A RAINY Saturday provided the perfect conditions for landing fish at the resurrected Staffin Angling Competition.
The annual summer contest was hugely popular but went into abeyance in recent years. There was a keen appetite locally for it to return and it was held last Saturday (27.7) through Staffin Community Trust’s Skye Ecomuseum activities programme.
Seven boats with crews headed out to sea from Staffin Slip at 12 noon while there were another half a dozen people, of all ages, fishing from the shore.After the Staffin Flotilla returned at 4pm there was a healthy and varied catch on the slip.
The largest fish caught on the day was a 7lb lithe landed by Iain Matheson and his son, Charlie. The biggest catch was taken home by David Nicolson, Allan MacDonald and Ally MacDonald. There were plenty mackerel and lithe landed on the day and some of the more unusual fish caught included a couple of types of wrasse and an octopus that had attached itself to a weight and was released again soon after.
Food and a barbecue was provided by Caroline Ross’ Black Sheep catering van, away from Kilt Rock for the day to support the community event.
Siobhan Moran from the recently launched Hebridean Whale Trail entertained locals with some interesting specimens from the sea and encouraged visitors to do some wildlife spotting by the shore.
It is hoped that the angling competition will be back on the Staffin community calendar on the last Saturday in July in 2020 as part of Scotland’s Year of Coast and Waters events programme.
Vouchers and trophies were presented for largest fish and biggest catch on the day. Angus Murray, the ecomuseum’s manager, would like to thank everybody who attended and supported the event. He also paid particular mention to Charlie Elder, who was involved in the original angling competition, and was a great organisational help and rallied the troops.