Fishing flat out.

On Tuesday evening, taking advantage of a drop in the wind, I had another go for a conger eel from an Eyemouth rock mark. This unfortunately only resulted in lots of lost gear and a blank so the following day I headed up to Dundee to fish the Tay estuary. I've been told that a few European smelt were caught recently during a match so I was hoping to get lucky and catch one myself. To increase my chances I fished two rods. Three hook flappers were my rig of choice and I went with light snoods and Nordic bend hooks baited with black lug and tipped with a mackerel sliver. My first rod tip was going before I had finished baiting up the rig on my second and the first fish of a hectic session was a dab. This was soon followed by a sea trout and then more dab and flounder. More flatfish followed and I was kept busy unhooking dabs and flounders, the rod still in the rest often registering interest as I was rebaiting the other one.

The first dab of many. 

A nice looking fish. 

Lots of flounder were around too. 

As the tide picked up weed and debris building up on my line became a pain and I began to wish I had mono mainline as removing it from my braid was a real chore. I ended up cutting off my rig, sliding the weed off from my braid and tying my rig back on again repeatedly to speed up removal. As the tide dropped off this became less of a problem again and I caught a second sea trout. As high tide approached it started raining and did so constantly for an hour or so. Looking like a drowned rat I fished away and had caught just short of fifty flatfish by the time I eventually run out of bait. This was no big deal as by that point the tide was ebbing and combined with the flow of the river had produced a down stream current that was gradually becoming too strong to fish effectively so I packed up and headed off. It had been an enjoyable session despite not catching any smelt. I might return and try from Broughty Ferry or from the Fife side at Tayport. I might also try a night time session as well. The Estuary offers reasonably sheltered fishing in windy weather and looking at the forecast there's plenty more of that over the next few days.

Tight lines, Scott.