my trip). However despite the slurpy conditions I still managed to complete the circuit of the island including a tour round the amazing great stack of Handa, and was thrilled with all the puffins.

Puffin pair

The calm waters of Handa sound were a welcome relief and I was soon back at my beach supping a cuppa. Next it was time to fulfil a longstanding ambition….to be attacked by a Bonxie!. Bonxies are big chunky aggressive seabirds that don’t take too kindly to intruders in their nest area and will think nothing of dive-bombing a person and whacking them on the head and maybe covering you in their last smelly fishy meal.However although there were hundreds of Bonxies on the island they were quite happing hassling some of their smaller relatives, Arctic skuas, rather than giving me grief. Pity really.

Bonxie, or Great Skua, the bruisers of the bird world

Arctic skua in a bit of a flap

I set up camp on the machair at the top of a white sand beach and watched a school of dolphins splashing about in the far distance while the eider ducks crooned and my semi-stale spinach stuffed pasta squares bubbled.

Wilderness campsites don't come better than this

 Aaaargh. In the morning the rain was lashing and my hands were numb within a few minutes of crawling out of the tent. Wet sleeping bag, my worst nightmare. I fumbled everything back into my kayak and headed back towards Scourie, but en route it stopped raining and brightened up so I spent the day touring the islands on the north side of Edrachillis bay.There was an ever improving tremendous backdrop inland with the brooding bulk of Quinag the main feature. I stopped for yet more, even staler, pasta on the sheltered shore of Loch Shark.

Another hard core camping lunch...Loch Shark

 I lost my Dexter wedge so gave up fishing (sorry, folks). But this was more than compensated by a  stunning view of one of my favourite birds which allowed an unusually close approach in my kayak.

Red-throated diver.....what a beauty.

 Next day I drove via Lochinver ( the ‘Lochinver special’ baps from the catering van on the seafront are highly reccommended) to Inverpolly. I wanted to paddle round one of the remotest freshwater lochs in Scotland. The access involved a portage down to a subsidiary lochan, a paddle across this then a five hundred metre Ranulph Fiennes style manhaul to the edge of Loch Sionascaig. Epic stuff and boy did I get hot.

Manhauling a Tarpon 160

 There was a howling  easterly wind coming down the Loch and at one stage I was making no headway at all. I dodged in behind the islands for shelter and eventually got to the little beach at the far end. My Mini Rapala hooked seven or eight very black coloured trout en route.

Extreme wilderness trout

Loch Sianascaig extreme wilderness beach.

 Next morning was once again still and sunny(even though it was raining and windy yesterday!?!??).Poetic license. My alarm call at about 3.30 was this time a Golden Plover whose chicks were bumbling about in the heather by my car. I took a paddle round the Summer isles and was pursued by a horde of seals.

Sheepish seal

 Just one more picture to give you a taste of this attractive part of the Highlands:

Across the Summer Isles to Stack Polly…..that’s my kayak on the beach

 

Solo paddling over, my next rendezvous was with a motley crew of paddlers for the seventy mile descent of the River Spey. Sorely tempted , but resisted, a bit of Rapala-ing. Watched this chap reel in a hefty salmon, however.

Salmon caught in the conventional manner

Motley Spey Descent team: The Incredible Hulk, Catweazle,Pyro-kid,Dork the Orc (that's me),The Thinker,The Incredible Bulk, Smiler

 

 What a fantastic week. Scotland is hard to beat if the weather holds. Fishing could have been better but I wasn’t trying very hard ( I fed my Devon mackerel I had brought with me as smelly bait to the Bonxies and they downed them whole), but the wildlife is worldclass……

Red Squirrel

I feel I have lived up to the ’Wilderness’ tag on the side of my kayak over the last week. Good thing I don’t own a Prowler.