Light Metal Fishing

There are few types of lure fishing that feel as simple and pure as spinning with metals. The act of casting out a shiny thing with hooks in it, yet somehow persuading a fish it's food, has fascinated anglers for generations. In the end it's a piece of metal: no frills, no scent, just a fish catcher. But that's not always the case is it? There's so much more to the world of jigging and that's what's had me fascinated recently.

The ol' stinky snake! Tempted by a Majorcraft Jigpara.

As with every fishing technique, I'm no expert and that's always a pretty fun position to be in. You can never stop learning and the finish line should always be moving further away from you, all the time setting new goals. My first experience with lures was with a small spinner, targeting perch. We would catch hundreds of little 'stripeys' on my local river as a kid. It kicked off a love affair of fishing with artificials; although I couldn't have guessed how intense that love would get in my adult years! Since then I have gone from dabbling with lures to being completely obsessed, as you can probably guess if you have read any of my blogs over the years.

Schoolies are great admirers of all things shiny.

That brings me to metals, being a keen LRF'er I'm mostly talking about small, metal shore casting jigs up to around 7 grams. These range from cheap £1.50 Dexter Wedges to over £7 for something by Shimano or Xesta. Now what you fish with is your business, unfortunately my inner tackle tart is easily tempted and ouch, my bank balance does feel the burn! Do more expensive lures catch you more fish? Probably not but they sure are pretty. I digress though, the point of this little blog isn't to persuade you to buy fancy lures, it's to talk about the different techniques I enjoy and the variety of fish species I catch on them.

The scad were everywhere that evening, smashing the lures on the drop.

Probably my most successful, is also the simplest: the cast and retrieve. By this I mean casting out your lure, letting it sink to the required depth and straight retrieving it back with pauses and lots of twitches. There are few pelagic fish that will ignore a metal whizzing past their face seductively. As with pretty much all my spinning (I use that as a blanket term for fishing with metal lures but it's not my favourite), I prefer not to use a solid tip rod as I get far more action from a tubular model.

When you think metals, you can't help but think mackerel. I just can't understand why you would ever use feathers to catch these incredible fish.

The next is the classic sink and draw. This where you cast out, let the lure sink, then reel in the slack, then let it sink again, reeling in the slack and repeating, lifting the rod as you retrieve. This provides bites on 'the drop'; essentially as the lure flutters down a fish snaps it up. This can be a killer with species like scad and mackerel. For garfish, I like to use a shallower, slower version of this where I don't let it sink as long, so it's constantly fluttering up and down on the retrieve. They will hit it on the drop and hopefully you lift into the fish and strike, in theory...

Assist hooks can boost your catch rates, especially when scad are hitting the lures on the drop.

By far my favourite though, mainly because I don't get to do it that often, is the 'bounce along the bottom'. This is so simple and is just as it reads. You find a mark that is pretty snag free, let the metal hit the bottom then either straight retrieve it across the sand, hopefully leaving an intriguing dust trail in your wake. Or, even better, add jumps, pauses and twitches to this, bouncing it up so predators can see it flutter back to the bottom. Little flatties cant resist this technique and you will likely catch other sand dwellers like gurnards too.

Little turbot are as pretty as they are ravenous. Use small skinny metals for these guys.

This is all nothing new, but it hopefully might inspire you to cast out a metal or two next time you are out. As we move into October and November, the fishing can be slightly harder but the fish tend to be bigger; and those big fish love to be tricked into munching a piece of shiny steel.

My fishing buddy Richard Salter (check out his YouTube channel HERE) caught this lovely tub gurnard on a cheap 6 gram Fladen Mini Jig, just going to show you don't need the expensive lures to catch beautiful fish.

If you want a little more information, check out this video made by Weymouth LRF wizard Andy Mytton. It covers a lot of really interesting techniques and tackle.

For anybody interested, my recommended LRF metals would be, in no order:

Majorcraft Jigpara Micro Jigs in regular and slim

Shimana Soare TG ACE

Xesta After Burner Mini

HTO Fugitive

&

The classic Dexter Wedge

.


As always thanks for reading and check out my Facebook and Instagram pages if you haven't already, search benbassettfishing.

Back To School

On Tuesday night I had an impulsive drive to go fishing. The kind of impulse it would be foolish to ignore, especially with the knowledge that a few of the regular LRF faithful were out too. There had been lots of talk of schoolie bass around recently and I didn't want to miss out. What followed was about the best fun you can have in a hour with your clothes on, topped up with excellent banter and some wise teachings by our very own LRF Gandalf, otherwise known as Maurice!

I'm not ashamed to admit when I'm cashing in on other people's hard work, the guy's had already put the graft in that night and found the fish. A quick message to Joe had confirmed everyone had caught so far and I was welcome to join. No self respecting angler can refuse that offer. I arrived to find that Simon, Kieran and Maurice were there too, which was a pleasant surprise. After five minutes of catching up and spinning the yarn it was time to get to business.

I've recently bought a couple of packs of the two inch Crazy Fish Vibro Worms and I was eager to try them. Mounting one on a three gram Savage Gear Darting Jighead it looked excellent in the water. Using a bright luminescent yellow colour I was very confident I'd at least get hits. It's worth saying how fantastic this range of lures are, they are heavily scented with squid, are ultra soft and have an incredible movement through the water. I can't recommend them enough.

