A trip to the Skerries - 29th Dec

GPSguru · December 30, 2024

At last, a forecast clear day with no mist / fog / rain etc, so kyle and myself decided the skerries was the place to be.

launched at first light, and kyle took the helm. We arrived on the skerries at little before 09:00, and slack water was 08:37 - 09:40, so we did a few fruitless drifts whilst we were waited to drop the pin.

At about 09:40 I set the anchor on the outer edge of the banks, with the wind and tide, I estimated we would settle at about 260 degrees, which was perfect.

Down went the big fish baits and we didnt have to wait long for the dogs to show, and also continuous whiting bites, pecking at the baits. As the tide picked up we got into the blond rays, two each and they were all doubles, the smallest was 11lb 10oz, and the largest was bang on 16lb.

I also dropped some feathers down and ended up with a 2lb plus grey gurnard, which gave a good account of itself. Also on the fish baits we were getting solid bites that were difficult to hit, but we did hit a few of them and the culprit was shoals of very large whiting. We ended up with 6 keepers, the smallest at 2lb 9oz, and the biggest at 3lb 6oz. The issue was the fact that we were using 5/0 hooks for the Rays, and the hook size was a little large for the big whiting.

An excellent few hours fishing, we pulled the anchor at 13:30, and were back home in the driveway at 15:00.

We also broke the landing net frame on the first ray, not complaining as it was 10 years old, so a replacement is on order.

Kyle at the helm