Around the coastline of Scotland there are wonderful shore and boat available. This covers everything from specimen hunting for skate and shark to extremely serious shore fishing surrounded by wonderful scenery. The boat angler is well catered for with top quality charters available. It can be difficult to choose what area for shore angling as the quality is extremely good all round the coast. On the West coast there are a number of places thaty provide top fantastic fishing that havent seen an angler for years.

Boat Fishing:

25lb to 30lb class boat rods or uptiders with multipliers. Light spinning gear with fixed spool reels, for mackerel, pollock , bass etc. You will terminal tackle to suit the terrain, hook sizes 1/0 up to around 6/0, a main line of 20 - 35lb, mono or wire, and lead weights from 6oz to 2lb should cover most fishing styles.

Wire traces up to 80lb are a must for Tope, spurdog and conger. A selection of artificial baits, jell's, red gills, sand eels should be used, along with all natural baits work well, normally available for the local tackle shops. (See Regions/Retailers)

Shore

A stiff action 6 - 8oz beachcaster for rock marks and a softer 4oz rod for beach areas. depending on the sea bed around you, 15 - 35lb mainline with a 60lb shock leader attached. Hooks size 2, for smaller Flatties ect, with up to 6/0 for the big Cod, Conger and Tope etc. Grip leads are a must in most areas, 4 - 8oz. Fresh Lug/Ragg all year round along with Peeler Crab from late spring onwards. These and all other standard live baits will be available from your local tackle dealers. (See Regions/Retailers).

Regarding clothing. Make sure you have good warm clothing that can be worn on the standard layered system, as the weather can and does change very quickly. Essential are good waterproof clothing. A floatation suit and lifejacket are again essential when boat fishing.

A lot of shore marks can be remote so for safety reasons always leave exact details of where and when you are going.