We've had some fabulous weather recently which has raised the sea temperatures enough to see a few fish start showing inshore. Following on from the last entry our best laid plans have had to change slightly due to a shocking lack of Sandeel availability preventing my friend and I pursuing any Ray fishing, yes we could use other baits but we would not have anywhere near the same results. Instead we have been out on Fly and Lure with reasonable success.

Another LRF trip produced some nice Pollock to around the 2lb mark which was great fun on the ultralight gear and a strong tidal flow! The fish crash diving underneath the pontoon I was fishing from making the reel make that - zzzz - zzzzz - zzzz sound as they made a bid for freedom, and the rod at full curve, epic fun!!

 

 

The next trip was on the fly and though it was a bit of a struggle I did manage a few Basslings plus a fish of about 1 3/4lb but at least it was a start!

First proper Bass Lure session of the year again produced a few sporadic fish to about 3lb which was very satisfying and a promising start for the mark I fished which has been very unproductive for the last few years compared to when I first started fishing it and my friends and I were getting good numbers of Bass on most sessions. 

As you can see I have started using the action camera as much as possible to record some of the sessions. I find this a lot easier than trying to use a normal camera to take still photos while fishing and reduces the time the fish need to be out of the water. I can take an instant photo on the action cam if need be. Hopefully I will have enough to make a short film by the end of the season.

So what's next? More fishing of course! hopefully plenty more fly and lure action when tides and weather permit.

Until next time, tight lines.

I feel like I have just woken from a long winters hibernation! It's been many months since I have actually fished in Saltwater and it's been a long cold and wet winter and I had reverted to some Freshwater fishing to pass the time. I grew tired and stale in a very short space of time and in the end it felt like I was just going through the motions, which indeed I was in an effort to keep doing some fishing of some kind. Yesterday signified the end of that period and I resolved to move on to some Saltwater fishing with the rising temperatures signalling the possibility of this.

So Last evening I had a text from one of my fishing buddies enquiring if I fancied a bit of LRF at a local spot with one of our other friends.  I jumped at the chance to make the change and off we went. The night was very still with zero wind and though slightly fresh it wasn't what you would call cold. We tried our first spot without any taps or enquiries of any kind from fish so we moved to another spot further along which is a small pontoon and we were all into fish virtually straight away! Our LRF fishing has always been very competitive which makes it even more fun and the banter flowed and fish were landed. Small Bass and Pollock were in residence and though the sport lasted only a short time it was a great re introduction to Saltwater and I really can't wait to get back out with my new found enthusiasm I am raring to hit the Salt hard this year!

We have some Ray fishing planned for the next trip with the temperatures forecast to rise in the next few days we are hoping these large flat fish will come inshore at a shallow venue we like to fish for them. This mark produces mostly Small eye or Painted Rays and Spotted rays but there is also a chance of an Undulate and the odd Turbot. Following on from that I am hoping to get out on the Fly and of course some more Lure sessions. As the water temperature rises and the fish come closer inshore seeking the warmth of the warmer shallow water this will become viable. I can't wait and hopefully if plans are fulfilled this year there will be much more to write about here and I hope you enjoy reading about it.

A small but welcome first fish of the year from Saltwater.

LRF = Fun !!

I really don't seem to be able to get into any serious fishing campaigns yet this year, I have no idea why to be honest, but thank goodness for LRF, because when you are as lost as I am at the moment it comes to your rescue...

For once everything was right, tide, wind, general weather patterns and on the spur of the moment as is often the case with me at the current time I decided to go and tackle a local pontoon with my eldest son. It wasn't long before we were into fish and Bass at that. They were a reasonable stamp too which made the whole thing even more fun on the ultralight gear, as they tore off down tide under out feet seeking sanctuary under the pontoon. In the end we had a number of them along with a handful of Pollock too. Very enjoyable all in all and much needed under the circumstances until I find some mojo to do something a little more serious, but then fishing is meant to be fun and LRF is just that all way...

Too busy playing a fish to read the sign...

Clouser Minnow

If there is one Fly that is a 'go to' fly in any Saltwater anglers box it has to be the Clouser Minnow. It was one of the first flies I ever tied and fished with and one of the first I caught fish on. I will often start my fishing sessions on some variation of the Clouser, be it colour, size or material type. There are many ways to tie it and different materials perform different tasks so it is worth thinking about what you want the fly to do in any given situation and choose accordingly. A fly constructed from Bucktail for instance, will sink faster and more easily than the same pattern built from synthetic materials such as Slinky fibre or H2O. It may not seem important at first glance but sometimes it is necessary to get the fly down to deeper fish quickly, or sometimes you want it to sink slowly and fish at a shallower depth, all depending on where the fish are sitting in the water column.

