One of the many pluses of a multi-species challenge is it mixes up your fishing significantly. One day you are clambering over jagged rocks over a foaming sea and the next you are sat serenely beside a flat calm lake. This story started with the sea...
If you have been reading my blog you will be aware that I have been attempting to grasp the fundamentals of LRF and I made some better progress this week. As has been a theme so far, four of us - Myself, Ellie, Zoe & Olly - decided that since the success of the Light Bait Fishing on Mount Batten earlier in the Month we would try it again. Only this time I was Dropshotting a piece of Marukya Green Isome and the others pieces of Lugworm (no Ragworm available in the Tackle Shop unfortunately). With the sea cloudy and choppy around Mount Batten we decided to try the Barbican Car park near the Sailing Club. It's fantastic parking there and you can pretty much cast from your car, so perfect if the chilly wind proved too much for the girls. Zoe is just starting to get into her fishing and had the most immediate bites, starting what turned out to be an hour long war of attrition with a tiny bait stealing fish, we presumed either a small Blenny or Wrasse. I had the first and what proved to be my only fish, a lovely little Ballan Wrasse, my first of the year and the smallest I've ever caught! It was significant though because it was my first ever fish on Isome worm and a big confidence boost, as great as it is to see pictures and hear of the brilliance of Isome you need to catch on it yourself to get over those last doubts in your head. Zoe persevered with the Lug though and had her first ever Goldsinny Wrasse - in all it's goofy needle teeth and spiky finned glory. We had endless bites but even with size 14 hooks they would not take the bait completely. Not a massive success by any means but a good way to spend a couple of hours.
Whilst I was focusing on the small stuff, Will took his two brothers out to Bake Lakes to catch some Carp. They did exceptionally well, with over 25 fish landed up to around 7lb. Great work considering Will is the only one of them that really calls fishing his hobby. Inexperience did show though when Will's Brother Ellis left his rod unattended to help his son unhook a fish. As can always happen when Carp fishing, the rod shot off and was pulled into the water by a fish! Out of reach it looked like the rod (and fish) were lost when Robbie ran over to save the day. He not only managed to catch the rod with another line, he managed to catch the good sized Common Carp that had dragged the rod in! I'm just gutted I wasn't there to see that as I bet there would have been tears of laughter. Brilliant from the Glassup boys and another two species for Will.
A couple of days later I went out to Wembury Point with Ellie & Zoe to do some rockpooling in the sunshine. With myself & Ellie being massive nature geeks we quite often do this when the weather is good. I find from a fishing perspective it also gives you the best idea of which areas are the richest in fish and the prey items they feed upon. I had an idea though to try a bit of LRF around the shallow gulley's as well, since I knew what abundance of small fish species lived there - Clingfish, Blennies & Gobies are very common residents of the many rockpools that form at low tide. I stopped off at Osborne & Cragg Tackle Shop (superb range of LRF tackle there) and had an argument with a traffic warden. Good start, I was parked illegally but he didn't have to be such a sanctimonious dick about it! Excuse my language. Just escaping a ticket we made our way to Wembury. I didn't have any luck on the rod but the rockpooling proved very distracting. We found a fantastic array of species, the highlights being Pipefish, Rockling, a giant Velvet Swimming Crab & a couple of Squat Lobsters. Hungry and escaping the now incoming tide we made our way to The Mount Batten Pub, they serve decent portions of chips there and not a bad selection of beers & ales. Refreshed I couldn't resist a cast off the pier. I'm glad I did as my first ever Tompot Blenny took my piece of Green XL Isome. Only stopping briefly I didn't manage another, not that I minded too much.