My first few exploratory casts were near Joe and he managed three fish in just a few minutes. It was great to hear his drag start screaming off as these spirited little bass ran off. I had a couple of hits but missed them, to be honest I was paying too much attention to Joe's escapades. It was obvious the fish were stalking about underneath the pontoon and boats in front of us, accurate casts near these features were producing hits regularly. Finally a cast produced a fantastic run of my own, the fish aggressively trying to shake the lure out. Fishing in fairly shallow water meant it could only do one thing - run. This led to lots of line being taken for such a modest fish. Joe had also managed to hook one at the same time as mine. We landed them both together, creating a great photo opportunity and one of my favourite photos I've taken this year,

The fishing really took off from there, every few casts brought a fish in a hectic twenty minute spell. With the right setting on the drag you can get such an entertaining fight from these fish. The takes were quite interesting too, you would feel more of a weight then a classic bass smack. I presume this is because of the slow retrieve and the fish engulfing the lure in it's large mouth, so that by the time you feel the hit the fish is almost already hooked. By the time Simon came along to join us I had had ten. Unfortunately his arrival seemed to lead to all the fish disappearing, something we took great pleasure in letting him know! We moved back down to where Maurice and Kieran were to find the fish.

Maurice was still catching fairly consistently, it was time for us to go to school and listen to his teachings! His theory is that, just like fly fishing at night, you use a dark lure for dark skies and a bright lure for (you guessed it) bright skies. Simon had changed over to a darker lure on this advice and quickly caught a fish. Never argue with the LRF wizard! Although I had my final fish of the night on my bright Vibro Worm, probably just going to prove that schoolie bass will smash anything given the chance!

Overall I was only out for just over an hour and a half, catching eleven schoolie bass, all averaging around a pound. It was excellent sport in great company, definitely whetting my appetite for the upcoming LRF competition.

Enjoy your fishing everyone and thank you so much for reading, apologies for the lack of photos on this one. Night time fishing and quality photos are not great bedfellows!

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Bream's Do Come True

Social media is a famously double edged sword, it's fantastic connectivity being used to both bring people together and tear people apart. This post (luckily enough) is about the more positive side of the internet and how it can bring like minded people together.

You might have seen me mention the Plymouth LRF group page on here before, if you are unaware of it then its a page on Facebook that originally started off as an LRF page for the Plymouth area (of course), it then morphed into something a lot more broad and its membership is now nationwide. Will added me to the group and it has been a source of great knowledge and inspiration ever since, a lot of the members being very forthcoming in advice. For someone like me trying to catch as many species as possible it's been a godsend, my experience of sea fishing before this year was almost completely based on wrasse and the occasional mullet, so with the wealth of information available from this group I have grown much more confident and understanding of certain elements of sea fishing, particularly LRF. There is still lots to learn as always though, that's why we love fishing. Another benefit of this group is connecting with like minded anglers and actually going fishing with them. I was approached on Instagram by Adam Morris, a guy I had seen a lot on the Facebook page and knew was having a species competition of his own. He lives in Exmouth and wanted to give the Plymouth area a go, he seemed like someone on my wavelength and I hardly need any excuse to fish more! So we arranged a meet and I agreed to find him his first goby species.

We met up at Marsh Mills roundabout and headed off to Heybrook Bay. I knew a couple of spots there where giant gobies are plentiful. Adam wanted to catch one as he had never caught any type of goby before. Giants are actually very rare across the UK and we are very lucky to have them so near to Plymouth, though the average size is quite small there are the occasional brutes of nearly thirty centimetres. We arrived and made our way to the spot. In conversation I found out that Adam has only been fishing properly this year and in that time has caught over 30 species of Sea fish, he is a self confessed fishing addict, something I can certainly understand. We set up and using small pieces of Isome and Ecogear grubs we quickly had our gobies, that spot is definitely reliable! With the tide receding we had a chance to fish the gulleys on the large rock formation in front of us, access to it normally being blocked by the tide. Fishing there I had a couple of good sized corkwring (possibly my biggest of the year) and a ballan of around a pound and a half. We fished around the area then it was time to move. Mount Batten was next, although with the tide still low it was only Shanny's that wanted to bite. So off we went to Millbay, I knew it was where we'd most likely get the greatest variety of species. I moved on to my trusted baited spinner technique and had the usual mix of wrasse species, mackerel and gobies, nothing new though. Adam had a better run of it, fishing dropshot, he caught his first rock goby and goldsinny plus quite a few ballan wrasse. We moved around as the sun started setting and the mackerel were going crazy on the other side, we watched and tried to tempt them but they weren't being as forthcoming as usual, though Adam managed to land a nice schoolie and a monster scad, a fish that was definitely on my wish list. Unfortunately I didn't get one but I was happy with Adam's results and a decent haul of over 10 species that day.

My next trip was a short one with Ellie after work, it was more of an excuse to get out on the rocks in the sunshine than fishing to be honest, but ballans and blennies never fail to put a smile on your face.

