Well it has been a quiet year for me too, had a few good days at Stracathro on the North Esk but missed out on a salmon from the smaller rivers which was disappointing, my cousin had a cracking 12lber from the Luther in the last week (pic on the LDAA website) but im sure it must have had my name on it!
Probably the most memorable fishing was when i was offshore in Angola on an FPSO for a few weeks recently and we were hand-lining for big yellow fin tuna and dorado off the side of the vessel, iv never had so much fun!
The "tackle" (and i use that word loosely!) consisted of a mile of strimmer line tied onto the handrail, a wire trace, a piece of flattened stainless steel pipe with a large treble for a lure and kevlar gloves!
Casting techniques were varied (no double spey casting here!) but i found a run up and a couple of swings got the lure out far enough then retrieving it like a man possessed to keep it skating on the surface was most effective. It was amazing to see these things come bombing up out of the depths and slamming into the lure then the fight was on! Landing the catch was a fair team operation since we were still about 50 feet above the water but a large landing net was made available (i mean large as you could have fitted a mini metro into it) which was lowered down on a rope then hauled back up, sounds easy but with 30-40lbs of angry tuna in and 38C heat it it was bloody tiring! We had the catch up to the galley in a few minutes so by the time we had washed up the chef had done his bit and everyone was sitting down to the freshest tuna you could find, a truly memorable trip!
I had some cracking photos but the Angolan airport "security" decided to lighten my bag on the way home and cut the padlocks off my my bag and nick my digi camera, the thieving b`stards!
Anyway, heading back out in April so roll on the `09 season!
