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Print versionTwitchy Fishing in Orkney
I was having the time of my life in Orkney, being a young angler in a completely new environment - spotty faced and still a good few years short of the legal drinking age, which was unfortunate considering the Stromness Summer Festival was currently in full swing. I was with a really good mate of mine, Mick Drever. We had been fly fishing partners for four or five years, mostly fishing the still waters of Midlothian for monster rainbow trout.
Mick and his wife Anne had invited me to Orkney for a two-week fishing holiday. I fished every single day, spending every minute I could on the famous Orkney mainland freshwater lochs Harray and Swannay chasing wild brownies. I was also a keen shore angler, and had brought some beach casters with me. Unfortunately I couldn’t seem to find any fish from the shore during my stay.
I had been chatting to a tackle shop owner to try and get some advice, and he suggested that I should speak to the local charter boat to see if they had any spaces for a few hours afloat. I had never been boat fishing in my life, but was intrigued and immensely eager to give it a shot. There was no way I could even remotely imagine the fish that we might encounter; I could barely wait for the day to come. I knew from sailing on the ferry and other shore scouring missions that there was some stunning looking coastline close to Stromness, and a sea that would undoubtedly be brimming with fish.
I called up a skipper who helped run the local Angling club boat, ‘Welcome Home’, to ask if he might have a space for me during the rest of my stay. To my delight he did, and explained that there would be an evening slot available soon, but I would have to share the boat with a group of birdwatchers that had hired the boat, and they would take priority. I would have to fish where they wanted to watch birds. This didn’t bother me, as the fishing instinct told me that where there is a concentration of sea birds would likely be good areas for fishing also.
I met up with the skipper on the glorious looking vessel at the pier, and then the crew of birdwatchers arrived. It was clear that these were tree-hugging types, the kind which are usually ‘anti-fishing’, but let’s face it, even if they were, would they really pick on a 13 year old boy?
Their bizarre mission; to attach a mackerel to a microphone - launch it overboard, and then listen to the noise gannets and puffins make underwater. To this day I cannot deduce with any sense of scientific reason what they were doing. Yup, my first boat fishing experience would undoubtedly be unforgettable, and not only for the fishing; unexplainable experiments aside, there was a man in the bird watching team who I am absolutely positive had a pair of man-breasts. None-the-less, I was going fishing at sea for the first time, so put all other details to one side.
Our first stop was just below the famous cliff face near the Old Man of Hoy. I had borrowed tackle from the skipper; a fairly pokey rod of about 7 or 8 foot long, and an old Mitchel multiplier loaded with braid - this was entirely alien tackle to me. I also had some cod feathers, and baited them with some strips of fresh mackerel that the skipper had already prepared. I lowered the load to the bottom slowly along with an 8oz lead, not having the faintest clue what to expect. I had read about this kind of fishing in Sea Angler magazine, but until this point it had always seemed like a distant dream.
The weighed touched bottom and I took a few brief seconds to think about what to do next. I gave the rod a few bounces, then whollap! A series of violent wrenches travelled through the rod, sending my young heart into overdrive. Instinct took over, and I pumped for dear life as the unknown fish travelled to the surface. I let out a series of loud ‘whoops’ as a brace of 6lb cod hit the surface; I was in heaven, and was instantly in love with this kind of fishing. I spent a whole hour with the same tackle, getting a feel for the ground and catching a heck of a lot of cod. I also caught a fish which, just like the boat fishing I was currently experiencing, had only existed in glossy magazines until this fine day... a ling of about 8 or 9lbs, my personal best sea fish - and to me at the time a monster – I will never forget it. The Orkney trout fishing, as great as it was, seemed to fade away into insignificance. This boat fishing lark provided an adrenaline rush to match any computer game, and was completely insane!
The bird watchers started to get intrigued as to how much fun I was having. They began asking lots of questions, and even asked the skipper for rods to have a shot too. As they had finished with their ‘experiment’, the skipper tackled up with some spare rods and whisked us further out to sea to some clean ground. The fishing at this new location was awesome; double and treble shots of cod, haddock (that was another new species for me by the way), and even flatfish. The feathers were hanging vertical and suspended off the bottom, so I decided to give them plenty slack line to allow them to lay flat on the sandy sea-bed, which resulted in incredible amounts of dabs, gurnards, and a strange flatfish which I can guess would have been a megrim.
The four hour trip passed all too quickly and we headed back to Stromness Harbour. Interestingly, the people who I was sharing the boat with were not veggies, and were delighted with the black bin-liners full of prime Scottish cod and haddock I had caught, which would undoubtedly keep them fed for what would have been several months.
I had landed hundreds of fish, and was completely hooked on boat fishing. That day provided the building blocks to the boat fishing that I do and enjoy today. Needless to say tackle and techniques have moved on from that early trip... how many of us started boat fishing with a set of feathers? These are memories which set you up in fishing, and this one certainly prompted me to join some fishing clubs that would enable to get me afloat more often... I even pestered my old man for several months (to no avail) to buy a boat!
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