If my previous trip was a pleasurable jaunt, my next was much more eventful. I had seen a spot in the Yealm estuary that was full of mullet so Me, Olly and Robbie thought we'd give it a go, with Adam once again joining us later. We had gone too early though and the tide was much too far out, even walking far down the estuary we couldn't find the incoming tide, we had arrived too early. It was difficult and muddy work, so we decided to climb up into the woods above us to find a path back. During this walk through the woods we came across a buzzard on the ground. Unable to fly it was limping around and I knew it was surely fox food, I couldn't have that. So using the net and my hoodie we caught it and I managed to walk it back the (quite considerable) distance to my car. By this time Adam had arrived and was obviously a little thrown by the circumstances. Calling a vet we found out they would take it and heal it if possible, so we headed there. It was during this time I could really appreciate what an awesome bird it was, it's sharp claws and powerful beak deserving respect. Arriving at the vets Olly had to leave for work, so me, Robbie and Adam left the buzzard with the vets and went to Millbay again as it was closest. I later received a call informing me that the bird wasn't too badly injured and would be healed in the Raptor Rehabilitation Centre near Newton Abbot, which was amazing news. We set up as usual and Robbie caught his first corkwring of the year, Adam caught a mackerel and a black goby, his first ever. Quite a few tiny whiting also started making an appearance too, they are always very welcome. Robbie had to leave for work after an hour though so it was time for a new mark. Adam wanted to fish the Tamar so that's where we headed. It really was a great choice. The spot we fished produced countless mackerel, a couple of pound-plus wrasse and a lovely schoolie bass of around two pound for me, the fish taking a Savage Gear Mini Sandeel right beneath my feet in crystal clear water! It was fantastic and the fight a bass can produce when the current is pushing hard is epic. The best fish though was caught by Adam. His 'sleeper rod', set up with ragworm legered on the bottom, started bouncing manically and it was clear a good fish was on the line. I've never seen a man move so quick as he handed me his LRF rod and leapt towards the frantically bending one in front of him. We waited in anticipation as the fish drew nearer. What would it be? A flash of red shot threw the blue water, 'it's a bream!' we both exclaimed in unison. Thirty seconds later it was in the net. Neither of us had seen one in the flesh before, it was such an exotic looking beauty, a couches bream. The colour's are exceptional on these fish, pinky red, with light blue spots and stripes, they look so out of place in our waters. We got the required photographs and returned it to the sea. That fish capping off a fine session and ending a more unusual day.

I had a couple of short sessions after that, I find summer so full of opportunity that any chance to get out I will, even if its only for an hour or two. This led me to catching a beautiful little brown trout, pretty much on Seaton beach, where the river meets the beach and is still fairly deep and fresh. Using a split shot rig with a tiny piece of isome (my weapon for catching all the truly mini-species), I had to contend with an audience, quite a few bushes and very spooky trout! But eventually I got my fish, a perfect little red-spotted brownie, then headed swiftly to work.

A couple of days later I tried again on the Tamar for a bream but only caught a ballan wrasse of around a pound, not content with that I drove up to Milemead Fishery near Tavistock. I fished their heavily stocked 'mini match' water in hope of a tench. Though the tench wouldn't play I caught a lot of small carp, bream, roach, rudd and a new species for me, a koi carp. I know that the carp strains are not truly different species but for the purpose of the challenge, they are. Though it was a lovely day's fishing, it was a bit frustrating to not catch a tench again, considering I've never struggled to catch them in the past.

I spent the next couple of nights chasing scad (or horse mackerel) in the dark after work. It was quite eventful mainly because, due to some kids fooling around near the entrance of the marina, fishing had been banned at Millbay. It was a strange experience being kicked out of the marina for fishing, by a security guard who'd been employed purely for that purpose. Though I was annoyed I carried on round the other side and caught mackerel, pollock, a schoolie and my target fish... the scad! A decent haul in the darkness, knowing scad love a bit of light on the water in the dark, I fished near a streetlight and it paid off handsomely.
Olly and his girlfriend Louise wanted to try it themselves so the next night I picked them up after work and we went down to the same spot. The same species made an appearance and we all caught scad, which was a new species for Olly too.

After being at a festival all bank holiday weekend, me and Ellie were invited on a boat trip with Adam out of Lyme Regis, unfortunately the festival had bankrupted us and we couldn't afford it, though we were both still very fragile and perhaps a boat wouldn't have been a good idea! So instead we had a couple of hours LRF'ing around Plymouth, Mount Batten producing a giant tompot blenny for Ellie and just shanny's for me, then at the Barbican (Ellie feeling quite ill at this point so wasn't fishing) I caught my first little pouting of the year, in front of quite a large audience - I think they were expecting a larger fish! We left shortly after as the results of our weekend exploits got the better of us.

And finally... (Apologies for the length of this post, between work, fishing and festivals I really haven't had time to write!)

My boss Dan is a keen fishermen but rarely gets the time to indulge himself, so I agreed to take him out on an evening. I still really wanted a bream so took him to the same spot as before. The tide can be brutally strong through there so I invested in some gripper leads and a heavier set up. I use an old carp rod for most of my heavier bait fishing from the shore, knowing it will happily cast three ounces without complaining, yet still provide decent bait indication. Baiting a size six long shank hook with a small whole ragworm I felt confident. I cast that out about sixty yards and left it to do its work. During this time I introduced Dan to the world of LRF, he was getting lots of bites on Isome but I think they were finicky goldsinny wrasse, as they wouldn't hook up. We switched over to the mini sandeel lures to see if we could get a mackerel or bass. During this time three other anglers turned up, they were a decent group of guys who were after bass. I recast my heavier set up and within a minute the rod was pulling round, I am not over-exaggerating when I say it looked like I had a decent carp on the end! Excited I ran to the rod and connected with the fish, though the gear was heavy you could feel the power of the fish even though I could tell it wasn't large. I was over the moon when it revealed itself to be my target fish - a couches bream. I got the pictures and then rested it in the net so it could recover, admiring this tropical looking fish as it got its breath back in the water. I find it's so important to do this, fish get caught in strong currents and in their weakened state easily die, its crucial if you're intending to release your fish that you care for them. After it was clearly back to its best, I released it out of the net and watched it swim back into the depths. Although small, definitely one of my favourite fish I've caught all year and my forty second species. I had one small wrasse after that and nothing else. I offered to take Dan to a different spot but we were both hungry so went for food and a celebratory pint instead.

