It didn't seem to matter much on the journey that I was within a couple of hours driving time of some of the best tope fishing on offer anywhere in the UK. The scenery on offer along the Solway coast between Dumfries and Drummore was reason enough to be leaving Lancashire before the crack of dawn. The fact that the early morning sun was already beating down from a cloudless Scottish sky with not so much as a breath of wind to move the leaves along the hedgerows came as little more than a bonus. June through to the end of July should be prime tope time in Luce Bay, after which point they supposedly disappear. Experimentation by "Onyermarks" skipper Ian Burrett has located some new later summer holding areas giving his parties continued catches when conditions were right of between 20 and 30 fish per day. This said, Ian had had to endure an inexplicably patchy couple of weeks at what should have been the prime time this season just prior to my arrival. Fortunately by the time I was making my way up there the situation had turned itself around with Ian reporting business as usual. Not only that, but everything else, of which there is a great deal in these parts, also seemed to be performing to order too, more of which I will come to later.

Ian Burrett has been operating his dinghy charter business from his home base of Drummore for around 15 years now, over which time he has earned himself quite an enviable reputation on several fronts. The tope fishing around the scares on the outer fringes of Luce Bay is legendary. Less well known is the backend big tope potential around the other side of the Mull of Galloway when the bigger female fish move into catching range. That's the beauty of working from trailed boats. You can simply up sticks and move base to where the fish are or the weather dictates. And when they say big tope here, potentially the sky is the limit. The previous year Ian returned a potential record tope weighing in at 88 pounds caught by Paul Hunter. Both men rightly were determined that such magnificent fish were returned alive which is worth more than any official slip of paper confirming what they and all sport minded anglers already knew. They take their conservation very seriously in these parts; another subject I will come back to later.

I first fished with Ian aboard "Onyermarks" several years ago. "Onyer Marks Too" skippered by Malcolm Aikenhead was also out and about that trip, and between the six anglers over the two boats we had 48 fish to just over 49 pounds. Great fishing by any standards. Now there are three boats with "Go West" skippered by Spike Millington added to the fleet, and a fourth boat is planned. This time around Malcolm trailed "Onyermarks Too" over to Port Logan with a bunch of light tackle pollack fanatics on board. Our party comprising Tony Parr, Craig Evans and Ken Brown from Cheshire, and the crew aboard "Go West" put in from the beach at Drummore right in front of the Ship Inn.

The decision to put the tope boats in at Drummore instead of East Tarbet close to the light house down on the bay side of the Mull was governed by the distribution of mackerel in the bay. The tide race and adjacent areas around East Tarbet are usually a safe bet for bait, but for some reason, in the days leading up to my visit, more fish were gathered up off Drummore which makes life easier for all concerned, though not too easy. We still had to find them and catch a bucket full. Eventually Ian tracked them down to one particular edge of a small bank a couple of miles off. Spike and his crew on the other hand had moved further down towards the Mull, and for the rest of the day, we saw no more of them, despite the fact that we had planned to rendezvous at a mark a couple of miles to the south of the Scares.

When we eventually found the mackerel we quickly caught enough for the day then we were off. The sea was flat and the sun was beating down. Unfortunately, it wasn't to remain like that. In the 40 or so minutes sailing time from Drummore to the scares, a complete reversal took place. Gradually the oily calm gave way to ripples, followed by wavelets, then boat slamming waves. At the same time, a dense sea fog set in despite the fact that quite a fresh breeze had sprung up from the south east. The same conditions eventually reached "Go West" still mackerel fishing down around the Mull. With the ferocity of the tide down there, conditions were very different to those we were encountering. So bad in fact that Spike and his party decided to abort the run to the scares and stay inshore for the pollack fishing. The conditions we had were nothing the 19 foot Strikeliner couldn't handle with ease. Then in another complete reversal of events, at high water the fog burned off, the sun came out, and the sea state settled back to what it had been at the start of the day.

This was the final day of a weeks fishing aboard "Onyer Marks" for Tony, Craig and Ken, and what a week they had enjoyed taking 18 different species in total including haddock, numbers of which have recovered markedly in recent times, pollack to double figures, cod and conger. Incredibly, Ian now even has a reliably productive black bream mark which just a few years would have been un-thinkable for Scottish waters. One day, the Cheshire lads tried a few hours tight in over some shallow lying heavy ground specifically targeting hard fighting ballan wrasse which they caught in good numbers to 4.8.0 which is within a pound of the Scottish record. But this trip was designated a tope fishing day. Moreover, it was to be a light tackle tope fishing day. Ian's boats enjoy Penn sponsorship providing good quality tackle for visiting parties should they wish to give it a go. Tony Parr however wanted to put some carp stalking gear bought for the local meres through its paces which he did to some tune with a lively 28 pounder. Me, I was happy to try out the Penn International 975 LD which even on the basis of this single event I am tempted to say could well prove to be one of the best reels of its size I have so far played with.

