Thanks - Etive's not really a red hot venue for fishing these days, but it is brilliant for just chilling out with a tent and catching a few fish on the side. Stunning place which can be uncannily quiet on a calm day. Cheers, Doug
Another great video Doug. Incredible sport on that light spinning gear, good sized pollock, and brownies that fight as hard as sea trout . 👍. You make it look easy.
Living the dream. What a fantastic trip. Absolutely my sort of trip, beautiful scenery, great fishing , wild camps n no people. Thanks for sharing Doug 👍 Atb Rick n Billydog
Thanks👍 It's one of my favourite places for an overnighter, for all the reasons you give. Mull itself has some stunning and very remote locations for a camp along the southern coasts, especially the little beaches hidden on the Ross of Mull. Cheers, Doug
Thanks 👍 The south coast of Mull is virtually uninhabited and almost inaccessible from the land along much of its length, so boat is your own real option. And it's certainly a beautiful piece of coastline - the cliffs in the video might not look that big but are actually a little under 900 feet high. Cheers, Doug
I could make them not so gentle!🤣🤣 I much prefer my trips to be on the warm, calm and wimpish side, and they're much easier to video too🙂 However, there are quite a few tales sitting on the cutting room floor, where trips nosedived into a hard landing!
@@Corkwing-DougK I am sure there are Doug if my fishing moments are anything to go by! You set a wonderful tone and unlike so many TH-camrs have not fallen into the trap of saying 'you guys'!! Tight lines 🎣
This is such a dreamy video, well done! I love it from start to finish, the camping also looks amazing. I shall try doing something similar with my inflatable boat. Only a couple of hours away from me. thanks for sharing such a nice adventure
Thanks for another fine video Doug. You did well to find a couple of fine days for your trip. The weather has been really limiting opportunities for boat fishing this year.
Hi Charlie - even this trip was a bit curtailed from my original plan! The weather has certainly been pretty dismal this year and it's a struggle to get out beyond the sheltered sea lochs. By way of contrast, I'm just back from a week 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle (in Soroya, Norway) and it was warmer, sunnier, calmer and generally much better than back home every day we were there! Cheers, Doug
Fish-filled would definitely be exaggerating! Some interesting catches however😁 The real star of the show is really Soroya itself, which is a little like Scotland on steroids with its dramatic and very rugged cliffs.
Thanks very much. I've actually been doing quite a bit more fishing this year but very little has made it's way to YT. Maybe I'll do a Xmas special with the highlights that didn't quite made a standalone video🙂
Thanks 👍 Sorry for the late reply but I've been a tad busy just lately - not actually fishing sadly, although managing some prep work for an upcoming trip🙂
Thanks for watching - you'll get both browns and sea trout, and even rainbows when they stage a break out from the fish farms🙂 Nothing very big but I do get a kick out of catching them! Cheers, Doug
Hi Ash, I'm sure you recognise some of these places! With a little luck there's still enough summer left to get a trip out to some of the islands for an overnight camp. The Etive trout were going nuts, at least until the sun rose high in the sky. It was certainly good fun👍
Your videos are brilliant Doug, always a great watch! Would love to share a cast with you one day! How amazing is Etive, your maken me plan a trip back up there pronto!
Well, I released a beautifully coloured and large (for me🤣) brownie back into a very small loch right at the end of June - and realised that this was the first time I'd fished freshwater in 2024. I'm gradually getting back into it as I have more time, but I need to reacquire a load of skills I've forgotten since my teenage years. Etive's a bit of a playground in that respect, as you can try quite a mix of things on the one venue - and there's rarely anyone about to see you screw it up🤣
Just watched your Cruden Bay video too - I started out on the Aberdeenshire coastline but it's not a place that features much on YT, at least for boat fishing. Nice to see it on a sunny day🤣
Great to see another old fella not scared to do TH-cam channel . I don't fish but I love boating I have a small S.I.B with a Suzuki 20hp 4 stroke and go up and down Loch ETIVE to Oban with my camera and drone.Great video enjoyed watching . Was this 4 weeks ago ? its August the 29th while watching this and I don't remember it being like that this year lol. Oh just noticed your name do you hire boats? Anyway thank you for doing the video. Ray K UK YNWA.
