Alibi is not designed for fishing, being a keel-less power boat who rolls like a pig unless moving and swings wildly at anchor. But we persevere, because there are compensations – walk-in heads, bacon butties on tap and speed sufficent to get home from 15 miles away within the hour. And being old, she was quite cheap to buy, although maintenance and upkeep do more than Gordon Brown ever did to reduce inheritance tax…
Anyway this weekend the forecast was perfect and we decided to have a two day stint at a species hunt. First problem was ragworm not being ordered so we started on Saturday sans bait. We have various things in the freezer but I decided that we would first catch mackerel, and then drift Lady Rock for coalfish and pollack, the idea being to catch skate baits for Sunday. And that is exactly what we did – we chugged out to Lady rock and found mackerel in the full spring tide ebb coming out of the Sound of Mull.
We just cut the engines and drifted down the east side of Mull in the swirly water with the GPS showing a steady 3-4kt. As we left the rocky ground around the rock I puled in a tiny red cod which went back to grow bigger. Further down the Firth we were joined first by some common dolphins which rolled and surged about in the “stream” and then gannets started plunging into the sea all around the boat. I actually saw a gannet surface with a big mackerel, throw it in the air and catch it head first to be swallowed. And unlike every bloody wildlife program you ever see these days it was in real time, not slo-mo with everything happening at a quarter speed.
After we had reached our mackerel limit for tea and bait, we did a big loop past Kerrera to look at the scenery and ended up almost where we started. We found an eddy to the east of Lady rock which kept us going round over the rocky ground and on the second pass close to the rock itself my sister Jo brought up a couple of small coalies. Then a better one. Well, relatively; it was over a pound.
After a few more of these for skate baits we moved to the west of the rock and drifted the pinnacle with rubber eels. I snagged and lost one then Jo said she was into a better fish and so it proved – a pollack of just over 2lb. At that point we declared all objectives for the day complete and returned to the moorings in time to buy fuel.
On Sunday the day dawned completely still and cloudy. The forecast was variable then 3-4 southerly later. So we were on to go down the Firth of Lorn and try for skate. I had arranged to pick up a couple of friends who normally fish for loch trout but who were keen to try skate fishing. At 10:00 we picked them up from Oban and then cruised down the Sound of Kerrera, out through Bach Sound and beyond towards Mull, looking at the echosounder for water over 140m deep.
After reaching 120m the water shallowed to 70m then began to drop off steeply. We found 150m and decided to anchor. We put down the Bruce rigged to trip and paid out 270m of rope before letting the anchor bite. We seemed to be holding so put down the three big rods with mackerel and coalfish baits.
To pass the time I also let down some baited hokkais. They soon had a rattle and Fearghas reeled in two lesser spotted dogfish. We kept one for bait in case the skate baits started to get shredded by spurdog and put the hokkais down again. More rattles followed in a short time and then Hamish was the one who reeled in the 150m plus of line, lead and dogfish. Much as before except this time the middle hook had a black-mouthed dogfish on it. Result! First one ever aboard Alibi. We took photograhs for the record and then decided that we would have lunch in order to let the skate disturb our meal…
At this point the wind, which had been quietly rising from none to a gentle breeze finally picked up a bit and the boat swung. All the big reels started clicking as the drag pulled line off. At the first clicks everyone tensed and looked at the rods but as all were dipping and paying out a couple of feet together we relaxed. Except that after a few more bursts of synchronized clicking the wind dropped a bit, Hamish and Ian’s rods went quiet but Fearghas’s kept bending and line kept going out in spurts.
“Err – that might still be the tide if your drag is set light but I would wind in and check your bait anyway.” I told him. So he tightened the drag and started to wind in; his rod just kept bending further and he said “I’ve hooked the bottom”.
“Yes, that’s what most people think when they hook their first skate” I replied and told him to put as much of a bend into the rod as he could comfortably achieve and wait. After a while the rod gave a couple of ponderous nods and Fearghas said “Something moved down there!”.
“Yes, it’s a fish” said Ian (always prepared to state the bleeding obvious). After it started moving about, Fearghas was able to get into a good rhythm of pumping and slowly gained line. Ten minutes later the fish just decided something was amiss and went back down about 20 metres, pulling line against a good 16lb of drag and bending the 50lb class rod into its full fighting curve. This was on a 10/0 reel loaded with 60lb Maxima; an impessive demonstration of skate power.
We could tell from the fight that it was a big fish.
“How heavy are you Fearghas?” I asked.
“11 stone 7lb” he replied between pumps and I did a quick calculation. Feargahs weighs 161lb.
“So if this fish was as big as my personal best of 166lb, you would be able to claim to have caught a fish heavier than yourself!” I told him. He laughed.
“My biggest fish so far is a 1lb trout.” he said.
Then the fish did some more pulling and it was stalemate – Fearghas pumped and the drag gave line, Fearghas wound and he got the line back. He tightened the drag a wee bit and started to gain line again. By now he had been into the fish for about 25 minutes and it was coming steadily. We got the gaffs ready and told Ferghas to slacken the drag some more in case the fish saw the boat and went off the idea. After a few more minutes the lead was visible and below it a huge pale shape. One more pump and I could grab the 250lb nylon leader with my gloved hand and lift the fish’s nose up. We then got the gaffs in and Ian and Hamish set to lift her onboard.
“Not going to work” grunted Ian as they took the weight.
“OK Fearghas give a hand but watch for the mouth” I said and with Fearghas pulling the nose (more for moral support than serious assistance, I feel) and a 1-2-3 she came over the gunwale.
“Bloody Hell” said Hamish, as well he might.
Alibi has quite a sizeable cockpit for a 27 footer and it was filled by one big skate. Jo (the vet) expertly removed the hook from a perfect hold in the lower lip and then we got the tape measure on her. 66 inches across the wings, nose to tail 79 inches. Luckily there was a yellow tag in the right wing (oops, who forgot the tagging kit?). We noted the tag numbers, took some quick photos and and then back she went, taking a huge gulp as soon as she was under the water, then turning over and gliding away.
After that we all needed a beer. Fortunately we also had the skate length/weight tables aboard and for females a fish 66in wide by 79in long will theroretically weigh 177lb. So Fearghas had done it – a fish bigger than himself. We older, more mature types are probably well past being able to do this (at least, mine would have to be over 203lb) so he was well chuffed. As were we all – the last skate to come aboard Alibi was in 1997 and weighed 65lb. Since then she has been rebuilt from the decks upward and both engines removed, rebuilt and replaced. So this was overdue and very welcome.
We put more baits down and fished for another hour, but the wind continued to pick up as the tide slackened and then we had to deploy the Alderney ring to lift the anchor. It had taken good hold or found a snag – it took a long hard pull to break out and when we got the anchor and buoy back on board, the cable tie had given. It paid to have it set to trip…
Jonathan Anglesea