Last time I fished with Ian we used whole mackerel presented using a baiting needle with the hook coming out under the chin. Now Ian recommends mackerel head and shoulders hooked through the head. And when these run out, the halves that are left with their tails cut off to reduce spinning in the tide are pressed into service. In his opinion, too many tope were previously being hooked too deeply to get them back into the water totally unscathed. Smaller baits presented this way which are then taken head first increase the likelihood of mouth hook ups, and so it was to prove on the day. We reached the Scares with quite a bit of force still left in the tide. Ian's prediction was that the couple of hours either side of slack water would see the bulk of the action, with a slow hour sandwiched in between at dead slack water. You can't fish the Scars on tides bigger that 8.4 metres and this one was approaching that. His other prediction was ten fish to the boat with each going back full of life and carrying a tag.

Ian is heavily involved in shark tagging, as well as the SOS (Save Our Sharks) pressure group, and the tagging has generated some very interesting results. Several recaptures have been reported, sadly in the main from commercial boats. Most have come from the waters around Britain and Ireland. But three fish in particular stand out from the pack, one of which was re-caught off Portugal, and amazingly the other two in Icelandic waters. Though not tagged, the pollack are subjected to a similar conservation plan with ALL fish taken being returned. This is made abundantly clear at the time of booking. And while it was envisaged that this might result in a drop in bookings, the long term future of the sport would be assured. In reality however, the drop in bookings has not occurred. What has actually happened is that there has been a switch of clientèle with a lot of freshwater anglers, and salmon anglers in particular booking the boat, particularly as Ian has slack eddies he can go to at virtually any stage of the tide allowing good pollack to be taken on the fly. What has only just been realised is that the world record for pollack on the fly stands at 6.1.0. "Onyermarks" best fly caught pollack at the time of writing weighed in at 8.4.0.

Float fishing is another favoured approach for big pollack close into the shore. Best fish in the week of my visit weighed in at 13.3.0, with lots of 8 and 9 pounders in support. This has led to the development of float fishing out around the scares for the tope. This came hot on the heels of good success using the drop back technique for the tope. Despite being top predator in the area, tope can be quite finicky feeders at times. This is particularly true at slack tide when there is little movement in either the water or the bait. For drop back fishing, when the runs start to die away, the leads are constantly down sized to the point where they will touch bottom, but not actually hold. That way the bait can be slowly worked away from the boat in the dying run thereby giving back some of the missing movement that seems to tease finicky tope into a take. Believe me, this can be deadly as was demonstrated on the day. The problem is that even with the lightest of leads, the trick ceases to work over the dead slack period. This is when the Burrett float fishing technique comes into its own.

On goes a large slider float with a knotted mono stopper and a big lead looped onto the hook. As the lead is lowered to the bottom, the stopper is slid back up the reel line until the weight touches bottom. The knot is then left at the rod tip and eventually wound onto the reel. The lead is replaced with bait, and a 3 ounce weight is attached above it to take it down and eventually cock the float. When the stop knot re-appears at the rod tip, it is pushed a couple of feet down the line so that the bait hangs just clear of the bottom. Line is then paid out allowing the wind, any remaining remnants of the tide, and any lift provided by wave action or swell to give both float and bait some movement. At slack water this can be the only way of getting a tope to take and Ian has had plenty of good fish to prove the point, even in 130 feet of water. There is however a popular saying that goes "every dog has its day", but in our case it was every day has its dog, for that was the only fish the float gear managed to tempt for the camera. But to be fair, there had been dropped takes resulting in teeth marked baits previously while there was still some movement left in the water. The fish were simply playing with the baits. Some days it goes like that.

Had it not been for the dropped baits, the prediction of ten good fish tagged and released would have been easily achieved. As it turned out, we tantalizingly missed the actual target by a mere single fish. Fortunately we were not plagued by bait robbers into the bargain, taking just a single dog and a single huss as by-catch. None of the fish weighed in at less than 30 pounds though none topped 40 pounds, which is not a bad average as mid summer tends to produce numbers as opposed to size. If its bigger fish in smaller numbers you are interested in, the backend is the time and the waters off Port Logan over on the other side of the Mull is the place. Let's be totally honest about things. Much as some people might like to have you think otherwise, huge fish are never going to be abundant anywhere. On the Port Logan side catches tend to average out at 3 to 4 fish per day. This said, the "Onyermarks" crews manage more than their fair share of 50 plus specimens each year, culminating in that 88 pound monster mentioned in my opening remarks.

CONTACT DETAILS

Ian Burrett can be contacted on 01776 840346 or
There is also a web site at www.seafishingscotland.co.uk