I was at Stinky Corner this evening watching a number of very substantial fish swirling in the shallows as the tide came rushing into the pools next to the road. They were large - I would estimate 18 inches to two feet long, and looked dark on top, and reddish orange below. The concave nature of the tails would suggest salmon, as would the level of activity in broad daylight - sea trout are mainly nocturnal. Fresh-run salmon are silver however - but the colouration I saw may well have been the colour of the bottom reflected on their bodies.
They made an impressive sight - with their dorsal fins regularly breaking the surface as they made big splashy 'rises' and surging up and down creating big bow waves as they went.
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Sound like mullet to me - I used to spend a great deal of time trying to catch them as a child. Assuming you mean Carnain, this would be a very likely location for them at this time of year (salmon would be nicer of course).
ReplyDeleteThanks for this. I suppose they could have been mullet - but if so they were by far the largest mullet I have ever seen. By far. I did not have polarised sunglasses with me - but could see the shape in the water - and they looked like Salmonidae. I too wasted significant amounts of time trying to tempt estuary mullet as a teenager, but I never saw anything even approaching these. I have never seen mullet on Islay (although friends tell me they have seen them in Loch Gruinart for example), although I used to see them in the wee estuaries feeding Loch Swilly in Ireland which is close to here of course.
ReplyDeleteCheers
Carl