Sunday 3 July 2011

Lismore and its Northern Skerries

As I was leaving The Island of Shuna and heading towards Lismore, The wind dropped completely and the sea became flat calm. The sun started to shine and I was full of the joys of a beautiful day. I headed over to see the sea life that inhabits the skerries and little islands to the north of Lismore in Loch Linnhe. Care had to be taken as it was still low water and there are a couple of rocks around the skerries that would be hidden just below the surface.



The skerries have names like Eilean Glas, Eilean Gainimh, and Sgeir nan Tom. I don’t speak the Gaelic Language so have no idea what they mean but Im pretty certain Eilean means Island. This is Sgeir nan Tom and I wondered if someone called Tom had wrecked his boat on it to give it the name ?



I was delighted to find a large colony of seal on the skerries. I love watching them but I don’t go close enough to scare them into the water. I use a 200mm telephoto lens to try and get their mug shots but Im still a bit far to get close ups. Not sure if I would love seeing them so much if I managed to see all the warts on their noses though ? Here are just a few of the shots I took.









Eilean Gainimh had a nice looking beach to land on but as the sea birds were perhaps still nesting I decided not to land there.



The fish finder made sure I wasn’t going to hit submerged rocks and I kept around 10 feet of water under my keel.



There were a few gray lag geese around too.





I didn’t bother fishing as I knew I couldn’t match this family of fishers, beside I don’t think I would like to catch one. I suspect it would be quite annoyed and the thought of trying to remove my treble hooks from its mouth worries me. Landing a seal in my little boat is not my idea of fun. I bid them my farewell and headed towards Lismore.

4 comments:

David A said...

Hi Donny, the weather looks fantastic. I will be up in this area next week so a bit of sunshine would be welcome. Hope to do a bit of fishing, kayaking or boating, but everything depends on the weather. How is the fishing coming along.

David A

Donny Wilcox said...

Hi David..yup it was good at Lismore two weeks ago but wow..Saturday and Sunday just past.. was the best yet.. I went 35 miles in sea paradise and it was a millpond the whole way.

Not so good for the fishing though. I caught two mackerel early doors. One was straight into the frying pan while it still wriggled..it was the freshed fish ever cooked .. and tasted great :-D

The other I tried to invest in catching come more fish so it ended up sliced into bait strips. It produced two small codlings and a reasonable pollack, all of which were returned to the sea to be caught another day.

The mackies are now in Loch Fyne Loch Goil and the Clyde..some nice big ones too *yum*

I hope this weather lasts for the weekend and you get a good trip too.. where you thinking of going ?

David A said...

We will be going up to the caravan site at Ledaig. Not sure where I will be paddling as it depends on the weather. However, I will be be fishing from the shore at the site, you get some good spurdog coming in close even though it is shallow.

David A

Donny Wilcox said...

Looks like a nixed weekend ahead David but you have plenty of shelter sea lochs to paddle in the area so spoiled for choice.

Thanks for the tip on the spurries ..I need to try more bait fishing on the bottom. My problem is I get carried away with the scenery and want to see it all rather than sit patient. I need to slow down a notch

Think I will Mackie and Lesser spot the dogs off Inverary this Saturday..assuming it stays dry.

Good luck with your hols :-D
Let me know how the spurdogs go ...