Totals after that are:

Ben - 42 Species - Perch, Roach, Gudgeon, Rudd, Bream/Roach hybrid, Mirror Carp, Pike, Rainbow Trout, Common Blenny, Corkwring Wrasse, Tompot Blenny, Ballan Wrasse, Rock Goby, Common Carp, Ghost Carp, Black Goby, Pollock, Goldsinny Wrasse, Golden Rudd, Golden Orfe, Blue Orfe, Golden Tench, Crucian Carp, Sand Smelt, Giant Goby, Long Spined Sea Scorpion, Lesser-Spotted Dogfish, Bull Huss, European Eel, Topknot, Common Minnow, Three Spined Stickleback, Sea Bass, Mackerel, Bronze Bream, Whiting, Dragonet, Brown Trout, Koi Carp, Scad, Pouting & Couches Bream

Olly - 26 Species - Perch, Rainbow Trout, Pike, Rudd, Roach, Mirror Carp, Common Carp, Pollock, Ballan Wrasse, Goldsinny Wrasse, Common Blenny, Shore Rockling, Corkwring Wrasse, Golden Rudd, Blue Orfe, Golden Tench, Sea Bass, Giant Goby, Bull Huss, Gudgeon, Crucian Carp, European Eel, Ghost Carp, Poor Cod, Mackerel & Scad

Ellie - 25 Species - Golden Rudd, Rudd, Roach, Gudgeon, Perch, Pike, Corkwring Wrasse, Pollock, Mirror Carp, Ghost Carp, Black Goby, Tompot Blenny, Long Spined Sea Scorpion, Ballan Wrasse, Common Blenny, Golden Tench, Golden Orfe, Bronze Bream, Crucian Carp, Common Carp, Giant Goby, Bull Huss, Three Spined Stickleback, Mackerel & Sea Bass

Will - 14 Species - Rudd, Roach, Gudgeon, Pike, Tompot Blenny, Corkwring Wrasse, Common Carp, Mirror Carp, Common Goby, Ballan Wrasse, Dogfish, Golden Rudd, Golden Tench & Golden Orfe

Shane - 14 Species - Rudd, Roach/Bream Hybrid, Crucian Carp, Pollock, Shore Rockling, Common Carp, Mirror Carp, Roach, Bull Huss, Lesser-Spotted Dogfish, Corkwring Wrasse, Common Blenny, Mackerel & Giant Goby

Robbie - 13 Species - Perch, Mirror Carp, Roach, Rudd, Eel, Ballan Wrasse, Topknot, Crucian Carp, Common Carp, Golden Rudd, Blue Orfe, Pollock & Mackerel

Head over to www.fishingtails.co.uk for quality articles and fishing reports.

As always, thanks for reading

Leicester Pike & Plymouth Dragons

I have chosen recently to wind myself up targeting mullet again. It's like winding back to my teenage years, chasing girls who I know in the end will just reject me, it's bloody agonising! I will get the better of these fish eventually, but I'm not expecting miracles. Luckily enough I have had some small successes targeting other species too, which keeps the spirits up. This post is about them.

Ellie is originally from Leicestershire and last Thursday I finally got to meet her extended family. We had set aside a day to try some fishing too, targeting zander and pike. Staying in Hinckley, I found out that the Ashby Canal nearby was free fishing and had a population of 'zeds', so figured it was worth a try. We soon learned why it was free fishing, the canal is the colour of rich brown soup, churned up constantly by boat traffic. We didn't feel confident. After blanking for two hours in a couple of different spots we left it and had some lunch with Ellie's grandparents instead. A much more worthwhile endeavour.
After more entertaining family greetings (and fantastic home made indian food!), we decided to give a stretch of the the River Soar in the east of Leicester a go (after asking advice in a local tackle shop, always a good idea when you don't know the area). It was early evening and if there was any time we could potentially get a zander it was then. We arrived at a very inviting stretch, where a marina inlet caused a fork in the river. Though it was weedy it looked like a great fish holding area, and so it proved to be. I was using my LRF gear, casting a five gram jig head with a Crazy Fish Vibro Worm in peach and custard colours, it looked fantastic in the clear water. On my third retrieve I saw a pike miss my lure then snatch it at the second attempt. It went off like a rocket, diving in and out of the weeds, taking line. I've had pike on light tackle before but, even though this wasn't a large fish, it pulled like few pike I've ever had the pleasure of hooking. After about a minute of adrenaline fuelled action it was in the net, at between three to four pounds, not a monster, but certainly my favourite pike of the year so far. The funniest part was, in Ellie's excitement to get the net, she had reeled in her rod quickly and netted my fish, it was only when we put the fish on the landing mat, that she realised she had caught a pike too! On the end of her plug was a pike only just bigger than it, she quickly put it back in the water, feeling terrible she hadn't realised she had hooked it. We got the pictures of both though and they swam away fine, we both laughed at how we had a double hook-up without even realising it! After that entertaining start we were hoping for more, but as is often the way in fishing, those proved to be the only fish of the evening. We didn't mind though, we were truly knackered after a long day and headed back to the hotel in fine spirits.

I certainly would like to try around the Leicester area again, it has some fantastic fishing available, but money, time and the reality of a full time job are always against me unfortunately, but I was happy with the result of a cumulative of three hours fishing that day.

