RECOMMENDED
Easy fishing on the edge of the Highlands.
Nestled in the north east of Scotland about an hour’s drive from Inverness, Embo is a small village just a couple of miles away from the small town of Dornoch. At Embo, there is a holiday park called Grannies Helian Hame, which is an ideal base for the holidaying angler. With its safe and clean beaches, it makes an ideal venue to get the kids into a spot of beach fishing as well.
The holiday park is open between the end of March and the middle of October, which coincides with some of the best fishing. Golden sands, stretching for miles, are interspersed with the occasional patch of rock and rougher ground.
One of the great things about this area is that hardly anyone fishes from the shore here. Even in the height of the Highland summer, if you are prepared to walk 20 minutes or so from the car park you will be lucky if you see more than half-a-dozen people all day.
Located on the fringes of the Highlands, the venue experiences a drier and milder climate compared to villages 20 miles further north.
SPECIES GUIDE
The fishing is mainly for flatfish – flounders and dabs with occasional turbot and plaice. A 1lb fish would be a good one, but they make up for it in numbers, and 10 or more fish during a short evening session would be the average.
There are occasional bass caught along this stretch of coast, mainly schoolies. Freshly dug lugworms, if you can get them, would work best for them.
All stages of the tide can fish, but the hot time is usually the two hours either side of low water. Look for the signs of sandbanks and gullies and fish into these. I have found that the flounders like the gullies, but turbot will be on top of the sandbars. Fishing at night with a bit of surf rolling in increases the chance of bass.
TACKLE AND BAIT
Light beachcasters rated to cast 4oz are ample, and even carp rods could be used to lob a 3oz lead and a three-hook flapper the required 30 to 40 yards to locate the fish.
Occasionally, if the surf is running hard, you might need weight more to propel baits over the breakers or to deal with any weed, but rarely have I found it too troublesome.
A fixed-spool reel or multiplier loaded with 12-18lb mono mainline is more than enough. Unless you have to power cast, you can drop your shockleader strength down to 40lb, or even 30lb in very calm conditions.
I keep the main body of my rigs at 60lb breaking strain just as insurance against any abrasion from sand or the occasional rock. A three-hook flapper made with a rig body around 6ft long ensures a spread of baits and scent trail. I use around 20 inches of 20lb Amnesia (clear or red) for my hooklengths. Finish your snood with something like a Kamasan B940 or equivalent in size 4 or 2.
Try the 3oz flat Impact leads, but watch weights work just as well. Only if the surf is pounding will I use a grip lead.
Bait is hard to source this far north, but one of the best is fish strip (mackerel or herring).
This can be purchased from the supermarket in Tain, which is about a 20-minute drive away. I use thin strips off the fillets. It is definitely worth taking some lugworms and sandeels – most of the caravans on the campsite have freezers.
A tripod with a bucket or tray system is ideal here to enable you to move up and down with the tide and keep the essentials to hand. I normally keep scissors, bait elastic and a spare rig, along with enough bait for a few casts, in my tray and the rest stored in my box that I keep a few yards further back from the surf line.
Keeping the rod low on the tripod ensures that all three baits are on or near the sandy bottom. Letting off a bow of line has the same effect, but I normally keep my rod tips low and let off a couple extra yards of line. ■