Hi Ray, I'm over at Etive fishing and camping a few times a year but I've no connection to Dougie Bannatyne who does the boat hire on Etive. I uploaded this one at the end of July but the trip itself was two or three weeks before that - this year it's just been a case of grab any break you can in the wind, as there ain't been many. It depends on how complicated the editing is but I usually find it takes me a while to sort out the footage and upload a video - I've got another 2 or 3 that are "almost" ready to go. SIBs are good fun and pretty versatile, although I don't use mine all that much these days - have you ever bumped into Donny Wilcox when you're out on Etive? Cheers, Doug
If you're camping well up the loch, north of Bonawe, then the tides aren't much of a problem, except at the Bonawe Narrows itself where the tiderun can be quite strong if you're in a kayak. You can find the tide times at easytide.admiralty.co.uk/?PortID=0371C (they are significantly different to those at Oban). From the shore, or using a kayak, then tides shouldn't cause any difficulty for camping - just drag any gear above the high water mark. If you're using a boat then you'll need to set a temporary mooring below low water, or else let the boat dry out as the water drops. If you are kayaking then wind is more of a problem than tide, as Etive can be quite blustery. For a kayak or SIB then launching at the very head of the loch is easiest and closest to decent camping spots, but the car park will often be full over the summer (and it's a long detour to find that out!). You can't launch a boat at the head of the loch so your only realistic option is to put in at Taynuilt, using the same place I did at Kelly's Pier. Pick decent weather and a small tidal range and you should be OK - just avoid getting anywhere near the Falls of Lora under Connel Bridge, as that is a dangerous stretch of water. Cheers, Doug
I wouldn't describe any of my spinning gear as particularly refined - for me they have to cover a wide range of situations and be reasonably robust. The pollack rod in this video is a 8 foot 10-30g Berkeley Air 2 piece rod and I do quite like this one. It's fine for middleweight pollack like these but would be undergunned for large fish over rough ground. The rod used for trout is an 8 foot 4-21g Mikado 4 piece rod. Nothing special really, and I bought it mainly because it fits into a rucksack and covers a reasonable casting range. My other main spinning rod is a 9 foot 50-100g Shimano Exage 5 piece, which is OK but a bit floppy for my taste. However it also fits a rucksack well and can be pressed into service as a light shore or pike deadbait rod. I usually match them up with a Shimano Ultegra 4000 or Socorro reel. I prefer travel rods simply because I'm often carrying them quite a long way, or because I tuck them away on a boat just in case I need a spinning rod when I'm mainly targetting something else. Since I'm doing a bit more trout fishing these days I might be tempted by a smaller reel but that's for next year (or Christmas🙂). That said, a 4000 sized reel loaded with 20lb braid, coupled with a spare spool holding light line, covers most things I encounter on a hike/SIB/kayak expedition! Cheers, Doug
@Corkwing-DougK brilliant Doug. Great comprehensive reply. I like the travel rods myself for the sheer handines and used to do a bit of motorcycle touring in Scotland and the Islands with fishing gear always strapped on the bike. Your videos take me back to those great trips. Was in Mull and Inverness a couple of years back but the bike was substituted by the car. Fishing gear still came along though. Keep up the good work.
Etive salinity is quite low compared to the open sea especially further up, with increased rain lately even more so. So there seems to be a resident population of brownies who pop up the streams to spawn. The low salinity is why the Etive mussel fishery closed although you still see Etive Mussels being punted in local restourants - which is BS as no mussels have been grown on Etive ropes for years now.
As said, Etive has low salinity in its surface waters so you get loads of confused brown trout in the margins - sometimes mixed in with equally confused mackerel, and with spurdog lurking in the depths. It's a strange place...🙂 Sometimes, especially in winter, salinity is so low you can drink from the loch directly.
Not in this video, although I'm edging more in that direction. Most of my non-edible fishing (skate, rays, spurs, etc.) is barbless or crushed barbs and in most cases I've swapped out trebles for barbed singles on lures. The wee Mepps and Droppen blade spinners is really the only area where I'm still using trebles supplied with the lures, and I do want to figure out how swap these out for singles if I can, without losing too many more fish. Two trout in this video were badly hooked on the trebles (out of 30+ that came to the boat) but I'd rather be able to return them all safely if I choose. Cheers, Doug
@@Corkwing-DougK thanks for an honest answer. I'm in the process of going barbless / single hooks too. We'll lose a few more fish no doubt, but my thinking is if we're releasing fish anyway it doesn't really matter too much 👍
Hi doug like watching your videos gives me ideas of where to try myself,would u mind telling me in your latest video how far it was from taynuilt slip to the meldon and rough time travel please thanks neil
The Meldon is maybe 30-35 miles from Taynuilt, so I wouldn't recommend the trip just for the fishing - I did it partly just because I like exploring that part of Mull. It'd take a bit under 2 hours travelling. You also need to factor in the tide times at Connel, as the Falls of Lora can be dangerous on a large tide Cheers, Doug
Yup, I definitely prefer the sheet of glass approach🙂 Sometimes it works against you, if you're drift fishing a sluggish tide as were at Dunbar a few weeks back, but too much wind is usually a much bigger problem than too little.
