When it comes to fishing around the coast of mainland Britain, the tiny Scottish port of Scrabster is as far north as its possible to be in terms of putting out to sea. This busy little working harbour sits tucked into the north west corner of Thurso bay, the other side of which is marked by Dunnet Head, the most northerly point of the British mainland. On the seaward side of the harbour wall waits one of the most notorious stretches of sea in the northern hemisphere, the Pentland Firth. A place where tide runs of 16 knots have been recorded, as twice daily the North Atlantic forces its way through the gap between Caithness and the Orkney Islands into the North Sea and back. In bad weather conditions, a particularly in-hospitable to be. On the other hand, a venue offering lots of shelter from the prevailing winds in close under the cliffs, and home to vast quantities of cod, pollack and ling, plus some of the biggest and hardest fighting fish on the planet. Yet few English anglers would be able to pin point Scrabster on a map, and even fewer are likely ever to have fished here.

These cool deep waters attract some of the very biggest fish not only in the UK, but the world. Both the current IGFA all tackle world porbeagle shark record of 507 pounds, and the UK halibut record of 234 pounds were taken by Scrabster boats fishing out around Dunnet Head. Numerous IGFA porbeagle line class records also belong to Scrabster. But it's the reliability and productivity of the mixed open ground fishing that attracts most anglers, particularly over the warmer months of the year when the big sharks are thinner on the ground. Good mixed fishing for pollack, cod and ling is available all year round, though late summer see's a better stamp of ling, followed by an influx of bigger cod towards the back end. Big spurdogs, and haddock if you can get through the spurs, are to be found out over the cleaner ground. Good dabs, wrasse and other bits and pieces are also likely to put in some sort of showing on most trips. If it's the specialised sharking fishing you want, then the winter months are the key time. Ironically, that 507 pound porbeagle, and the 414 pound 50 pound line class record were both taken on the same date in March, but one year apart.

Having said all this, when Davy Benson set 'Karen' up for a bait gathering drift under Dunnet head, something down there was obviously spooking the mackerel shoals. Sudden panicking bursts of the things kept appearing on top all around the boat. Then a huge dark shape was spotted just under the surface close to some of the activity. Davy and 'Karens' owner Les Little don't carry the sharking gear until later in the year. So a make shift shark outfit was hastily assembled baited with a big mackerel around 30 feet down. If it was a porbeagle, it unfortunately wasn't having any of it. So it was back to the job at hand - catching fresh mackerel for bait. And what mackerel they were too. Some of them were huge, particularly compared to the little joey's we have been catching for tope baits off Blackpool all summer. They were numerous too, and vital to have if you want to explore the full potential of what Scrabster has to offer. You could fish with lures all day and still catch lots of fish. Pirks, muppets, big Hokkai's and the like will take plenty of pollack and cod. But the ling like their's with a slice of mackerel on the hook. The cod and pollack weren't turning their noses up at it either.

The party that had booked the boat for the weekend had made the journey up from Newcastle. Due to the distance involved, they had come aboard a mini-bus with a driver. I had traveled even further than them, coming up from Lancashire. My journey had taken me a little over 10 hours, which isn't bad. On the other hand, Wick airport is less than 30 miles from Scrabster, so you could always fly. I would even consider taking the dinghy up. I saw small boats out there no more than 5 to 10 minutes from port tucked in around Holborn Head, which is where good numbers of fish were holed up. Launching facilities in the harbour are good, and the digs I stayed in at Murkle about a mile the other side of Thurso had a secure fenced hard standing area to keep the boat on. Not that security is an issue up here like it might be further south. The Geordies have one big trip a year and this was it. Previous trips had included the south coast and Ireland, with Scrabster the first place they had visited that they would most definitely be going back to. I was pretty impressed with the quality of the fishing myself. Particularly the numbers of fish. It reminded me of how the inshore fishing at places such as Whitby, Bridlington and Hartlepool had been when I first started fishing.

