It all started with a plan to catch Ballan Wrasse on lures on Saturday, just out of Plymouth. I decided to have a recce down the Hoe to check water conditions first though, it didnt look good. Lots of choppy waves and coloured water - not ideal conditions for the predominately sight-feeding Ballan. I've also found that Wrasse tend to stay away from the gulleys in rough water, the high risk of being battered against the rocks a big turn off for them. With this in mind I decided to leave it for the next day and watch the hours of Football provided on a Saturday instead.
The next day's weather was much more damp and drizzly, but a lot less windy. A few of us had gone out the night before so were quite significantly hungover but surprisingly up for going fishing. Myself, Ellie, Robbie, Will, his brother Fran, Olly, Shane & my sister Zoe all got in our cars and headed for the spot. Having driven about 30 minutes through the back roads of South Devon we got there only to find it unfishable, racking our slightly fragile brains for ideas, we came to the conclusion that Mount Batten Pier in Plymouth would be a lot more sheltered and if it all went wrong at least there is a pub there! So that was where we headed. We arrived and set up quickly in the drizzle. Some of us trying lures and others trying Ragworm on the bottom for whatever was around. I was trying LRF tactics, using a small texas rig with a piece of imitation Ragworm. I threw it around the rocks in front of me for half an hour but in hindsight I should have tried fishing a lot slower. The guys fishing Rag were getting a few bites from smaller fish and I decided to replace my imitation worm for the real thing. I dropped it into one of the many holes in the rocks below us. Within a minute I had a massive bite (at least it felt massive on my 1-7g rated rod) and the line span off my reel, the drag was set too loose! Whatever it was, had to be a Wrasse, took me under a rock and cut my braid off. I rapidly set up a new rig with a smaller hook and put it back in. Another minute passed and I had a lovely take from a fish, this time I got it in. It was a beautiful little female Corkwring Wrasse, my first of the species. Everyone switched over to smaller hooks and baited jig heads in response. Robbie had a bite and proceeded to pull up a surprise from the water - a bizarre looking Flatfish that he correctly identified as a Topknot. We were all in awe of this bizarre looking fish, not a common catch by any means! Robbie has a canny habit of catching the most unusual species, his lure caught eel in January springs to mind.
So LRF had turned to LBF and was working superbly, I caught two more Corkwrings & a Shanny (Common Blenny). Will Caught two Tompot Blennies & a Corkwring in full stunning Male colouration. Robbie had a little Ballan Wrasse & his Topknot. Ellie had a little Pollock & a Corkwring. Fran had a nice Tompot Blenny and Olly and Shane were far too hungover to really get their heads around the fishing and headed home early.
Light Bait Fishing comes very naturally to us as most of our experience is coarse fishing, finesse fishing is a requirement when targeting the smaller coarse species. It is something that will come in extremely handy in the summer when some of the rarer species move inshore. Hopefully by then I will also have become a little more adept at LRF.
LRF has obviously made the small species significantly more acceptable a target as there were a few people fishing light that day. It was good to see a Father with his two girls fishing for the smaller species, one of the girls caught a nice Wrasse too according to a passer by. When I was much younger I used to catch Shanny's around Looe Harbour with my Grandad, using tiny bits of bacon on size 12 hooks we would have double figure catches in a day. It had a really great effect on me and hopefully for those younger anglers it does too.
Totals after Sunday are:
Ben - 11 Species - Perch, Roach, Rudd, Gudgeon, Common Carp, Roach/Bream Hybrid, Mirror Carp, Pike, Rainbow Trout, Common Blenny & Corkwring Wrasse.
Robbie - 7 Species - Perch, Mirror Carp, Roach, Rudd, Eel, Ballan Wrasse & Topknot
Ellie - 7 Species - Rudd, Roach, Gudgeon, Perch, Pike, Corkwring Wrasse & Pollock
Will - 6 Species - Rudd, Roach, Gudgeon, Pike, Tompot Blenny & Corkwring Wrasse
Olly - 3 Species - Rainbow Trout, Perch & Pike
Phil - 1 Species - Pike (to be fair to him he's barely been fishing)
Thanks as always for reading.
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