Where I live, smaller flies work well early season and so I have tied up a batch of Clousers in various colours in readiness for the new season. As the season progresses I will move up to larger flies as the fish begin to feed on larger baitfish, but I will always carry the small ones as well for situations when the predators are feeding on large numbers of fry. Often they will become very pre occupied on theses tiny baitfish and it is impossible to get a hook up unless you can 'match the hatch'.

I have a limited number of surplus Clouser's for sale at the moment which you will find in the Saltwater Flies for sale section.

It's been a long time....

...but somehow I seem to be drawn back to the salt. I've missed it for sure, but some back problems precluded me from fishing it the rest of last year and I had to revert to some less physical and less demanding coarse fishing. I'm not better but I have realised my limitations physically and I can still enjoy all that the salt has to offer as long as I don't over do it.

So what a diabolical winter we've had, storm after storm, floods, gales, lightning and thunder at a time of the year when you would least expect it. And then a few weeks ago it calmed down and now we have had one of the warmest springs for many a year. The sea surface temperature has been double what it was this time last year and now we are only days away from the magic 10 degrees ! The question is, will the fish arrive early or will we still have to wait until April ? I know we're not far away from April now but will three weeks make any difference ?

My friends and  I went and did a recce trip last Sunday to a new spot that one of my mates had found on some maps, and I must say it really looks the part and has everything that is needed to make a good recipe for catching some fish. I look forward to testing this one out and it is not so demanding as far as access goes so I should be able to manage it ok.

Hopefully we will have a good, hot and not too windy summer this year and will find plenty of shoals of marauding predators herding the baitfish inshore ready for a good scoffing ! I think I may well put the effort into fishing more early mornings as well this year, crack of dawn early, as this is usually when the wind is at it's least for the day, the reason for this is that I want to try and use the fly a lot more this year rather than lure fishing, as I think it is the ultimate way to catch fish in the sea.

I've missed this...

 

To that end I have been busy tying flies and I have built myself a new fly rod in readiness which I will tell you about in the next blog entry, but for now that's it, I'm back, I'm keen and hopefully some when in the near future I will be bent into a feisty bar of silver !

 





 

 

 

 

 

 

 







Festival disruption causes fishing chaos !

It's Festival time over here on the Island at the moment and thanks to the disruption it causes, my eldest son had the day off school today....so naturally he and his mate wanted to go fishing!
I said o.k I would taxi them to where they wanted to go, and decided to throw my gear in the car as well, just in case...as you do !
Things started off slow and the first half of the session leading up to high tide was a wash out with very little evidence of any fish present. A few nibbles from tiny Wrasse and Gobies all of which resulted in zero hook ups. I suspected that all this could change on the ebb and as I had to leave and go and pick up my younger son who still had school today I left my eldest and his mate to carry on. I returned about an hour or so later and found that my prediction had been correct and the fish had switched on during my absence. My eldest reported two Bass and a Pollock and lots more fish present, this being bolstered by a large flock of gulls working nearby too.
I parked the car up, retrieved my gear from the boot and re joined the boys on the Pontoon.

The water was full of pin fry which the Bass and other fish were merrily gorging themselves on, The trouble was, despite having my best selection of LRF lures with me, It was hard going matching the hatch due to the miniscule size of baitfish that the predators were preoccupied with ! In the end a 5 gram metal was as near as I could get and I managed to hook a little schoolie in short order but it was still hard going despite large numbers of fish present, the problem being the overwhelming amount of free food available.

In the end though we managed a few Bass, some Pollock and a Mackerel between us and my youngest son did me proud by being photographer for the session ! 

 

Action as a Schoolie takes the Metal !



 

The Mackerel were happy with Plastic !

 

Number one Son bags a Pollock

Still slow

A couple of recent LRF sessions have yielded a few fish, though it's still been hard work for the time of year. The fish just don't seem to have established themselves in any numbers yet as in previous years at this time.
Anyway the first session saw me take my kids to a little pontoon the other night that is generally a great little venue for LRF. We managed a few Pollock between us during a dusk period in the tide, though the window and feeding spell was very small and there didn't seem to be any real numbers of fish like there can be here.

