Saturday saw me leave the house at 7am with a couple of deliveries to do in the Lake District en-route to Monday’s work and by the time I rolled up at the place Stargaizer and Jose24 were fishing over twelve hours had passed – twelve bloody hot hours too! They were just coming in as I arrived, fishless and covered in mud having had a battle getting to the water on the way out through thigh-high mud. Their kayaks looked admirable – wet and dirty! We chatted for a bit and then headed off to a different mark to fish in the morning, a mark where we could roll up in the vehicles and sleep in peace on the surrounding area...
...quite a popular peaceful place this; especially popular with the large number of teenagers who had set up for a late-night beach party with loud music, weed and shagging. Friendly bunch they were though – they had to come past us with our portable barbecue to get to the ‘Beach Pish’ (a hut with proper toilet, sink etc) and were all polite and willing to chat for a while. Their party sounded really good but obviously us old bastards and Sophie the dog were better as there were anything up to seventeen people in our group at times ;D Come sometime between two and three am though we got rid of them and got our heads down ready for the 4am launch, no tents or anything, we were in sleeping bags under the stars.
Up at 6am in time for our planned 4am launch at 7am we looked a bag of sh!te, as did our surroundings which we soon got tidied up. Next we had a quick bite to eat and got ourselves kitted up before heading down onto the beach, the tide up high enough to ensure a quick and easy transit to the water. The water was crystal clear and there were big boulders and smaller rocks covering the seabed as we paddled out – these remained visible until we were in reasonable depths.
Having not yet given the Prowler Ultra 4.7 a proper test myself and having some spare space on the van I’d brought one along with me. I figured that a reasonable paddle out and back, some anchoring and some proper fishing would give me an idea of it’s capabilities and use as a fishing kayak. I dragged it down to the shore, loaded my gear into the central hatch (very useful storage area) and floated her. I sat aboard and immediately felt stable even though I was a lot higher than I’m used to; I didn’t fit a seat though as I wanted to feel all the nuances of the boat. We paddled out with me using a longer shaft than normal (225cm overall paddle length) on my paddle to make up for the width and height difference from my Scupper Pro (215cm overall paddle length) and the big Nordkapp blades pushed me forwards at a decent rate of speed, the kayak tracking beautifully through its long waterline and slicing through the water with that sharp and uplifting bow. It certainly didn’t hang about, that’s for sure!
The idea was to begin with a drift for some Pollack as bait about half a mile out before heading out another mile to drop anchor and try for something else. On went my eBay-bought Fladen mackerel feathers (bought in bulk a couple of years back) with a Dexter Wedge on the bottom to provide the weight and in went my line, dropping it down to the bottom and just bringing it up slightly before jigging it up and down for a few minutes.
Bang! I was in with a Pollack of maybe 1.5lb, the first of the year and a PB.
I had a juvenile later – such a difference in markings!
A couple more followed and then I had my first ever Coalfish ;D
I was chuffed. Feathering is not an option off my usual grounds so to be catching fish in this way was doubly pleasing. I dropped some off (including some bigger fish) and released some but ended up with a bunch of fish in the tankwell for bait. I even managed my first feathered-up codling! Around 1.5lb it was a lot darker and more vividly marked than our home fish. It went back in and we went out.
We dropped anchor and I dropped my feather rod down while I got tackled up for the main target. Immediately my rod started to buck and I wound in a couple of Coalfish. One of these immediately went on whole as a livebait and was sent down to the bottom on a 10/0 hook with wire trace – we were toping!
With my reel set to ratchet and knocked out of gear I got on with the feathering and got constant, immediate hits as the Coalfish bag mounted with anywhere up to five fish jumping onto the hooks.
These were being released as they came in with fun to pass the time being the objective. It was great sport but too easy – thirty seconds would see me into a fish and this attracted more and I watched them zooming in and getting hooked up too; I was in a good spot! I was starting to ease off when I got myself a couple of Mackerel in the 1lb bracket – the first of the year.
Mackerel, a superb bait. I wound in the live Coalfish and sent it on it’s way, turned the first Mackerel into a flapper bait by removing the spine up to the head and sent it down to the bottom to leak it’s juices out into the current. The second was cut into a head and half section, a tail section fillet, some bait strips and some sashimi (deboned, skinned and rinsed in the sea). Lovely it was too. As I began to think about changing traces to fish baits on the bottom (if I could get them down before they got pounced on) some movement began on the tope rod. I put the feather rod out of the way, switched the Oregon Action Camera on (Mounted on a paddle shaft resting in the rear flushmount) and picked up the rod and waited. It was like that scene in Jaws:
Click
Click
Click Click Click
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!
The line started to scream off the reel and I waited. It took a hundred yards or so and then stopped briefly before moving off again. I struck, wound down and all hell broke loose – Fish On! This Tope (presumably) went mental and screeched off downtide as I started to fight it. A minute or so passed and then the line went light. It had dropped the hook, the Mackerel being at the top of the trace now, jammed up against the swivel.
Another, slower, run occurred half an hour later and although I felt some weight initially I ended up pulling in a mainline that had been scraped through against something - whether it was rock damage or fish damage I don’t know for sure but I suspect the latter.
