THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

By that stage Ian was still fishing with a few
friends during March and April. That
however quickly began to gather
momentum to the point of having three fully
booked boats up there for the best part of a
month based at Ardtornish, fishing out of
Lochaline down as far as the Firth of Lorne
when the weather permitted, or restricted to
the Sound of Mull when it wasn't, with
nearby Loch Sunart as a really foul weather
fall back if needed.
It was also here that much of the tagging
work done for the blossoming Scottish Sea
Using the weight estimation chart
Angling Conservation Network (SSACN)
was done, and where conservation minded
techniques, both for the fishing and fish handling were perfected, which I'll discuss in more detail
shortly. A location which produced some truly outstanding catches.
After yet more exploration work, Ian has since upped sticks and shifted his big skate operation to Crinan
on the Sound of Jura where he puts in a few weeks chartering either end of his summer fishing in and
around Luce Bay.
A venue which again produces some very big fish. But also a better spread in terms of size, plus shorter
sailing times, and for the most part more shelter on all winds other than a brisk south westerly.
Typically, depths there are not perhaps as great as the Firth of Lorne, where I have anchored my own
boat in over five hundred and fifty feet of water, though in the Sound of Mull it was probably more like
four hundred feet, which depending on where you fish at Crinan is roughly what you can expect there
too.
Whether the Crinan fish have always been there or are the progressive overspill from around the Isle of
Mull just to the north is difficult to say. Possibly even a mix of the two. But certainly there is an element
of the SSACN driven conservation in the mix there as well, as evidenced by a few skate being caught
now by Ian Burrett and his clients as far south as Port Logan down towards the Mull of Galloway, again
after an absence of many years.
In the early days, skate fishing was done using animal tackle. Applying sustained pressure to prise such
a huge fish free using its size to create bottom suction requires heavy gear, and even today, fifty pound
class outfits including a good lever drag reel loaded with as much as seventy or even eighty pound bs
braid are used.
It's down at the business end where most of the changes have taken place. Gone is the use of wire to
beat the teeth. Now it's two hundred pounds bs monofilament right through, with an overall length of
at least ninety inches, which is longer than the biggest skate likely to be hooked, so as to ensure that the
fish’s tail sharp tail spines don't make contact with the braid and part it.
Initially, the mono would have been one continuous length with a 12/0 to 14/0 hook at one end and a
heavy duty swivel at the other, fished as a flowing trace using a tubi-boom, all of which is lowered
down slowly to avoid tangles on the drop.
That has since changed in terms of both the positioning of the sliding lead and the application of the
bait, as a further step towards the conservation of these fish.
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