My next trip was after those dastardly mullet again. I know there's probably somebody reading this who's really adept at catching mullet of both types, I'm not there yet, but with all this practice I hope to soon be. One thing I've taken away from it so far is location is everything, spinning for thin lips is much easier if you can see the groups of them and is in slightly deeper water, where they are more confident. Whilst thick lips just require patience and a large amount of groundbait.
Ellie has been desperate to catch a schoolie bass, not even a big one, just a schoolie, apparently she just loves the name. I knew exactly where to take her, Kingsbridge. It turned out to be a good idea, as baited spinners proved lethal for them, Ellie caught one on her first cast and as the tide came in we must of had nearly forty by the end. Only tiny fish really, but it ticked off the schoolie bass for her and it was great fun, even if the strong winds made casting sometimes very difficult. I also managed to hook a thick lipped mullet in the back accidentally in the shallows, it then did its best impression of a bonefish as it shot off, I managed to get it in eventually but as I reached for it in the mud, it snapped my line! Completely my own fault, I left my net with Ellie and rushed it, at least I could feel better that the hook was barbless and would easily fall out of the fish. I cursed myself for being an impatient idiot though, a rush of blood to the head happens to everyone at some point I suppose. Catching bass after bass got a little monotonous in the end and we had one last try at the top of the creek, where I watched a large thin lip bite the end of my ragworm but miss the hook... After a couple more bass giving me false hope, I decided I had tortured myself enough and it was time to head home.

A couple of days later I fancied winding myself up some more. I figured Tamerton Creek in Tamerton Foliot could have some potential for mullet. I arrived near high tide to find the place pretty much deserted, only a few small fish cruising around. I float fished some bread for a while but realised I was wasting my time, somewhere else had to be more fruitful. Millbay would be my next target, usually there are hundreds of mullet there. When I got there though I couldn't see one! These fish don't play by any rules. There were quite a few anglers about float fishing and chucking feathers and I figured I could always try on the bottom for a flatfish or gurnard. I had a spinner set up for mullet just in case and a few ragworm (that mostly were a little too big for the tactic), so I decided to try along the bottom, using the spinner as an attractant for the trailing live ragworm. Finding a quiet spot I quickly caught two hard fighting pollock, no great size but they really go well on LRF tackle. A young lad came along asking for advice so I stopped for a bit to help him out, he was after mackerel, he only stayed for about fifteen minutes though and as soon as he left they arrived! Baitfish leaping clear of the water as they chased them to the surface. I cast to them and immediately had a fish on, only a small one but I love the way they zip around even at that size. Unfortunately with the mackerel there it didn't take long for the feather chuckers to start casting over my head, a couple of them were pretty decent guys who were very interested in the technique I was using, but another seemed to be trying his best to stamp all over my gear, which as you can imagine got annoying quick. He soon left though and the other guys stuck around with some decent conversation. I was very slowly dragging the spinner along the bottom, stopping occasionally. It really worked well and I had a fish nearly every cast including a couple of new ones for me, The usual suspects were there, pollock , rock goby, and ballan wrasse, but some surprised me like a small silver eel (luckily it was easy to unhook), a couple of small whiting (which I was completely unexpecting) and a fish I have been trying to catch for a while now, a dragonet. When I caught the dragonet I probably looked quite silly in front of the guys, getting very excited about such a small unassuming fish, but after targeting them a couple of times I had caught one, which felt great. It had turned out to be a very productive hour or so, seven species, still no mullet, but there's always next time.

Totals after that are:

Ben - 37 Species - Perch, Roach, Gudgeon, Rudd, Bream/Roach hybrid, Mirror Carp, Pike, Rainbow Trout, Common Blenny, Corkwring Wrasse, Tompot Blenny, Ballan Wrasse, Rock Goby, Common Carp, Ghost Carp, Black Goby, Pollock, Goldsinny Wrasse, Golden Rudd, Golden Orfe, Blue Orfe, Golden Tench, Crucian Carp, Sand Smelt, Giant Goby, Long Spined Sea Scorpion, Lesser-Spotted Dogfish, Bull Huss, European Eel, Topknot, Common Minnow, Three Spined Stickleback, Sea Bass, Mackerel, Bronze Bream, Whiting & Dragonet

Olly - 25 Species - Perch, Rainbow Trout, Pike, Rudd, Roach, Mirror Carp, Common Carp, Pollock, Ballan Wrasse, Goldsinny Wrasse, Common Blenny, Shore Rockling, Corkwring Wrasse, Golden Rudd, Blue Orfe, Golden Tench, Sea Bass, Giant Goby, Bull Huss, Gudgeon, Crucian Carp, European Eel, Ghost Carp, Poor Cod & Mackerel

Ellie - 25 Species - Golden Rudd, Rudd, Roach, Gudgeon, Perch, Pike, Corkwring Wrasse, Pollock, Mirror Carp, Ghost Carp, Black Goby, Tompot Blenny, Long Spined Sea Scorpion, Ballan Wrasse, Common Blenny, Golden Tench, Golden Orfe, Bronze Bream, Crucian Carp, Common Carp, Giant Goby, Bull Huss, Three Spined Stickleback, Mackerel & Sea Bass

Will - 14 Species - Rudd, Roach, Gudgeon, Pike, Tompot Blenny, Corkwring Wrasse, Common Carp, Mirror Carp, Common Goby, Ballan Wrasse, Dogfish, Golden Rudd, Golden Tench & Golden Orfe

Shane - 14 Species - Rudd, Roach/Bream Hybrid, Crucian Carp, Pollock, Shore Rockling, Common Carp, Mirror Carp, Roach, Bull Huss, Lesser-Spotted Dogfish, Corkwring Wrasse, Common Blenny, Mackerel & Giant Goby

Robbie - 13 Species - Perch, Mirror Carp, Roach, Rudd, Eel, Ballan Wrasse, Topknot, Crucian Carp, Common Carp, Golden Rudd, Blue Orfe, Pollock & Mackerel

Head over to www.fishingtails.co.uk for quality articles and fishing reports.

