With the weather holding off kirsty 111 left douglas harbour in loverly sunshine and went to the back of Douglas head in search off Mackeral. The first drift proved to be fruitless but the second and third produced enough that the decision was made to head north to a laxey mark in search of the first Thornbacks of the year,and maybe some Tope.

On arrival the anchor was despatched and the fishing began, this was also the signal for me to get the cooker on and cook the breakie of bacon and eggs baps (scrumpous). A
species comp was the order of the day and it wasn't long before the pair of us had fish on the score board. I had Dog fish and a Grey Gurnard ,whilst micheal had Whiting and a Mackeral. micheal then got his first Tope of the day and although not very big it made the score 3-2. shortly after a tangle with another Tope i had a Grey Gurnard which made us level.

Micheal himself then got onto the Dog Fish followed by a nice Grey Gurnard.that made it 5-3 in his favour and that is how it stayed until the end. I must have got into double figures on the Doggies and the Whiting were ever present.

Tope bites were very frequent after the tide turned and having lost a couple each as they were taking the smaller bait rigs and so we lost them to snapped snoods. How ever on two occasions i managed to get my Tope to the side of the boat only to be let down by the skipper not being quick enough or sharp enough to get the Tope into the net before they spat the hook. This was much to the ammusement of Skip Emmo, but after so many bites with no final result i was not the happiest of people, especially as the last Tope that i got to the surface was the largest of the day.

Micheal caught one last tope just to add insult to injury but i did show him how to use the net properly and quickly to ensure that we could get a picture of the nice Tope. with that it was time to head home and for me to part with yet another £ , this now makes me 6 down with the rest of the summer to play for.

Any way it was nice to be out and at least giving it a try, i took a couple of photos of the tope .






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