🙂 Minefield! 🙂 If it's an Atlantic Pollock then Europeans call it a Coalfish (or Saithe to us Scots). We have no equivalent to an Alaskan Pollock as far as I know. Either way, we're talking about different species - except when Pollock is used when you really mean the European Pollack (or Lythe, to many Scots). You're probably right about the hits though - although I'll just get slagged off by all my UK viewers for spelling pollack wrong. Sometimes you can't win...🤣
Thanks Doug, that was a nice watch. I like the mix of fishing and camping, that’s right up my street 👍
Thanks - Etive's not really a red hot venue for fishing these days, but it is brilliant for just chilling out with a tent and catching a few fish on the side. Stunning place which can be uncannily quiet on a calm day. Cheers, Doug
Another great video Doug. Incredible sport on that light spinning gear, good sized pollock, and brownies that fight as hard as sea trout . 👍. You make it look easy.
Glad you enjoyed it. Sometimes it really is that easy🤣 Lining up the nice calm conditions is the difficult part, especially this year!
Cracker of a video, and a great selection of kit. Personally I would have kept more of the bigger trout to eat, hot smoked is the way to go.
I don't really eat many trout myself - it might be sacrilege but I prefer haddock and cod myself😀
Lovely video, very relaxing watch good fish too
Many thanks - glad you enjoyed it👍
Living the dream. What a fantastic trip. Absolutely my sort of trip, beautiful scenery, great fishing , wild camps n no people. Thanks for sharing Doug 👍
Atb Rick n Billydog
Thanks👍 It's one of my favourite places for an overnighter, for all the reasons you give. Mull itself has some stunning and very remote locations for a camp along the southern coasts, especially the little beaches hidden on the Ross of Mull. Cheers, Doug
Cracking video Doug. I just cannot get enough of the fishing and scenery of Loch Etive and the Inner Hebrides. Just wonderful!
A bit of sunshine has a magical impact on the west of Scotland🙂 Rarity value, I suppose🤣 (especially this year!)
Cracking video. You just can’t beat the Scottish scenery by boat. Great weather and plenty of fish 👍🎣
Thanks 👍 The south coast of Mull is virtually uninhabited and almost inaccessible from the land along much of its length, so boat is your own real option. And it's certainly a beautiful piece of coastline - the cliffs in the video might not look that big but are actually a little under 900 feet high. Cheers, Doug
Lovely, fishy episode there Doug. Thank you for making these gentle fishing stories.
I could make them not so gentle!🤣🤣 I much prefer my trips to be on the warm, calm and wimpish side, and they're much easier to video too🙂 However, there are quite a few tales sitting on the cutting room floor, where trips nosedived into a hard landing!
@@Corkwing-DougK I am sure there are Doug if my fishing moments are anything to go by! You set a wonderful tone and unlike so many TH-camrs have not fallen into the trap of saying 'you guys'!!
Tight lines 🎣
This is such a dreamy video, well done! I love it from start to finish, the camping also looks amazing. I shall try doing something similar with my inflatable boat. Only a couple of hours away from me. thanks for sharing such a nice adventure
Etive is a favourite of mine and great for combining camping with a bit of fishing. Just make sure to pick a decent spell of weather!
Thanks for another fine video Doug.
You did well to find a couple of fine days for your trip.
The weather has been really limiting opportunities for boat fishing this year.
Hi Charlie - even this trip was a bit curtailed from my original plan! The weather has certainly been pretty dismal this year and it's a struggle to get out beyond the sheltered sea lochs. By way of contrast, I'm just back from a week 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle (in Soroya, Norway) and it was warmer, sunnier, calmer and generally much better than back home every day we were there!
Cheers, Doug
@@Corkwing-DougK So can we expect a fish-filled video report of your trip😉?
Fish-filled would definitely be exaggerating! Some interesting catches however😁 The real star of the show is really Soroya itself, which is a little like Scotland on steroids with its dramatic and very rugged cliffs.
Always a superb watch!
Thanks very much. I've actually been doing quite a bit more fishing this year but very little has made it's way to YT. Maybe I'll do a Xmas special with the highlights that didn't quite made a standalone video🙂
@@Corkwing-DougK Would love to meet up for a duet for my channel! Iv got a SIB which is handy, maybe one day eh!