The second session was the same story really, visited another normally fun little LRF venue which is the entrance to a harbour mouth where large groups of schoolies gather at the right stage of tide and we have had some hectic fishing here at times on the ultralight gear. Last night however it was again hard work. There were obviously some fish present as the first bite came just on the dot of the flow picking up but this proved to be a false indicator and the bites were few and far between though both myself and my mate did manage pound plus fish each which was nice. Didn't get a picture of those one's though as the light was fading by then and I didn't want to spook any more potential fish with the flash as we were wading waist deep in the water and it had been hard enough work as it was ! So here's a pic of the first fish, only a half pounder but fun nevertheless...

I

First strike to the needles !

Summer arrived this weekend finally, and with it the sport has just switched on pretty much overnight. Better two months late than never I guess ! 
Anyway taking advantage of the improved conditions my mate and I headed to what is commonly regarded as one of the best venues on the island in search of some fishy action. I have never fished here before, why not I can't imagine because it is simply a stunning venue with boulders the size of lorries in places and underwater topography so rough and extreme every nook and cranny must house a fish of some kind ! My mate had previously spent a little time here and regaled me with stories of lost monsters and unseen tackle smashing beasts ! For the first time in quite a long while I was actually excited about going fishing. Climbing over rocks and boulders after a long cliff path hike we found a lofty perch from which to cast. My mate was first in with a small schoolie and followed it with a second slightly bigger one. Not having brought any of the Dexter wedges my pal was catching on I decided to try one of the Superstrike Needlefish lures I got from the states recently. First cast and I was into a fish and first strike to the needles ! Sadly I lost the lure to the tackle eating ground a short while later and being the only one in a suitable daytime colour I was more than a little annoyed ! The Bass seemed to vanish after that so we plodded around trying to find some more fish while the rough ground ate up even our most weedless presentations. My mate managed a good sized Mackerel and I managed to finally extract a reasonable Wrasse before we called time on our session. No monsters but a few bites and a few fish during what we generally consider to be poor daytime conditions for Bass fishing, hot, bright and fairly calm. If I hadn't kept losing tackle and having to re rig every five minutes, I'm sure there would have been a few more Wrasse on the cards.
 We much prefer the cover of darkness for Bass, and we shall definitely be exploring the after dark potential of this mark soon as I am sure it will throw up a good stamp of Pollock once the light goes as well. At least things have kicked off properly now and we don't need to spend all our time wondering if the fish might really be there at all and concentrate our efforts on actually catching them !

 

 

 

 

 

His first Bass !