As always, thanks for reading.

Return Of The Mac

Since my last post I've been lucky to experience some incredibly fun fishing, as always it's not all been smooth sailing, but with mackerel here in vast numbers and schoolie bass plentiful, I can't remember when I last blanked, and as all fishermen know, that is a huge weight off your shoulders.

When it comes to blanking and frustration, there is one fish species that comes to mind... Mullet. They are famously difficult to catch and I would love to say I got the better of one this week, but I didn't. Though it did lead to me catching my first few bass of the year.
Thin-lipped are the much more forgiving of our two common mullet species, they don't grow as large as thick-lips but they will take spinners baited with ragworm or isome. I had heard and read that they can be quite forthcoming on this technique so had to give it a try. After asking around Facebook, a fellow angler called Adam Sharp told me there were plenty of them in Kingsbridge, he was also so sure I wouldn't catch one he wagered £100! With money like that on the table it would be rude not to try, so I finished work and drove the 45 minutes to Kingsbridge. Although the harbour looked inviting, I had my eye on a spot around the corner on a different inlet, it was shallow but absolutely stacked with fish. I don't think I've ever seen so many fish in one place, which makes my inability to catch a mullet all the more ridiculous. I was fishing a modified spinner with a 6 inch trace of fluorocarbon, with a size 12 hook, using isome as the trailer bait. Within five minutes I had a thin-lip on! I saw the flash of the fish sideways as it shook the hook, an annoying but promising start. I had numerous follows but couldn't get another. I did have 9 tiny bass though and lost about 10 more too, they were really pre-school bass, but I didn't mind, they saved the blank and were a new species for me. I knew I had to try again though for those frustrating mullet.
A couple of days later myself and Dad had a joint day off, due some Father-Son time we decided to try again in Kingsbridge. The tide was later in the day so we stopped off for some food first at the Crabshell, fully recommend that place, the fish was superb. Full and ready to go we watched the tide come in up the inlet, with fish topping everywhere. Dad was first to catch, the expected toddler bass. He lost a couple more before I got one, we caught another one each as the tide came in fast around us. I had another set-up with bread for the Thick-lips too, though as usual I couldn't get a bite from them! What had started quite promisingly had petered out a bit really, I regretted not buying some ragworm, isome was fine for bass but not for the tricky mullet. Still, as the old saying goes, 'if you're not catching, you're learning' and that couldn't be more true in this case.

My next fishing trip wasn't really a session at all, it was supposed to be my three year anniversary with Ellie. I planned a nice romantic picnic for her and intended to go to Wembury Point. She told me to take the LRF rod just in case (it's very easy to see how we've lasted three years isn't it?). I had a last minute change of mind and went to Saltram instead. After a walk and some delicious food and wine, we walked up to the salt marsh near the top of the estuary. Mullet are known to gather there and that day was no exception. At the mouth of the river there were thousands of fish at the surface, most likely small thick-lipped mullet. I had the same spinner I had used before, this time baited with Fladen Vermz (still not sold on those, even if they did catch a couple of bass). I managed to spook the shoal and unsurprisingly got no feeding reaction from them. Moving further up the tide-flooded river, the water was murkier and with no obvious signs of fish. Two casts later though I had a massive hit on my lure and a fish was on. After a couple of powerful runs it was tamed and revealed itself to be a lovely sized schoolie bass of around 2lb. I was over the moon, I don't make enough of a habit to fish for bass, and this modest fish was a new personal best! All because Ellie told me to take the rod on our date. Unfortunately she couldn't get one too to top off the day, but we headed home in good spirits nonetheless.

All through the week it had been obvious the mackerel were back in large numbers, social media was alive with talk of them. So on Saturday, myself and Robbie went after them on Mount Batten Pier. I can only say it was crazy. Fish surfacing everywhere and sets of feathers being flown in their direction frantically. I have never seen fishing like it, the majority of it was good natured though and I didn't see many people abusing the fish too much. I started off on feathers but found them to be too effective. I only wanted a couple of fish for bait, so catching six at a time on unsportingly huge rods was not my idea of fun. I quickly changed over to my LRF set up though and proceeded to catch a fish a cast on my favourite HTO Shore Jig. They are immense fighters for their size and it was great fun, but with fishing so easy it quickly became a little monotonous, so we left. Ellie was at home and really wanted to catch one too, so I dropped Robbie home and picked her up. We got there to find, with the tide higher, the mackerel were pushing the baitfish up against the pier wall and it was an incredible sight, all it needed was an Attenborough narration to make it perfect. Ellie quickly caught her mackerel and we headed home away from the chaos. It inspired me to write a short article about the good and bad side of the mackerel 'rush' on Fishing Tails, have a look here -