Good stuff buddy 👏🏻👏🏻
Thanks 👍 Sorry for the late reply but I've been a tad busy just lately - not actually fishing sadly, although managing some prep work for an upcoming trip🙂
Great watch mate I didn't realise there was brown in etive I thought just sea trout. Brilliant videos as always
Thanks for watching - you'll get both browns and sea trout, and even rainbows when they stage a break out from the fish farms🙂 Nothing very big but I do get a kick out of catching them! Cheers, Doug
Well done Doug, the trip turned out fine after all. Smashing looking brownies up the loch too & plenty of them by the looks of it.
Hi Ash, I'm sure you recognise some of these places! With a little luck there's still enough summer left to get a trip out to some of the islands for an overnight camp. The Etive trout were going nuts, at least until the sun rose high in the sky. It was certainly good fun👍
Your videos are brilliant Doug, always a great watch! Would love to share a cast with you one day! How amazing is Etive, your maken me plan a trip back up there pronto!
Well, I released a beautifully coloured and large (for me🤣) brownie back into a very small loch right at the end of June - and realised that this was the first time I'd fished freshwater in 2024. I'm gradually getting back into it as I have more time, but I need to reacquire a load of skills I've forgotten since my teenage years. Etive's a bit of a playground in that respect, as you can try quite a mix of things on the one venue - and there's rarely anyone about to see you screw it up🤣
Thanks for upload 😊
My pleasure 😊 Summer's not over yet either, so time for a few more before the gales return!
@@Corkwing-DougKI'm hoping for an Indian summer,long long one,back down mog end of august 😊
Great video very inspiring. Thanks for sharing.
Just watched your Cruden Bay video too - I started out on the Aberdeenshire coastline but it's not a place that features much on YT, at least for boat fishing. Nice to see it on a sunny day🤣
@@Corkwing-DougK Hopefully you'll get to see more as I pick up knowledge of the area from 'Skipper Gordon" 😉
Great to see another old fella not scared to do TH-cam channel . I don't fish but I love boating I have a small S.I.B with a Suzuki 20hp 4 stroke and go up and down Loch ETIVE to Oban with my camera and drone.Great video enjoyed watching . Was this 4 weeks ago ? its August the 29th while watching this and I don't remember it being like that this year lol. Oh just noticed your name do you hire boats? Anyway thank you for doing the video. Ray K UK YNWA.
Hi Ray, I'm over at Etive fishing and camping a few times a year but I've no connection to Dougie Bannatyne who does the boat hire on Etive. I uploaded this one at the end of July but the trip itself was two or three weeks before that - this year it's just been a case of grab any break you can in the wind, as there ain't been many. It depends on how complicated the editing is but I usually find it takes me a while to sort out the footage and upload a video - I've got another 2 or 3 that are "almost" ready to go. SIBs are good fun and pretty versatile, although I don't use mine all that much these days - have you ever bumped into Donny Wilcox when you're out on Etive?
Cheers, Doug
Paradise
Indeed! Etive especially is a favourite, and even the midges were reasonably well behaved on this trip🙂
great video, hoping to go and fish and wild camp loch etive soon just concerned about the tides
If you're camping well up the loch, north of Bonawe, then the tides aren't much of a problem, except at the Bonawe Narrows itself where the tiderun can be quite strong if you're in a kayak. You can find the tide times at easytide.admiralty.co.uk/?PortID=0371C (they are significantly different to those at Oban). From the shore, or using a kayak, then tides shouldn't cause any difficulty for camping - just drag any gear above the high water mark. If you're using a boat then you'll need to set a temporary mooring below low water, or else let the boat dry out as the water drops. If you are kayaking then wind is more of a problem than tide, as Etive can be quite blustery. For a kayak or SIB then launching at the very head of the loch is easiest and closest to decent camping spots, but the car park will often be full over the summer (and it's a long detour to find that out!). You can't launch a boat at the head of the loch so your only realistic option is to put in at Taynuilt, using the same place I did at Kelly's Pier. Pick decent weather and a small tidal range and you should be OK - just avoid getting anywhere near the Falls of Lora under Connel Bridge, as that is a dangerous stretch of water. Cheers, Doug
Really enjoy your videos. What are the spinning set ups you use. They look perfectly suited to the type of fishing you are doing.