Once again I woke up to good signs yesterday, on opening the kitchen blind all was fairly still outside, although dull. Checking my weather resources on the Net, it seemed we would have a good chance of getting out for some fishing this evening. The only sticking point being that the wind which would be light NE for most of the day would be switching to SW for the evening and picking up slightly. As a contingency, two plans were made in the event that this would happen. If the wind remained as was, then we would head out to the back of the Island for some HRF Wrasse and Bass, however if the forecast was right, as most of our shallow north coast marks would still be heavily coloured, we would head to a Pier on that side of the Island for some LRF. Note, at this point was no heavy rain forecast...
Three o' clock in the afternoon arrived and with it came some light drizzly rain. OK fair enough it wasn't up to much so carry on regardless with the plan.
Between five and seven in the evening the heavens opened and it lashed it down! At what point was that forecast? I wondered...I also noted the wind had switched to a brisk SW...
Plan B then, and I concurred this with my mate via text. Our south coast venue involves a treacherous cliff path trek to the beach and the heavy rain ruled this out alone for safety reasons.
Hoping the rain would ease, we decided to still proceed to the Pier, we just had to get out.
As the plan had been revised My eldest Son was to accompany us as he really enjoys the LRF.
Having collected my mate, at which point the rain seemed to abate, we headed off to the Pier.
Conditions looked good on arrival, wind a little brisk but at least it would'nt be in our faces.
First drop in and it seemed there was little flow, a crucial factor when fishing the Piers both for presentation and for the fish to be feeding. I switched us over to a carolina from a jighead to see if there were any Wrasse or Scorpions about on the bottom, but strangely we remained biteless, most unusual...
After a while I suggested to my Son we try another spot near my mate, who was bait fishing off the front of the Pier, for a while until the flow picked up and we would be able to fish our present spot properly.
A few little bites from the new spot had us hopeful of a fish or two but after a while we were still fishless, but the flow appeared to be picking up and the floating weed was now beginning to move.
Back to our previous position then, but Son was getting bored and starting to ask when we were going. I told him to be patient as I was sure we would catch something....
At last a bite came, I wasn't sure what it could be at first and then surprisingly a Bass of about a pound appeared on the surface, good start !
And what a start, to a surprisingly good evenings fishing considering the slow beginning.
With a bit of coaching my Son managed to bag a small Pollock, which immediately re awoke his interest, and he began fishing with renewed enthusiasm and focus. He's been keen to catch a Bass for a while now, and I had promised him, that this year We would make sure he caught one.
By now the tide had picked up nicely and presentation was a doddle, cast out, swing with the flow and retrieve steadily. We were back on the jigheads and the good old Ecogear Aqua Strawtails In Orange were threaded on the hook. It seems that not only do Pollock like these, but Bass are rather partial to them too !
From then on the action was steady and we got plenty of bites, I organised it so that we took turns to cover the area where the fish were hitting the lure until we had a fish and then swapped over until another fish was caught. Coaching my Son he hooked into another fish, Bass on ! The little Calzante Lrf rod hooped over, with the fish taking line,  Son was very excited but played the fish nicely on the light gear and very soon he was grinning widely while posing for a picture with his very first Bass ! Yes! I was so pleased for him !
This continued for the next hour or so, with us taking turns to catch fish, I ended up with seven Bass from a pound to a pound and a half, along with a couple of Pollock, and Son managed two Bass of the same size and four Pollock, So nine Bass and half a dozen Pollock between usmade for a very good nights fishing in the end !
During this session I was using Fluorocarbon mainline fot the first time in the form of Berkeley Trilene, in 4lb breaking strain, and I have to say it performed very well. Very strong, knots well, and is thin and limp but very abrasion resistant. It was definitely less affected by the wind than braid would have been and allowed better contact with the lures. Bite registration was very good with an excellent hook up rate. So a great session all things considered, and well worth the effort of taking a chance on the inclement conditions.
Oh and of my mate who was bait fishing? He blanked ! sorry Mr B ;-)  LOL !

Still locked in attack mode!

The Blood on the Gill cover is mine..ouch! those are sharp !

Lovely irridescence along the back of the fish...

Pollock of around a pound and a quarter.

A very happy chappy !

Yummy ! Strawtails !

Note the Fluorocarbon on the spool, very impressed.

One more..

...Session last night resulted in another four fish for me, the biggest this time going 4lb 4oz. Thats 15 Bass from this spot for me this week in four 3 hr sessions, a very nice result in less than ideal conditions with the bright moon and I look forward to seeing what this venue has to offer when it all comes together properly!

4lb 4oz

Inspired late season Bass session.

