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Conditions were perfect - it was a hot day and the forecast was for thunder that night. Archie and I launched our boat on the Eastern shore of the Loch and we spent about two hours catching mackerel using hooked feathers so that we would have enough bait to use during the night. We set up camp on the Western Shore as the evening set in. Three foot wire traces at the end of our line loaded onto multiplier reels with 30lb nylon. On the opposite shore a tanker was unloading its cargo of oil at the terminal which pumped the oil all the way across to the Grangemouth refinery. The thunderstorm started as the light went down and we were convinced the tanker would be struck! The midges were swarming and we had built a bonfire after beachcombing all the rubbish from the shore. Standing in the stinking smoke from the burning nylon, plastic and wood was the only way to keep the flies from biting! But the one other creatures biting were the conger. These fish were coming right in shore on the flood tide so we only had to cast thirty or forty yards.
We were landing Conger of 20lbs to 30 lbs and stopped when we had caught about six fish each. It was too dark to unhook the writhing , kicking & squirming fish safely so we had to cut the traces once the fish were safely in a hessian sack. As soon as a fish took the bait and the line was being pulled away, we would wait for about 10 seconds and then strike hard. If you were too soft on the strike, the fish had a chance to hook its tail around a rock and there was no chance of pulling it in.