I wouldn't describe any of my spinning gear as particularly refined - for me they have to cover a wide range of situations and be reasonably robust. The pollack rod in this video is a 8 foot 10-30g Berkeley Air 2 piece rod and I do quite like this one. It's fine for middleweight pollack like these but would be undergunned for large fish over rough ground. The rod used for trout is an 8 foot 4-21g Mikado 4 piece rod. Nothing special really, and I bought it mainly because it fits into a rucksack and covers a reasonable casting range. My other main spinning rod is a 9 foot 50-100g Shimano Exage 5 piece, which is OK but a bit floppy for my taste. However it also fits a rucksack well and can be pressed into service as a light shore or pike deadbait rod. I usually match them up with a Shimano Ultegra 4000 or Socorro reel. I prefer travel rods simply because I'm often carrying them quite a long way, or because I tuck them away on a boat just in case I need a spinning rod when I'm mainly targetting something else. Since I'm doing a bit more trout fishing these days I might be tempted by a smaller reel but that's for next year (or Christmas🙂). That said, a 4000 sized reel loaded with 20lb braid, coupled with a spare spool holding light line, covers most things I encounter on a hike/SIB/kayak expedition!
Cheers, Doug
@Corkwing-DougK brilliant Doug. Great comprehensive reply. I like the travel rods myself for the sheer handines and used to do a bit of motorcycle touring in Scotland and the Islands with fishing gear always strapped on the bike. Your videos take me back to those great trips. Was in Mull and Inverness a couple of years back but the bike was substituted by the car. Fishing gear still came along though. Keep up the good work.
Love the videos, can I just ask what is the procedure/method for anchoring the boat while you camp ashore ?
I get asked this quite a bit so I've put some info and a link in the video description - corkwing.co.uk/boat-fishing/setting-an-overnight-mooring/
Thanks I will check out
Great video. Im confused though, are those brown trout or sea trout? I understood that brown trout are fresh water and that's a sea loch 😊
Etive salinity is quite low compared to the open sea especially further up, with increased rain lately even more so. So there seems to be a resident population of brownies who pop up the streams to spawn. The low salinity is why the Etive mussel fishery closed although you still see Etive Mussels being punted in local restourants - which is BS as no mussels have been grown on Etive ropes for years now.
As said, Etive has low salinity in its surface waters so you get loads of confused brown trout in the margins - sometimes mixed in with equally confused mackerel, and with spurdog lurking in the depths. It's a strange place...🙂 Sometimes, especially in winter, salinity is so low you can drink from the loch directly.
Great fishing! Do you fish barbless Doug?
Not in this video, although I'm edging more in that direction. Most of my non-edible fishing (skate, rays, spurs, etc.) is barbless or crushed barbs and in most cases I've swapped out trebles for barbed singles on lures. The wee Mepps and Droppen blade spinners is really the only area where I'm still using trebles supplied with the lures, and I do want to figure out how swap these out for singles if I can, without losing too many more fish. Two trout in this video were badly hooked on the trebles (out of 30+ that came to the boat) but I'd rather be able to return them all safely if I choose. Cheers, Doug
@@Corkwing-DougK thanks for an honest answer. I'm in the process of going barbless / single hooks too. We'll lose a few more fish no doubt, but my thinking is if we're releasing fish anyway it doesn't really matter too much 👍
Hi doug like watching your videos gives me ideas of where to try myself,would u mind telling me in your latest video how far it was from taynuilt slip to the meldon and rough time travel please thanks neil
The Meldon is maybe 30-35 miles from Taynuilt, so I wouldn't recommend the trip just for the fishing - I did it partly just because I like exploring that part of Mull. It'd take a bit under 2 hours travelling. You also need to factor in the tide times at Connel, as the Falls of Lora can be dangerous on a large tide
Cheers, Doug
Pity the water couldn’t be like a sheet of glass every time, plenty of fish caught a good trip was had
Yup, I definitely prefer the sheet of glass approach🙂 Sometimes it works against you, if you're drift fishing a sluggish tide as were at Dunbar a few weeks back, but too much wind is usually a much bigger problem than too little.
Change the word from pollack to pollock in the title, you'll get more hits
🙂 Minefield! 🙂
If it's an Atlantic Pollock then Europeans call it a Coalfish (or Saithe to us Scots). We have no equivalent to an Alaskan Pollock as far as I know. Either way, we're talking about different species - except when Pollock is used when you really mean the European Pollack (or Lythe, to many Scots). You're probably right about the hits though - although I'll just get slagged off by all my UK viewers for spelling pollack wrong. Sometimes you can't win...🤣