An inspired suggestion by Mr B had us heading to a new mark a couple of nights ago, in search of some Bass. On arrival it was clear that it had all the necessary hallmarks of good Bass ground, structure, Current and shallow enough for us to wade. Dusk was setting in fast due to the cloud cover that evening, and the timing felt just right as it was the tide had just started to push in creating a nice rip line around the feature we had chosen to begin on. First cast, a few turns of the reel handle and bang I'm in straight away! Like I said, Inspired Mr B ;). It had been a while and we had struggled to find any good Bass fishing since earlier in the year, our early season mark had been seemingly deviod of fish save for a few small schoolies here and there in recent times, and the weather had been too rough to target the areas 'out back' where we knew the bigger fish were. It looked like things were possibly about to take a turn for the better as I landed a fish of around a pound. Successive casts produced a couple more fish of the same stamp, and then there was a little lull. As darkness fell, I hit into something that felt a bit better as it tore off with several yards of line, Oh how I had missed that feeling, and without even realising it! Moments later a half decent fish came into view and I handed out a fish of around three and a half pounds. A while later another decent fight resulted in another fish of slightly lesser proportions probably an upper two pounder. A few more smaller fish and my tally stood at six Bass and Mr B had managed one, ( due to some 'technical issues'!). Things seemed to go quiet after that and with just the odd tap from small fish, possibly Pollock, we opted to try another spot for half an hour and then call it a night. The new spot produced some bites, but again seemingly not from Bass, so we toddled off home very pleased with our new venue.
Of course we had to have another go the next night, ( last night ), this time we were joined by Mr H. No two nights are ever the same and tonight was definitely a different night, the sea was very calm and the tinge of colour of the previous evening had dropped out and the water was quite clear. With it being a big moon phase I prayed for some cloud cover, as to date I have never done particularly well on bright clear nights in the salt. Well I got my wish as darkness fell and a bank of cloud covered the sky overhead, obscuring the bright moon. No first cast fish this time and after a while I began to feel that it wasn't going to happen. Now we had been wading fairly far out up to this point and had heard the odd fish splash behind us in some much shallower water. Yet again in another inspired move a cast behind us by Mr B had him engaged in battle with a good fish, and clearly not the Mullet we assumed they were! The fish charged around in the shallow water creating a lot of commotion. Eventually it was in the net and a fish in the upper three's was being admired. We continued for a while but I wasn't feeling it so went off to investigate another spot for a while, but returned still biteless to find Mr H had bagged a fish of a couple of pounds and Mr B also had taken another couple of fish, so it looked like I had missed out by not sticking around.
Some time later it seemed that things had definitely quietened down and a move was in order for the last hour of our session, my two companions focused on one spot and I opted to try another, as yet unfished one. Cutting a long story short I saved a blank by bagging three Bass in the new spot to around two and a half pounds, but my companions failed to catch in their area but Mr B did lose a good fish. And that was that...
Only it wasn't! Third night and we were faced this time with clear skies and a very bright Moon..would they still play ball?
In short, they did for a very short while, and the two fish that came to me and the one to Mr B all came from maximum range and the deeper water as opposed to the close in shallow areas we had caught in the nights before. They were obviously reluctant to come in too close at this stage, perhaps later on in the tide they would briefly venture in, but the cold was getting the better of us this night so we called time and took away some new information from this session. Traditionally we  had never done at all well on a full moon phase and clear conditions, but it seemed tonight we had proved that it was possible to catch in the bright conditions but that cloud cover during such phases is preferable. 11 Bass  in three sessions is a good result, factor in Mr B's 5 fish and Mr H's 1 fish and we have 17 fish of good average size in the 3 sessions, each lasting around three hours. Pretty good fishing in my book, in probably less than ideal conditions,  I feel that this venue has much more to give, how much more this year I do'nt know, the weather is closing in and temperatures are set to drop this week, but if at all possible we will do our best to keep trying for as long as we can...

100th Post, and a nice little session..

This will be my 100th post since beginning this Blog, so thankyou to all those that visit for taking the time to read of my adventures in angling!

Had a nice little LRF session the other night on which I was accompanied by my ten year old son. Now it's not very often I can take the kids Saltwater fishing due to the nature of what I do most of the time, but this time we were fishing a spot that is plenty safe enough for them to fish and enjoy themselves. It's a fairly new venue and one we have fished only once or twice before, with little success, but this was the first time we had fished it after dark, and what a difference! The place was alive with fish that night, Bass, Scad, and Pollock were all caught in fair numbers and between three of us, ( the third being my mate ), we had over twenty fish in a couple of hours fishing. I showed my youngster the ropes and left him more or less to his own devices and he manged four fish off his own back, one Scad and three Pollock, making mr very proud! Sadly I had forgotten the camera so there are no piccies, ( idiot!), but we had a great time thanks to the obliging fish. Whether this venue will prove to be a consistent one is yet to be seen, but no doubt we shall be visiting it again sometime over the next few weeks and months.

July catch up.

Okay, quick catch up . So we've been out, my friends and I, we have caught some fish, but it's been a bit of a struggle, Bass, Wrasse have been targeted from both shore and Kayak. My best Bass of late was a fish of around 2 1/2lb the other evening, and my friend was lucky enough to land a clonker of 5lb 3oz while out with his new Century HPR lure rod on it's maiden mission, a very nice way to christen such a prestigious rod. My other mate bagged a 4lb plus. A blank on the local pier, which hurt, I hate piers...while fish were clearly and visually in evidence, but we couldn't catch one. Been out on the Kayak this morning, conditions started off ok but started to deteriorate making presenting to the targeted Wrasse very awkward and I managed only one small Ballan. Not very good is it? so what am I doing wrong? The answer i think is not much, you can only catch what is there, and if the fish or the weather or tides or any of the other pieces of the puzzle aren't in place then it's not going to happen either way. I don't like to make excuses, and often I will over analyze a session if it hasn't gone well, but when you look at the dismal weather we have had for July...lets hope August and September make up for it!

Mr B's 5lb 3oz and New Century HPR lure rod

Metal Mayhem!

