They're biting at Shikhovo

After several letdowns with fishing, or more precisely, not being able to get out fishing for one reason or another, I decided to take an evening drive around the nearest city fishing spots, just to soothe my soul, even if only by watching from the sidelines, to enjoy other people's catches and, of course, to scout the situation at one of the most popular fishing spots in Baku - Shikhovo beach.

It was half past eight in the evening and already starting to get dark when I pulled up to the Shikhovo rocks, where more than one generation of Baku folks has spent their time pulling gobies and little kutum out of the water.

I'd barely had time to breathe in the fresh Shikhovo sea air, filled with the aroma of oil and mixed with a bouquet of smells from the nearby ship dock, when one of the fishermen got a bite. He struck sharply and, with the words "Bunu səhərdən elə də!", started reeling in the line on the Neva reel, traditional around here, wrapped to the rod with blue electrical tape.

Only a fisherman will understand what he was feeling at that moment, pulling the fish out of the sea depths - looking away from the sea, muttering something barely audible under his breath and nodding in reply to the question "Gəlir?", his tense, joyful face said it all, and damn it (to put it mildly), if I'd had my bag with my fishing gear with me, I'd have pulled my rods out of the trunk myself and joined the fishermen... A little more and... yes, He caught a fish! Carefully taking the little kutum, sparkling in the last rays of the evening sun, off the hook, he gently put it in a plastic bag and started fixing the bait on the hooks...

Unfortunately, I didn't manage to capture this amazing scene on camera, but the Mission was accomplished - my medicine was found and, having taken effect, eased my urban-fisherman torment, even if only for a short while.
Time to go fishing....

P.S. At Shikhovo, a whole lot of people catch little kutum exclusively on bread.