August 2013 - A bit a bait fishing!

I’ve been out and about again this weekend and as the wife and kids were away I got in a couple of trips.

 1^st up on Friday evening, more bassing down in Dorset, I ended up with 5 in total which all came through last light and into darkness. Three fell to the trusty savagear eels and 2 on a “Flash Arrow J” which is a fantastic looking lure. They cast really well and look incredibly lifelike in the water. I’m going to be getting some more of these in different colours I think.

On to Saturday then and I thought it was high time I used the Daiwa beachcasters I have eventually finished rebuilding so I headed down to Chesil with a view to bagging a few of the summer species and some flats. I did OK and ended up with Bream, 2 (small) Small Eyed Rays, a Thornback Ray and a Dab amongst some other bits and pieces. It was nice to get out and so a bit of bait fishing for a change, I must get in another go this Autumn as there are lots of sole around the moment so would be nice to catch a few of these.

Here’s a few pics from the weekend….

 

August update

OK so it’s been awhile, I have to say that the last couple of months fishing has been very slow for me. I have not been out much at all due to being very busy at work and at home, and when I have been out the fishing has been very slow. Which just the odd fish per trip.

Still better signs now, for one I am nearly over my busy work period and two the fishing has been picking up  pretty much everywhere in the last couple of weeks and also water temps are back up to normal for the time of year. Perhaps this year has finally caught up with itself and we can look forward to a productive autumn…I live in hope

In terms of the fishing, I fished the Cornish Lure Festival again this year, with Mediterranean temperatures and flat calm seas it was hard going all round and I didn’t land a shore caught bass through the entire weekend! In fact very few decent bass were caught and in all honesty, I should have concentrated on fishing through the night which would have given me a much better chance. Lesson learnt for next year though.

I did spend a few hours out with my brother in his boat on the Saturday though, were I proved the value of lures V bait, landing about a dozen Pollack to 8lb and a 4lb bass whereas the guys fishing live mackerel blanked!

Onto to this weekend just past, and I headed back down to my normal Dorset lump of rock, and for the first time for the year the water felt alive, the water was full of bait fish and I getting plucks and tugs from Gars on virtually every chuck. In total I managed three bass, the first off the top on a small patchinko, and then a couple after dark on a savagear sandeel. My normal after dark lure (Komomo II in JFP)  had unusually not resulted in any action but as soon as I switched over I have two in quick succession, one of them a really nice fat 61cm fish that went like a train on its first run.  To be honest I feel I should have caught more than three but once I had the biggest fish I was happy enough to head home.

The only other thing of note is a new bag! Not the most sexy of tackle products I know but I had been looking for ages for a sling style bag which was big enough to hold enough gear/clothes and food for an all day session. My search was ended by discovering the fantastic maxpedition range of kit. I opted for the Kodiak bag which is perfect for me…..it will easily swallow two or three lure boxes and all the kit I could wish to take. It’s not cheap at around £120 but it is built like a tank so I’m sure I’ll get many years good service from with no more broken zips or split seams! Highly recommended or you could consider the smaller stika bag which is more like the snowbee bag for size.

59cm through the mayweed!

Just a quick update, I went down to Dorset yesterday afternoon, a lovely sunny day and perfect conditions for where I had in mind, however my heart sank when I arrived and saw the horrible green/brown colour of the water, thick with Algae and restricting visibility to around 18 inchs.

I gave it a bash though, and after a couple of hours of hard fishing I tempted this one out on a pearl Feedshallow. It gave a cracking account of itself over the shallow rocky ground and came in at 59cm or around 5lbs, a nice result given the conditions and made the trip worthwhile. After this success though I couldn't get motivated to keep on fishing through the sludge so with the blank nicely averted I packed up and had a swift pint in the pub by the beach!

May 2013 update

It’s been a long slow process, but finally, the sea has heated up and lure fishing has kicked off around the country. Unfortunately it seems that may weed/water/rot (the annual algae bloom) seems to have killed it again instantly in some areas but this only be temporary lapse.

I’ve got a couple of trips to report on, the first a few weeks ago now was my LRF debut! I bought an LRF starter outfit a couple of months ago, with a view to using it to teach my daughter how to fish on our trips down to Cornwall, but with a couple of hours spare on a Sunday afternoon, I thought I’d try it out and popped down to Westbay Harbour. It didn’t take long to christen the outfit as I quickly landed a little flounder. A bit of a triumph this as I really wanted to catch a Flounder on a lure, so I was well chuffed. I also ended up with 4 weaver fish, which seemed to be around the entrance to the harbour in numbers. Luckily I managed to unhook them all with no damage to any of us, although the novelty of catching them soon wore off…nasty little blighters.

Then last week I kicked my bass season off, at my usual mark in Dorset. I fished for a few hour on the first of the ebb, and ended up with 2 fish. Both taken on my now top catcher, the Savagear Sandeel (I can’t recommend these lures highly enough, absolutely bass killers and pretty cheap into the bargain).  The first of the 2 bass was a nice fish, pushing 4lbs maybe. What was really stunning about it though was whilst I playing it, it’s fins were glowing bright blue, I’ve never really seen this before but in the sun it was an incredible sight! You can just make our a bit of the blue in the anal fin in the picture below, however in the water this was much more prominent.

