The Needles Eye Is a small rock formation lying a few miles North of Berwick upon Tweed. During the summer months when the water clarity is good the inshore Pollock fishing is un-rivaled. There’s no great numbers of small Pollock like you would find on the West of Scotland but you will find some decent sized fish that can certainly pull your wire.
We set off this morning two hours before HW in a fresh South Westerly. For this venue that’s a good direction as it tends to push you over the reefs at a bit of speed. You can throw your drogues away for this caper, the faster the drift the better. The sea was fairly flat with the remains of a redundant swell from Fridays storms. Brian fancied a bath so chose the wet route on the way out….................
We arrived at the Needles Eye and had to have our statutory paddle through the arch, threading the needle as we call it. Not a big tide today so it was a case of timing it right or running aground…..............
The Pollock were there but they seemed a bit fickle, a bigger tide might have helped, lot’s of plucky takes but unless the lure was traveling at speed they would just turn away. The first fish was soon along side the boat, not huge, possibly in the area of three pound…...........
You can see by the picture above just how clear the water is here. On a calm clear day you can clearly see the kelp wafting in the tide, twenty foot below the surface.
The next fish went to five pounds and that was ear marked for tomorrow night’s dinner….......
A few more missed fish, an ebbing tide and sport started to slow. The last drift came up with the goods though. After a fierce couple of crashing dives I managed to boat the best fish of the day at 8lb 2oz….......
The wind freshened even further so we decided to abort mission and head back down the coast towards Berwick. It was a wet return journey, battering into a 20mph head wind and making slow progress, never the less we had a successful trip and a bit of healthy exercise.
Neil.