Had a couple of hectic evening sessions lately, daylight leading into dusk. First evening my friends and I turned up at a regular venue where I managed to spot some birds working several hundred yards down the beach, my mates thought I was seeing things as they couldn't see them, but I have bionic long distance sight, and knew I wasn't imagining it! We set off and as we got closer my companions began to realise I wasn't losing the plot after all!

The activity was still out quite a long way even though we were able to wade out from the shore about 70 yds, and so the old Dexter wedges came out to enable us to reach the fish. From the first cast it was obvious there were a lot of fish here, nothing big, mostly small schoolies but it was hectic fun and we regularly had multiple hook ups at the same time. Didn't last long but we had near on 30 fish between us. Then we moved along to another spot where we took a few more slightly better fish before the light went and we headed home with aching arms!

Last evening visited another venue with just one of my mates, first tried for Wrasse and despite a few bites, no hook ups for me, but my mate had a small one. With the light failing, we decided to focus on an area of current, again at range with the Dexters. Bites were forthcoming almost straight away, and despite no obvious signs of fish, we had most definitely dropped in on yet another good shoal of fish, they fought very hard in the current and their strength belied their size, most were around the pound mark but they fought like twice or three times that! We took about 8 apiece before the light failed and the fish moved off. A good couple of sporting evenings fishing, but the wind is back today having calmed down a lot for the last 48 hrs, so once again we will be back to struggling with the conditions! Sorry no pics as didn't have time during the action. lol.

Bonus Bass

A short recce of a potential new venue for HRF Bass and Wrasse showed promise with the capture of this fine specimen after just a couple of casts. Conditions seemed less than favourable, or were they? Time will tell, but we were only there about half an hour! Very excitied about this one and can't wait to get stuck into it.

Lightning Storm Bass!

Clearly we were mad...ignoring the forecast of impending thunderstorms we trekked out.
Standing there, waist deep in the dark, rain hammering down, thunder and lightning erupting all around, and us holding carbon rods in a wide open flat space!
We caught some fish though, nothing big, maybe fish of around two and a half pounds.
After an hour and soaked to the skin we called it a night. On the way home the car radio was playing, 'Knocking on Heavens door', we all laughed...

Back at it again

The beastly Easterlies died down sufficiently for us to get out again last night, and with a touch of southerly to it the day was warm and muggy, and it felt right for some Bass.

We arrived at dead low and prepared our gear, the plan was to not fish the 'prime spot' until the optimum time in the tide and so we started fishing a spot with a nice bit of current to it to try and bag an early fish or two. There were fish present from the off, but they were fry feeding and consisted mainly of small pollock and schoolies, such was their pre occupation with the tiny fish they were feasting on, that our lures were almost completely ignored save for the odd tap. No matter we were holding out for their bigger brothers and sisters to come in later in the Tide, so we took a short break while we waited.

While we were sat chatting and surveying the scenery, it occurred to me that there was a spot further along  the beach that we had not looked at and suggested we go take a look just to see if we were missing anything. As we approached to spot and it began to reveal itself in more detail and l I felt the excitement rise, as it was very good looking  indeed. Making a couple of exploratory casts along a ledge where the water was flooding over, my Sluggo was immediately hit and I found myself giving line to an unseen fish. I called to my friend Mr B that I was in and he hurried over to join me. A few moments later I was holding a Bass of around three pounds and beaming with joy! What followed was so hectic we had a job to keep up!, just about every cast our lures were hit by something, and for a short time I seemed to be constantly into Bass, in fact I think three consecutive cast produced three fish on the trot! All the fish were of a good average size ranging up to three pounds or so, and then after a while things went a little quiet. For a time we got hardly any interest and then out of the blue I hooked into the fish I had been waiting for. It's first run tore off at least thirty yards of braid from a fairly tight clutch, and then several more runs left me with a fair amount of line to get back on the reel. At one point close to the end, the fish weeded itself but I was able to walk over to where it was sat, as where we were wading was only waist deep, and change the angle of the line and get it moving again. Then it was in the glow of my headlamp as it was now fully dark and I scooped up a good fish. On the scales it weighed 4.5lb's, a new Soft Plastic's best, boy was I chuffed! Altogether I had 8 Bass in the space of probably an hour, and my friend managed three due to some technical issues with his braid otherwise he would probably have managed around the same number.  

