Wetting a line.

It's been a while since I've written a blog post. The main reason I think is pretty obvious and like most anglers my fishing this year has been curtailed severely including the cancellation of a two week holiday to Hawaii. I don't really want to dwell too much on it if I'm honest, the pandemic has caused chaos and with things beginning to slowly return to some sort of normality I thought I'd do a few posts about what little fishing I have been able to do so far this year. 

 Towards the end of the lockdown I went back to work to get the shop ready for opening. Cleaning the casting pond outside the shop was one of the tasks I had to carry out and after several months without any maintainance it resembled a swamp. On the upside however it was full of bloodworm, so I filled a small container with a couple of dozen before draining the water out of it. When Lillian and I went for a walk in Holyrood Park that evening I took my Tanago gear and the small batch of wriggling red midge larvae with us. We stopped for a break at Dunstapie Loch around the back of Arthur's Seat and while Lillian relaxed on a bench I had an hour testing my eyesight baiting tiny hooks with the bloodworm and watching a tiny float.

I'm not even sure if fishing is allowed in this small body of water. I think there is only one species present anyway and most anglers just wouldn't be interested in catching it. Not me though. I love a spot of micro fishing!

Very fidgety but happy to report a trip to Specsavers isn't required.

Sitting patiently under the shade of a small tree it didn't take too long for my tiny Drennan 0.2g float to begin registering bites and soon a few diminutive spiky fish were being swung to hand.

My first fish of 2020, a three spined stickleback.

I caught about half a dozen and to be honest really enjoyed focussing on the task. It had been nice just to simply wet a line and catch something, for a brief period forgetting all that was going on in the world. Fishing is a great escape at times.

Tight lines, Scott.