So that’s May over with, now into June. To be honest this summer is going to be difficult to get lots of fishing in as I am going to be very busy at work but I’m out this weekend (top conditions for my “big fish” mark) and the Cornish Lure Festival is looming so I’m looking forward to that.

Anyway, as much as I enjoyed the plaice fishing it great to put away the beachcasters and finally get this year’s lure fishing campaign underway, so until next time……

 

 

 

 

Winter update....April 2013

Well what a winter is has been….it seems that ever since January we have had constant easterly winds and really cold weather… and this has made for the latest arrival of spring that I can remember. Still there are now signs that things are on the up at last, the winds have shifted around to SW and it’s almost starting to feel warm.

The sea temperature is still way too low though, 7.3 degrees today but that’s a whole degree higher than this time last week so hopefully within a few weeks we will get to that magic 10 figure!

The net result of all this cold weather is that I have not even considered going lure fishing yet…by this time last year I had already had several trips and caught 6 bass…this year not a chance so far but it can’t be far off now surely. I have to admit that with the sudden end to my season last year, and the late start to this one it has been six months since I last caught a bass on a lure (from the shore) and I am itching to get back out there again.

Still, I have not been totally idle during this period; I managed to get my first bait trip in for two years…two of them in fact! Both trips were to Chesil in search of plaice, the first at the beginning of March was hard going and I had just had one small fish, the second a week or so ago was more like it, and with the first warm day of the year I winkled out four plaice, no great size to any of them but after bass I think plaice are my favourite fish to catch so that counts as a pretty good session in my book.

 

 

I’ve also been rod building again, inspired by last years Red Dragon rebuild I have invested in a couple of battered Daiwa TDXS133pm’s to rebuild. I’ve also bought a rod dryer and made a rod wrapper so I’m expecting to do a really smart job of these this time around.

Progress has been slow so far, as I’ve been really busy at work and at home but I’ve stripped one down, and sprayed the tip black (as it was originally) and now have to wait 10 days for this to fully cure before I can apply lacquer and carry on with the build. The spray job has come out quite nicely to be honest I’m so really looking forward to finishing it off and seeing if I can create that “as new” finish.

Other than that, house chores are mainly done….so roll on the good weather and regular blog updates full of catch reports!

 

11 Jan 2013 - Something a bit different

After 2 failed attempts I finally managed to get in the guided boat trip I booked last summer. The trip was arranged at short notice after a window in the weather appeared along with some promising tides. It was late in the season for Bass but the fishing in Cornwall in Jan can be exceptional with Cod, Pollack and Wrasse as viable alternatives should the Bass fail to show.

I was to be fishing with another chap, Marc Westward, who had also bid for the day kindly donated to charity by Austen Goldsmith (Oz), professional bass guide and skipper of the fantastic Zen2.

We met up at 7am, the day had dawned mild with a few showers forecast and a lightish SW wind and by 7:30 the boat was launched and we were away, belting it across Falmouth bay at 25 knots.
The first stop was at a reef system, there were a couple of commercial boats already working the area as is normal at this spot. The commercial boats tend to motor round the reef trolling but we fished savagear sandeels, drifting in the tide and casting at structures in 20-50ft of water. Oz was first in with a small Pollack and I followed up with an equally small Bass.

We fished on for another half an hour trying different spots on the reef then Oz called it to move on to another part of the coastline (the commercial boats had also moved on so no-one was having much luck!). The next hour was fishless as we hunted bass in around the shallow reefs close to shore before Oz moved us out to slightly deeper water. Fishing vertical was the technique here, again with Savagear eels, bumping the bottom. The was plenty of activity on the fish finder and from the off here we hit into fish, Wrasse were the first to come aboard, Mark nailing a really nice one before I hit into a bigger fish that put a real bend in the short Tenryu jigging rod I was using (Zen 2 standard issue!) and after a dogged fight pulled a nice cod around 10lbs.

This proved to be the pattern for the rest of the day, with the drifts in deeper water producing more Cod, a number of nice Pollack and Wrasse and Oz winkled out a better Bass, but the shallower ground proved to be Bassless despite our best efforts flogging the water with both topwaters and divers.

We called it a day at around 2pm and headed inwards pretty happy with the day and all having caught a number of decent fish.

I have to say the trip was a real eye opener to me and it was amazing the quality of fishing you can get on light tackle and in inshore waters during January. Many of the fish were taken within casting distance of the shore although getting access safely on this rugged coastline and effectively targeting them in the rough tidal ground could be tricky to say the least!

Oz was fantastic though and being primarily a Bass guide tried really hard to find us a few more of these and on another day I’m sure he would of. Today though it seemed the local shoals had moved off. I would thoroughly recommend him however to anyone wanting to sample this fantastic style of fishing for themselves. Oz takes a real “sportfishing” approach to guiding, far more reminiscent of what you might get overseas than traditional UK chartering…to see here for a link to his blog.

Anyway that’s me technically off the mark for the year with my first bass, I’m looking forward again now some warmer weather and that first trip (and inevitable blank!) of spring…. Hopefully we will have a better summer than in 2012!