My trip coincided with the biggest set of spring tides in over 25 years. On paper at least, not the ideal timing for a venue like the Pentland Firth. But the reality was very different. I expected struggling to keep a decent line angle with huge leads and pirks on braid, and to loose a lot of gear to the bottom. I was pleasantly surprised to find that we were able to get down comfortably with between 12 and 20 ounces, depending on the stage of the tide. I'm sure that light winds also played their part in this by not increasing the drift rate. The hard ground around Holborn Head had between 90 and 110 feet of water over it and wasn't that tackle hungry either, though Dunnet Head was a different story. Most definitely a venue to be taking a good selection of leads and tying them on using weak links to protect the rest of the trace. Hooks need to be spaced out above the lead on short droppers as anything trailing bottom is likely to go to ground. Not that many people bothered tying their own traces up. Over the counter feather and lure rigs baited with mackerel strips were very much the order of the day, though if you specifically wanted to target pollack, which can get well into double figures, then use either a jellyworm or redgill on a flying collar rig, or have a go with the shads.

To illustrate how easy it was at times to get down, and the effectiveness of working a single lure through the water column looking for pollack, Eddie McCarthy decided to set up a fly rod with a small leadhead and jellyworm and enjoyed some real rod bending action. We must also have drifted over patches of sand mixed amongst the predominantly harder stuff as some sizable dabs managed to get down what were quite big hooks and baits by their standards on the bottom droppers. Smaller hooks and baits might have added a few extra species or even surprises to the overall tally, particularly as there are some quite good plaice in the area. But nobody seemed much bothered about that. Edible fish to take home, and big fish for the onboard sweep were the main pre-occupations. Quite a few double figure ling were caught, with the front runner in the sweep continually swapping from person to person over the day which made for plenty of light hearted banter. I can't remember the actual winner now, but it was a ling in the region of 15 pounds. Bigger ling had been taken in the weeks leading up to this trip, along with some double figure cod and some very creditable pollack. In fact, a recent 2 day competition aboard Karen and Hebridean Warrior fishing just 6 hours each day recorded a staggering 656 cod, 377 pollack, and 54 assorted other fish, and that with the second day of the comp restricted to lures only. Worm and shellfish baits however had made a big contribution to the cod tally on day one. And that was fished in winds blowing force 5 to 6 coming off the shore using the cliffs around Dunnet Head for shelter.

With the reputation of this place, and the close proximity of lots of very good fishing, I couldn't help thinking about the prospects for small boat fishing. Trailing for 525 miles isn't something I would relish though. But when you got there it would be every small boat anglers dream come true, particularly following the successes of Graeme Pullen and Padstow Pete porbeagle fishing off the Cornish Coast. Porbeagle's are numerous enough to be a good prospect. I saw dinghies out there. For a fast small boat the grounds would be no more than 5 to 15 minutes away. Facilities are good and there is lots of shelter from any wind that hasn't got north in it. Sharking from a big boat you need a small party all of like mind. From a dinghy you can please yourself. Having said that, I saw some reports in the fishing diary on the Karen web site of anglers being unable to get to the boat because of impassable roads due to heavy winter snow, even though Scrabster itself was snow free. Not so sure about trying for halibut from a small boat either. Not much has been heard about these super-flatties since they first hit the headlines early in my angling career. Then again, nobody targets them. You can actually increase the chance of a halibut hook up as the Norwegians have proved with big lead heads and a coalfish flapper. Live baits would be even better. But would you want such a powerful fish crashing about out of control in the well of a small boat. To prove that it is still possible, a 55 pounder was taken here last year.

Anyway, back to Karen. She's a fully kitted 50 foot MCA coded traditional Scottish fishing boat with a centrally placed wheelhouse extending towards the stern offering all round access and plenty of fishing space for 12 anglers. She also has a galley which is not restricted to feeding and watering the crew. Besides being used for brew making, Davy turned out some extremely welcome sausage barm cakes and hot pies. However, Davy no longer skippers the boat. MV Karen still has a website, so presumably she is still operating. Davy now skippers MV Stormdrift, which from the pictures I have seen, looks identical in size and layout to MV Karen.

SEE THE VIDEO VAULT - Scrabster