Soon it was my turn to fish Bake Lakes again, with Ellie & Olly in tow. The weather turned out to be beautiful once the afternoon came around. We arrived and greeted Robbie who was helping to lay the last few bits of gravel down around the new Specimen Carp Lake - Caesar's Palace, which opens soon. Unable to fish with us Robbie continued his work and we made our way down to Luxor. Deciding on fishing the shallower end of the lake where the fish tend to be when it warms up. The fish were jumping everywhere around us and it just felt like it was going to be a great session and it began in ridiculous fashion. With Olly not having fished with a light float set up before I helped him. I dropped the float into the water in front of us to check it was weighted correctly and as I lifted it out of the water I hooked a Carp! Now the set up Olly was using was light and only had a very cheap and tiny Fladen 100 reel loaded with 6lb line, it was lucky I had set the drag correctly as the fish shot off. It fought like a demon and took me 10 minutes to get it in. Ellie couldn't believe it and was bemoaning my jammy luck. I could hardly believe it either! When it finally was on the bank I could see I had hooked it in the cheek near its mouth, poor thing. Unhooked it swam back calmly with only a bruised ego and a sore cheek as evidence of its capture. It was a bizarre start and set a standard for the afternoon. Olly spent most of it pulling out endless Rudd of all sizes on Red Maggot, I seemed to get a run from Carp no matter where I put my Boilie, one even taking it before I even had a chance to place it on the Bait Alarm! Ellie & Olly moved onto the Carp Fishing also and had a lovely double hook-up which made for a great photo. The funniest thing happened again to me though, as true to form I completely stacked it whilst running to get my rod as the alarm went off. I slipped over, landed on my back but managed to play the fish from the ground, with Ellie and Olly laughing at me of course! I gathered my composure and landed my biggest fish of the year so far, a Mirror Carp that had the length of a 5lb fish but twice the girth of one. It tipped the scales at just over 10lb and is probably the most pudding-like fish I have ever caught. Boilies & pellets are obviously no good for the figure. Covered in mud and slime I was a happy angler. After that debacle I left the bait alarms and strong rods to my accomplices. I had another technique on my mind and a burning question. Could I catch a Carp on my LRF set up? I set up a short Dropshot rig with a barbless size 12 hook threaded with a whole small pink isome worm. Baiting up a shallow area with pellets and maggots I soon had a frenzy of Carp and smaller species feeding in front of me. gently I lowered my set up into the now cloudy water and felt for bites, they were instantaneous from the small fish plucking at the imitation worm, but I had larger targets. If you have ever felt was a Carp bite feels like on 7lb braid you know what I experienced, if you haven't you should get out there and try it. I struck into a freight train, my Shakespeare Agility Series Reel spinning furiously as the fish did its best impression of a motor vehicle. I spent the first five minutes just trying to stop the fish from darting around the island in front of me, the next five minutes were spent slowly getting it to the bank. Finally in the landing net, a beautiful fin-perfect Common Carp, a modest 4-5lbs but a stunning display of strength. I placed him back and managed to land one more Carp, Two Gudgeon and a Rudd all on LRF tackle before it was time to go home. Probably my favourite day's fishing this year so far.
Totals after that are:
Ben - 13 Species - Perch, Roach, Rudd, Gudgeon, Common Carp, Roach/Bream Hybrid, Mirror Carp, Pike, Rainbow Trout, Common Blenny, Corkwring Wrasse, Ballan Wrasse & Tompot Blenny.
Robbie - 8 Species - Perch, Mirror Carp, Common Carp, Roach, Rudd, Eel, Ballan Wrasse & Topknot
Ellie - 8 Species - Rudd, Roach, Gudgeon, Mirror Carp, Perch, Pike, Corkwring Wrasse & Pollock
Will - 8 Species - Rudd, Roach, Gudgeon, Pike, Mirror Carp, Common Carp, Tompot Blenny & Corkwring Wrasse
Olly - 7 Species - Rainbow Trout, Rudd, Roach, Mirror Carp, Common Carp, Perch & Pike
Zoe - 2 Species - Pike & Goldsinny Wrasse
Phil - 1 Species - Pike (to be fair to him he's barely been fishing)