http://www.fishingtails.co.uk/the-mackerel-rush-the-good-the-great-the-ugly/

After all the excitement and fun of the sea fishing, I felt compelled to even it up and catch some freshwater species that were on my list. Bream and tench being my desired targets. I had caught both species before at Trewandra Coarse Fishery near Landrake, Cornwall, but hadn't fished it for over a year, so that was where I headed. It's a lovely little lake, well established now and with a great head of carp to 25lb, it also boasts some huge roach (to over 3lb) and tench (to over 6lb). You pay at an honesty box in the car park and quite often you are the only angler there. This time though there were two others fishing it, a chap who was after the carp and a father with his daughter and son, fishing for the carp too on the other side of the lake. I wasn't interested in the carp. I really desired a decent tench but knew they would be difficult. I had two set ups to try during the day, a simple float rig - plummeted correctly so the bait rested just on the bottom - and a small 'bolt-rig' with luncheon meat on a hair. On the bolt rig I soon had numerous hard fighting roach/bream hybrids, so many in fact that I wondered if I would ever catch a true bream! It was on my float set-up that I eventually had my bream - all weight and zero fight, just what I was looking for. With that one off my list I really wanted that tench, but all I could seem to catch was hybrids, bream and roach, superb fishing to be honest and in a couple of hours I probably caught over 20lb of fish, yet not a single tench. I didn't have a huge amount of time to fish either and soon I had to head home. I will have to return at an earlier time for those tincas.

Olly and Shane managed to get out over the last week too, catching Mackerel, with Shane also getting his first ever Corkwring Wrasse, Shanny and Giant Goby, which boosted his total considerably. Not bad going at all for them.

Totals after that are:

Ben - 35 Species - Perch, Roach, Gudgeon, Rudd, Bream/Roach hybrid, Mirror Carp, Pike, Rainbow Trout, Common Blenny, Corkwring Wrasse, Tompot Blenny, Ballan Wrasse, Rock Goby, Common Carp, Ghost Carp, Black Goby, Pollock, Goldsinny Wrasse, Golden Rudd, Golden Orfe, Blue Orfe, Golden Tench, Crucian Carp, Sand Smelt, Giant Goby, Long Spined Sea Scorpion, Lesser-Spotted Dogfish, Bull Huss, European Eel, Topknot, Common Minnow, Three Spined Stickleback, Sea Bass, Mackerel & Bronze Bream

Olly - 25 Species - Perch, Rainbow Trout, Pike, Rudd, Roach, Mirror Carp, Common Carp, Pollock, Ballan Wrasse, Goldsinny Wrasse, Common Blenny, Shore Rockling, Corkwring Wrasse, Golden Rudd, Blue Orfe, Golden Tench, Sea Bass, Giant Goby, Bull Huss, Gudgeon, Crucian Carp, European Eel, Ghost Carp, Poor Cod & Mackerel

Ellie - 24 Species - Golden Rudd, Rudd, Roach, Gudgeon, Perch, Pike, Corkwring Wrasse, Pollock, Mirror Carp, Ghost Carp, Black Goby, Tompot Blenny, Long Spined Sea Scorpion, Ballan Wrasse, Common Blenny, Golden Tench, Golden Orfe, Bronze Bream, Crucian Carp, Common Carp, Giant Goby, Bull Huss, Three Spined Stickleback & Mackerel

Will - 14 Species - Rudd, Roach, Gudgeon, Pike, Tompot Blenny, Corkwring Wrasse, Common Carp, Mirror Carp, Common Goby, Ballan Wrasse, Dogfish, Golden Rudd, Golden Tench & Golden Orfe

Shane - 14 Species - Rudd, Roach/Bream Hybrid, Crucian Carp, Pollock, Shore Rockling, Common Carp, Mirror Carp, Roach, Bull Huss, Lesser-Spotted Dogfish, Corkwring Wrasse, Common Blenny, Mackerel & Giant Goby

Robbie - 13 Species - Perch, Mirror Carp, Roach, Rudd, Eel, Ballan Wrasse, Topknot, Crucian Carp, Common Carp, Golden Rudd, Blue Orfe, Pollock & Mackerel

Head over to www.fishingtails.co.uk for quality articles and fishing reports.

As always, thanks for reading.

Sunshine, Bass & Mullet Mind Games

I've been quite lucky this week to not only have time off work but also to have such fantastic weather with it. This inevitably has led to quite a bit of fishing time, some quite successful, others not so much. I've tried to vary the fishing as much as possible to try and boost the species total, but this has led to chasing the harder species e.g. Bass & Mullet, and we know how frustrating they can be! We'll start on freshwater though and slightly more relaxed circumstances.

This week I have had one target in my mind - Mullet, but if you know of these fish you know that planning to catch one and doing it are completely different things. Myself, Ellie, Olly and Shane all had Monday off so decided to try for the 'Grey Ghost'. Looe had done the trick for me in the past so we headed there with the intention of hopefully catching one, we arrived to find conditions were not in our favour, a cold breeze and weedy water were no good for the shallow water stalking I wanted to try. I decided there was no point in wasting our time and that Bake Lakes was a better option, it held a few species we all still needed to catch. So that's where we headed. We arrived and set up quite quickly, having bought the bait and licences needed. Me and Ellie fished one peg on Dunes and Olly and Shane fished another. Baiting up with micropellet and sweetcorn the Carp soon bulldozed their way into our swim and got to feeding, with them so focused on micropellet though it took a while to persuade them to take our bait, I was using Isome on a Dropshot rig and Ellie (more traditionally) float with Sweetcorn. Ellie's was first to go though and what a surprise it was... A good sized Bream of about 3lb. We weren't expecting it and the size was much higher than average for the lake, a great turn up for Ellie and a new species for her. She soon followed it up with a Crucian Carp and a Common, taking her to 20 species. With nothing happening on my LRF tactics we switched over and eventually, after quite a few missed bites and the usual Roach & Rudd, I had my own Crucian. I love Crucian Carp, they are such a great little dinner plate shape, give their all in the fight and aren't very easy to catch at times, I was really happy with that result. Meanwhile Shane had a couple of Roach and Carp which were new species for him. Olly had a couple of Carp but he was really after a Crucian, they avoided him all day though. I switched back to LRF and had a ridiculous take! A large Carp stormed off in front of me and my drag screamed, after a good five minute battle it was in the net. An immaculate 8lb Common Carp that couldn't have looked more perfect, some of the Carp in the lake have unfortunately been caught so many times that their mouths are damaged and some scales are missing. That is the reality of a commercial lake that sees so much business, especially from inexperienced coarse anglers that don't always treat every fish like they should. This fish though had obviously been either lucky or wily enough not to be caught much and it was an honour to hold such a pretty fish. We fished most of the day with good success catching varieties of Carp then satisfied, headed home.