Soft Plastics HRF and LRF

As much as my friends and I love fishing the Fly, and we will fish it as often as humanly possible, sometimes the weather conditions are just not conducive to persisting with the method, and so we look to alternative methods or other types of fishing in order to continue catching. For a while now I have been keeping in touch with the latest developments in fishing soft plastics, particularly those that are finding their way here via Japan and America, I am talking of course about HRF and LRF, ( Hard rock Fishing and Light Rock Fishing ). Both these methods facilitate fishing for many Saltwater species with light tackle using soft plastic lures and jig heads. At first glance both methods seem to indicate a fairly specific way of fishing, particularly as they both specify Rock Fishing in their title. The casual enquirer might take it as read that these methods are suitable solely for, Rock Fishing, but look beyond this, and with a little imagination the same methods can be used just about anywhere. This is the conclusion that Myself and my friends have come to and we have looked at ways we can adapt the tactic to suit our own fishing and available types of venue. Utilising this way of fishing will not only allow us to continue fishing for our favourite species when Fly fishing is not possible but also opens up a whole new world of possibilities regarding targetable species, whilst still maintaining the light sporting element that we have come to appreciate from the Fly fishing. We have much to learn and I forsee a new and steep learning curve ahead, a challenge that we relish. There is much more to say about the method, and there will be much more to report in the coming months, but this evening we took our first steps towards getting to grips with this new and exciting method.

With one last small window in the tide and conditions being really not Fly fishing friendly, a last minute decision was made to have a dabble with the soft plastics. The venue would be the same one that was the scene of our success yesterday evening on the Fly, as it is a reliable testing ground due to the numbers of fish that are normally present. Not really knowing what to expect we began fishing, and to our relative surprise the fish immediately showed an interest in our offerings. We had many seemingly tentative bites on our lures but nothing positive that we could connect with, so we began to chop and change and experiment with different patterns in an effort to find exactly what they wanted. Eventually we settled on a worm imitation and immediately found success as we began connecting with some more postitive bites. By this time the light was fading fast, but we continued on in to dark to test the 'into darkness' capabilities of the method. I am pleased to say that the fish continued to show interest in the baits until well into dark, and seemingly had no trouble in detecting and attacking out lures despite the apparent, ( to us ), darkness. All very interesting and exciting and a great result for a first outing on a new method. I have to say we are really buzzing about the potential of the soft palstics after this and we cannot wait to see exactly where we go from here. In the meantime heres a pic of the proof of the pudding....

Only a little chap, but we did have fish to around a pound as well to the same lure setup, and in almost complete darkness.

A cracking Three Pounder

A window in the weather presented itself yesterday evening, after a couple of days of quite windy and showery conditions, things settled enough for us to get a few hours in on the Kayaks again. The evening was overcast, quite humid, and almost no wind at all. I suggested that We try a spot that We would normally fish by wadeing, but using the Yaks would allow us to remain in place during the whole flood Tide, instead of having to retreat like We normally would due to the deepening water. Choosing to anchor up around 100yds from shore and sitting sideways on the Kayaks with our feet hanging over the side, It wasn't long before We were into the first fish of the evening, What was immediately apparent was that there was a better average stamp of fish around this evening, most of the Bass were in the pound to pound and a half bracket and gave superb accounts of themselves on Fly tackle, in the clear water beneath the boats, a wonderful sight, I can tell you! About an hour into the session I struck into what was obviously a better fish, that fought really hard for a few minutes, and gave Me a thrilling few moments before revealing itself on the surface to be a fish of around Three pounds! After a few quick pictures the fish was returned and swam away strongly. I ended up with around a dozen fish for the evening, all over a pound and up to the three pound mark, and my friend also took several fish to around two pounds, so all in all a good evening and well worth launching the Kayaks for.

Upon our return visit this evening, to the same venue, this time with the Fly gear, we were greeted with the wonderful sight of the years first Bass Blitz. Gulls were excitedly flapping about and diving over the top of the area joining in the free for all. Many of the fish were just out of reach of our casts but a few came within range of our Flies and several Fish were landed to around a pound and a half. As the tide Ebbed and the Fish moved out of range altogether, we followed it out over the top of the feature, treading very carefully and only advancing forward as the water shallowed up and we could easily make out the bottom in the clear water. It was a lovely evening following the warm overcast muggy day, the sun put in an appearance and so did some more Fish including Bass and Pollock again, all super sport on the Fly rods!

You can just make out the Gulls sitting over the Fish in this Picture