Not feeling ticketty boo.

My mate Martin put me in touch with his fellow Aye Sea Angling Club member Gordon who very kindly invited me along to have a day out on his Warrior 165 named "Ticketty Boo II" on Sunday. It was an early start after working on Saturday night and by the time we had reached the Isle of Whithorn and launched I wasn't feeling too great but was hopeful I'd perk up, was still looking forward to the day's fishing and in particular the chance to catch tope and bull huss. Just outside the harbour we did a drift or two and soon caught a few mackerel to use as bait before dropping the anchor at the first mark. With whole mackerel ledgered down tide the waiting game began but feeling a bit worse my stomach didn't want to wait any longer and I started doing a bit of "chumming" over the side. Oh dear. Before too long Gordon's reel's ratchet started clicking though so I had to compose myself to help him boat what turned out to be a lovely tope. Measuring and tagging quickly done it was time for a quick photo.

Gordon with 34lb of shark.

It was a great start and I was optimistic it might be the first of a few but things were slow after that. Fishing a three up rig baited with ragworm on a second rod only produced a cod, a whiting and a few dogfish and there was no further interest in our mackerel baits so we headed to a second mark. Things were fairly quiet there as well however so we went further north into the much shallower waters of Wigtown Bay. Sitting in about 10ft of water I didn't bother with a bigger bait but after catching a few flounder Gordon hooked a fish on half a mackerel fillet which he thought was a starry smoothhound. Once on the surface however we were surprised to see it was in fact a small tope so I quickly put out a half mackerel fillet too. The action was pretty steady after that with Gordon boating a couple more small tope, a couple of thornback rays and a starry smoothhound. I had a small tope throw the hook at the side of the boat before landing one.

My first tope from Scottish waters after several attempts afloat in the Irish Sea and Luce Bay. A small one but I didn't care as it was still another species added to this years tally so I was quite happy.

Sharks are pretty cool fish.

As the tide slackened off things went quiet again apart from a few more dogfish and not long after that it was time to head back to port. To be honest I was glad to get my feet on dry land again and I felt better almost straight away. Sea sickness is pretty horrible but fortunately it's not something I often suffer from. A lack of sleep seems to be the thing that triggers it for me so I'm going to get some travel sickness pills for my tackle box. Depsite feeling ill most of the day it was nice to meet up and fish with Gordon and I hope we can do it again in the future.

Tight lines, Scott.