Robbie had invited me to fish and do a write up for the new Specimen Lake - Caesar's Palace, the next night. I obviously couldn't resist and I will post that up soon. It was a lovely way to spend 12 hours and ended up in a completely virgin 11lb 2oz Mirror Carp, my biggest fish of the year so far.

I had Mullet on the mind still though.
Looe was worth another try so Ellie and Me went down again. With fish moving in the shallows we cast out our bread baited hooks. Quickly Ellie grew frustrated, I couldn't blame her, Mullet will do that to anyone. She decided to sit it out whilst I persevered, I waited for the tide to bring in the thousands of fish that it does every day. The fish in front of me gave tentative nibbles but nothing concrete. The tide started flooding in and I had completely underestimated the size of it! Washing huge amounts of debris in along with the fish I couldn't get a bait out there long enough to fish effectively. Two guys fishing across from me seemed to have similar luck. I gave up and decided the pub was a better option! A fishing trip is never a bad one when it ends in good company, food and beer, there's always next time.

Olly has recently been eyeing up my LRF gear in some jealousy and decided to buy himself some, well I was going past the tackle shop so bought it for him. I shouldn't really go to Osborne & Cragg in Plymouth because I always take far too much time in there, such is the quality of tackle and conversation. Having met the man behind the 'Duke Nukem' profile picture on Facebook, Andy Smith, I was able to thank him person for the spare spools he gave me the other week. I finally decided on what set up for Olly and then left to try for mullet again up the Plym River. I had overestimated the tides though and there were very few fish to target. I left after 45 minutes as I had promised Olly we would target Bass & Pollock that evening. I'm glad we did. We arrived in our favourite rock mark to beautiful clear waters, things looked promising. I had barely tied my lure on when Olly shouted 'Fish on!' his first cast with his brand new rod! He quickly followed it up with 'It's a Bass' which made the excitement levels jump. On light tackle the Schoolie Bass fought hard and it was a relief to get it in the net. It had taken a 7g Pink & Silver Metal Shore Jig, you couldn't wipe the smile from Olly's face, his first Bass of the year. We quickly took some photos then returned it to the sea. After that we were expecting more action but the only Bass we saw after was one smash my lure right by the rocks then come off, leaving me pretty devastated! Shane caught a little Pollock but as darkness set in it stayed quiet and we headed home. It certainly whet my appetite for more light jigging from the rocks, hopefully with more success next time.

After that the totals are:

Ben - 23 Species - Perch, Roach, Bream/Roach hybrid, Mirror Carp, Pike, Rainbow Trout, Common Blenny, Corkwring Wrasse, Tompot Blenny, Ballan Wrasse, Rock Goby, Ghost Carp, Black Goby, Pollock, Goldsinny Wrasse, Golden Rudd, Golden Orfe, Blue Orfe, Golden Tench & Crucian Carp

Ellie - 20 Species - Golden Rudd, Rudd, Roach, Gudgeon, Perch, Pike, Corkwring Wrasse, Pollock, Mirror Carp, Ghost Carp, Black Goby, Tompot Blenny, Long Spined Sea Scorpion, Ballan Wrasse, Common Blenny, Golden Tench, Golden Orfe, Bronze Bream, Crucian Carp & Common Carp

Olly - 16 Species - Perch, Rainbow Trout, Pike, Rudd, Roach, Mirror Carp, Common Carp, Pollock, Goldsinny Wrasse, Common Blenny, Shore Rockling, Corkwring Wrasse, Golden Rudd, Blue Orfe, Golden Tench & Sea Bass

Will - 14 Species - Rudd, Roach, Gudgeon, Pike, Tompot Blenny, Corkwring Wrasse, Common Carp, Mirror Carp, Common Goby, Ballan Wrasse, Dogfish, Golden Rudd, Golden Tench & Golden Orfe

Robbie - 11 Species - Perch, Mirror Carp, Roach, Rudd, Eel, Ballan Wrasse, Topknot, Crucian Carp, Common Carp, Golden Rudd & Blue Orfe

Shane - 8 Species - Rudd, Roach/Bream Hybrid, Crucian Carp, Pollock, Shore Rockling, Common Carp, Mirror Carp & Roach

Zoe - 5 Species - Pike, Goldsinny Wrasse, Rock Goby, Ballan Wrasse & Long Spined Sea Scorpion

Grant - 2 Species - Ballan Wrasse & Tompot Blenny

As always thanks for reading and please check out fishingtails.co.uk where I'm now a contributor.