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!

All over now....

That’s it, I’m done now….my 4^th blank in succession last weekend and with no more free weekends between now and Christmas I think that is my season effectively over!

I was sure I was going to catch on Saturday to, I wasn’t too optimistic when I headed down to Dorset on Saturday morning but when I arrived at the mark I saw an unexpectedly large swell rolling in (the costal report said <1m but this was nearer 2m), creating lots of fizz and white water and with the perfect “tinge” to the sea. That coupled with the perfect state of tide had me full of confidence but after three hours of flogging the water for only one touch, no other signs of fish and the best of the tide gone I gave up.

I’m a bit disappointed not to have managed a single fish in November and now it’s looking like a December blank as well, that’s bought a flat and early end to what has otherwise been a pretty decent season for me.

Overall though, I can’t complain too much, I beat my target of 50 fish, caught more fish on surface and soft plastic lures than previous years and had a couple of 5lb + fish so met most of my objectives… my complaint about myself this year is that I wasn’t adventurous enough with my marks and didn’t really fish anywhere new…. So that will be my objective for next year…find and fish at least 5 new spots (or at least put some time into learning spots I have only tried once to twice before). The other negative of the season has been the weather…. Quite simply it has been crap all year and I have never known so much rain and shitty winds…I can’t do anything about that though except keep my fingers crossed for better next summer.

There not much other fishing to look forward now either, the local cod fishing is hard work with very few 3-6lb class fish around, some bigger fish are being caught but naturally those are fairly hard to come by so are going to the dedicated few who really put the hours in. Still, maybe I’ll have a crack for one over xmas.

So that’s it…game over and time to get on out on the Mountain Bike again, I need to regain the fitness I have lost over the last 6 months and shed a couple of pounds to!

End of year stats below….

 

November update

Been a little while since my last update and I’ve had mixed success since my last report. First up though is a new rod. Having broken two Megabass rods in the last month, I decided not to risk it for a third time so as a replacement I sourced instead this Graphite Leader beauty from the Art of Fishing….an Angento Nouvo 932m.

 

I won’t bother writing a full review on it as Henry Gilbey has done a far better job of this than I ever could HERE. Suffice to say the rod is a completely different feel to the Megabass it replaces, it has much faster action and is more steely and robust.  More like a Tenryu than a JDM style but does not feel over-gunned for my fishing like some of the longer Tenryu’s.  Still if you like the Tenryu feel but want something 9ft + and a little lighter than say a Rodbar 270 or Ultimate One then I can highly recommend this baby. One word of warning though, the butt it quite short and some people will not like this so definitely try and pick one up for a waggle first.

On to the recent fishing then, I followed up on the last session in Dorset with another productive one, bagging up on 11 fish again, I tried to add a bit of variety to the lures but ended up with this year’s tops lures doing the damage still and the fish being shared across my Shoreliner Shiner R50+, Savagear Sandeels and the Sammy (now officially my best top water lure).

Since then I’ve struggled with time but managed two short trips to an estuary system which have both resulted in blanks, I wouldn’t mind but my mate has been hammering this mark with up to 15 fish a session, on the last one we stood two yards apart up to our waists in water in he caught 5 whilst I remained fishless…frustrating!!!

Then finally, another trip to Dorset this weekend resulted in a further blank, despite being there for daybreak and perfect conditions I did not see a sign of any fish activity. So that’s three blanks in a row now, never a good sign as the season draws to close, I think it will be very hard going from now on.

Another frustration is a guided boat trip I have had booked since the summer was cancelled (due to bad weather) for the 2^nd time last weekend, hopefully I’ll get this in before the end of the year but water temps are dropping fast now unlike this time last year and the end of the season is looming!

22nd October - Breaking rods, losing fish and a decent session…

Well September/early October has turned into a dire period, through a combination of work/weather/a nasty infection and having a new kitchen and bathroom installed at home I have only managed two sessions in the last 6 weeks. On the first I landed one schooly before losing two decent fish, the first of which was an absolute cracker. This fish hit my lure on the surface before I started retrieving so I got a good look at it as it smashed into my lure before it dived and took me to ground.  

The second trip was total disaster, as having driven for 70 miles and walked another 30 minutes to the mark on the first cast there was a gunshot like crack and the tip of my Megabass exploded into 4 sections! I’ve never seen a break like this with the rod breaking at multiple points simultaneously...bizarre

I then walked 30 minutes back to the car and drove the 70 miles home pretty pissed off!

Still to be fair to the retailer, they refunded my money with no quibbles (they did not have a replacement in stock) and I managed to secure a replacement from an alternative source.

 

So onto this Saturday morning and with a window of weather and family opportunity and armed with a new replacement Megabass XO Shadow 96ML I headed down to Dorset. Unusually there was someone on my chosen spot but I started of further into the bay and 1^st cast…fish on, nailing my Sammy. This was the start of my best session of the year, as over the next two hours I landed a further 10 bass + numerous mackerel, most of which came on my new favourite lure, the Shoreline Shiner R50+.

No great size with the average fish being around 1.5lb and the biggest around 2.5lbs but still good fun with all the fish in fat fighting condition and stuffed to the gills with small sprats which they were feeding on.

With still plenty of time before I needed to leave, and the best part of the tide still to come I was looking forward to having a real red-letter day as they were still feeding hard when I heard another gunshot like crack. This time the rod seemed to be OK but on closer inspection I saw the blank had cracked about 6 inches up from the spigot on the tip section….so that was that, game over.  I packed up and headed home. I suppose I should be pleased as I managed a few fish before the rod went but I have to say I’m distinctly unimpressed having this model of rod break on me twice now, when casting lures not particularly hard and well under the stated 35g max weight.

So another rod to go through the hassle of returning, I shan’t be getting another one of these though. This time I will take a refund and look for another brand/model as, much as I liked the Megabass, I have now lost total confidence in the quality of them.

 

1st September - Some days they just don't want it...

I fished Dorset on Saturday afternoon, and endured what must have been my most frustrating lure session ever. Conditions were nice with an overcast sky, lightish winds and a small clean swell rolling in. I arrived pretty much on low water and fished the tide up for 5 hours.

During the first four hours I had countless fish follow my lure, including a couple of really decent ones but whatever I did I could not induce a take. I went through my entire soft and hard lure collection, fished at all speeds from just drifting in the current to cranked in at warp speed but they just wouldn’t take it.

As it went into evening I started to get the odd gently pluck, but still nothing too firm before I finally snagged one on a Savagear Sandeel. Even this fish had about 4 attempts before it was eventually hooked.

Then that was it, it may have improved had I stayed into darkness but I was fished out by this point so headed home to think about what I’d done wrong.

I’ve still not figured this out though, I saw more fish and bait activity today than I had ever seen previously here but I guess they just weren’t that switched on.

I’m one fish short of last year’s total now…so hopefully I’ll beat it soon. The forecast is set fair for a week or so now so I should get down to my “big fish” mark over the weekend….hopefully it will live up to my billing!

Oh yeah, I also managed to catch a Pollack that was quite honestly, smaller than the lure it took…what was it thinking??!!