I changed baits to the head-half, thinking that maybe the fish would have been more likely on a smaller bait. Down it went and I did some more feathering. Then Stargaizer was in and hauled up a nice tope of an estimated 30lbs+. Shortly afterwards I got a small run that saw me hooked up into a snag and then my day started to go awry. I broke free from my anchor reel and ended up snapping my rod at the spigot.
I got the gear back up eventually. My buoy disappeared in the current and I paddled back up to Stargaizer and Jose who were tied up together. Jose’s anchor buoy was available as he’d abandoned it for some reason and so, after transferring some of my 60lb mono main line to my braided feathering reel as an emergency Heath-Robinson rubbing leader, I clipped off to it and sent the tail fillet down to the bottom and waited. Nibbling began fairly quickly and so I took the rod in my hands. A tope bite started and I turned on my camera. The line started to come off the reel and after a hundred yards stopped. I waited. It started to tighten again and I struck, giving the line a few swift jabs and then I felt the tope moving off...stay on please...
...the fish swam away and I started to wind it in. Pumping it up from 75ft wasn’t difficult but did require the drag to be tightened a bit more. The theory that I was always taught is to set the drag to 1/3 of the line breaking strain but this of course assumes that rod, reel and line are all balanced and having snapped a rod already that morning I didn’t feel as confident as I could have even though I’d been applying a lot more pressure than I would have needed for this fish. I tightened up enough to start raising her but still allowing her to run – of course I’d now gone to a star drag instead of my big lever drag so didn’t have the near-instant pressure adjustment that I had originally intended but it wasn’t a fast fight so I had plenty of opportunity to fine tune the reel.
I was surprised at the fight really as I had been expecting screaming runs, head thrashing, crash dives and the suchlike as I’d heard so much about Tope and had waited so long before getting the opportunity to fish for them; I had expected a fight like a Smoothound. Instead, I was treated to strong, steady pulls and dogged resistance as it came towards the surface. Herein lay another problem as swapping over rods earlier now saw me with a knot that wouldn’t go through my rod tip under pressure! This meant I’d finished reeling but still had the fish 20ft below me, out of sight, and still quite fresh from not running for the horizon...I tried to haul the knot through the rings from the top but this was not happening and so I handlined it up. Finally I saw it and the magnification of the water made this majestic and large fish look even more so – it was a beautiful sight which I savoured...and then the tope finally woke up and started to dive.
I removed the rod from the flush mount and tightened up again to bring her back up to the surface, on the right side for the camera ;) I just had to hope that it stayed in position and was pointed in the right place as I wanted some good footage. This was quite likely as once it was up on the surface it thrashed, rolled and shook it’s head in an attempt to get free from the hook. It was quite exciting to say the least but also had its ludicrous moments – it rolled in the trace and wrapped it around its head leaving me to turn it the other way to unroll it ;D then it was time to come in and be unhooked...
...I put my foot under her, grabbed the trace and a pectoral fin and brought my tope up onto the yak. 4ft of sinewy, muscled sandpaper squirmed and writhed, twisted and rolled in my lap as I hung onto the fin and the wrist of its tail, waiting for it to quieten down when turned on its back. It was having none of it and insisted on giving me a hard time as well as a huge ‘shark rash’ on both arms into the bargain! Eventually I managed to gain the upper hand and removed the hook from the bottom of the jaw before holding up my first tope for Stargaizer to photograph. Then it was time for it to return to the depths and I lowered it in head first. Twisting around still I felt the pressure on my toes as a mouth started to clamp down and, grateful for my Chotas, I yanked my foot back to safety as she slid away into the depths. Mission accomplished!
]
I didn’t need to fish any more. The tope appeared to be on the feed now but I figured it best to go out with a bang and on my first tope, photographs kindly supplied by Stargaizer:
...and so we headed back into the beach against the current and loaded our kayaks up ready to depart along the coast road before branching off to the Highlands.
So, how did I get on with the Ultra? Well, comparing it to my Scupper Pro it wasn’t quite as quick, wasn’t quite as responsive and wasn’t as light Nor was it as wet and short on workspace. That’s not a fair comparison though as it is not a similar boat – for that it needs to be compared against the Elite and Trident 15. It’s faster than both, drier than both and has more useable storage. It cuts through the water better and I would say has a very slight edge in speed but with less effort required than the other two. It doesn’t catch the wind a great deal either so control is maintained and it sits beautifully straight at anchor. Very stable too – I never had to think about compensating or balancing even leaning over to bring the tope in and I had plenty of space to deal with it once aboard. My overall opinion is that it is a very good fishing platform indeed. (For clarity’s sake I work for Johnson Outdoors so this definitely needs to be considered when reading my opinions on one of our products.)
I’d like to really thank Jose24 and Stargaizer for the welcome and the good banter we had – a real experience that I shan’t forget in a hurry, it was great and I think I’ve fallen in love with Scotland. It was easily the best day’s sea fishing I’ve had in the UK with four new species for the year, two new species, a PB and my biggest UK fish. The final total (I lost count of coalfish so that’s on the light side!) was 8 Pollack, 62 Coalfish, 1 Codling, 2 Mackerel and 1 Tope.
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