Recent adventures!

I have recently re discovered my love of Saltwater fishing, that's not to say I fell out of love with it entirely but just got distracted by other things. My renewed enthusiasm has led to discovering some new marks, re acquainting myself with some old one's and actually managing to catch a few fish!

I began with some bait fishing as it was still early in the year and lure and fly opportunities would not present themselves for a few more weeks. The target being Rays which have seen a resurgence in numbers the last few years. The first session produced some fish, however not the target species as the Dogfish were in proliferation that night!

The next session produced the desired species and between my fishing partner and I we landed several Small eyed Rays.

A few nights ago I managed to get out for a couple of hours Lure fishing for Wrasse at a new mark and from the first cast I was getting bites, and eventually hooked up with a Rock Donkey!

So that brings us up to date really, there have been a few blank sessions in between but hopefully there won't be too many of those!

Weedless Flies

I've been thinking for a while about tying up some weedless flies, having had so much success on weedless lures it seemed a logical step to replicate the same results using fly fishing gear. One particular species that responds well to weedless lures fish in amongst structure such as weed and rocks is Wrasse. To hook a Wrasse on fly gear would certainly be an interesting proposition as they are renowned as power house fish that test your tackle to the limit. So I set about making some prototype weedless flies based upon what I have learnt from lure fishing, and this is what I came up with :

Pretty funky eh ?

The Clouser style design puts the weight where you want it ready to deliver the fly down into the danger zone, the stiff mono prong weed guards should deflect the majority of obstacles and the use of a purpose design weedless worm hook should make the design work more efficiently. I don't think I'm far off with this design but I may add a bit more weight to the bottom of the hook to ensure it sinks positively and gets down quickly.

I look forward to testing these on a few fish in the near future, once the water warms enough to bring the Wrasse inshore and within fly casting range.

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 !

 

 

 

 

 

Big Hammer, small Wrasse !

Popped out for quick LRF session this evening and managed to catch this very striking Ballan Wrasse. I ditched my favourite Ecogear strawtails for this one and instead opted for a Big Hammer curltail grub cadged from my youngest sons lure stocks !

It's been very slow here and many of our summer species are still to put in anything like a consistent appearance, there are odd pockets here and there but nothing like we would normally expect for the time of year so I was very pleased with this fish !

 

 

LRF session...at long last it begins !

Finally the fish have arrived, only a month late but hey, that's just a small detail !  After four or five blank sessions in the last couple of weeks I was really getting frustrated and beginning to think it was never going to happen, but tonight it did !

Nothing earth shattering, just a short Lrf session at an easy access venue where five of us fished and we all caught. Myself and my mate, my two sons and one of their mates all had a variety of fish including some small Wrasse, Pollock and Pouting. The ever faithful Ecogear aqua products proving their worth again. It felt good to be back amongst the fish after so long even if they were only small, at least we know that things have kicked off and we can now hopefully look forward to some regular action !

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wrasse-ville, Lrf !

Lrf techniques never fail to surprise me about just when and where fish can be caught. Last weekend I fished a new spot with my eldest son and we had a good little session in the time we were there. My mate had tried it the day before and had come away with 40 odd fish so credit to him for having a go here. My son and I came away with nearly 40 fish between us so it is a very prolific spot. Most of the fish are Wrasse, a large percentage being Corkwings but a few Ballans thrown in too, also there are Pollock here too and we had a few in our tally.
Another thing that surprised me is that we caught the majority of the fish no more than a few feet out into the water, and its only really a normal beach to all intents and puposes, though there is deep water close by. It was great fun especially for my lad, so I now have a couple of places I can take the children where they can catch in relative safety and enjoy the joys of lrf. My boy remarked how he could really feel the bites through the rod and braid as I had recently passed my old Sakura Shinjin lrf rod onto him as I had upgraded to a Graphite Leader Calzante. He certainly had no trouble connecting with the bites and was putting me to shame in the early stages! I blame it on my reactions being slower as im a lot older...lol
Looks like the Whiting have arrived here now as there have been a few reports of them here and there, so we will be targeting these as soon as we can find a viable venue from which to catch them, another species to add to the diverse list of captures on Lrf, including Crabs that seem to have a liking for Gulp Sandworms!

A pretty little Corkwing Wrasse.

Big Pig!

We've been waiting for another opportunity to venture out on the Kayaks my friends and I, and yesterday morning we took a chance on the weather and got afloat again. We were a duo for this trip, myself and Mr B, and the target was Wrasse, hopefully as big as possible !
Upon arrival conditions didn't look too bad in the bay we were launching from, but once afloat and reaching the boundaries of the bay we were met with some swell. It didn't seem too bad so we made our way towards the area we intended to fish. As the tide pushed in, it brought with it some larger swells, sometimes probably topping four foot, which  made the fishing quite difficult, but despite this we carried on. Persistance paid off and eventually I managed to land a small Pollock, not the target species but a result never the less, next I hooked a small Wrasse, of which bites from these were plentiful but with only the one hook up, so they were playing hardball and using the conditions to spite us eh? Again perserverance rewarded me with a better and harder fighting fish. At first I thought I had a good wrasse but it turned out to be  Bass of around 2lbs. All the fish falling to a gold legend Rockvibe fished on a Carolina rig.

My companion and I had all the while been targeting different areas to one another, with Mr B focusing on some deeper water. I had just taken a break to re tackle after a loss and turned around to see My friend well and truly bent into a serious fish. His HPR was doing battle with an unseen monster so I turned my boat around and began to paddle over to him to lend a hand. Now let me tell you, this fish was doing some seious crash diving in it's attempts to reach sanctuary back on the bottom, some 30ft below! Just before I reached him, which took a few minutes, I watched him net a good fish, not sure if it was a Pollock or a Wrasse, I called and asked what it was? "A Wrasse" he stated with a big grin on his face!
I pulled alongside and stared unbelievingly at the net, and laying in the bottom was a very big Pig!
The fish was accurately weighed and after the net was deducted  weighed in at 4lb 6oz and was an absolute beast of a fish! Now Mr B is six foot two, ( and eyes of blue! ) with hands like clubs, but this fish still looks big in the pictures despite the ample frame of my friend, so you can see it is a genuinely big fish...It doesn't look like it but we were riding some good swells while trying to get the pictures of this magnificent creature, so getting reasonable photo's was a result in itself here.
Well done to my good friend and well deserved, ( even if it was caught on a metal ;) ! ) and it also means we have actually managed to pin down an area where we might get some more fish of this stamp or bigger, it comes as no surprise though really as we thought this spot had all the hallmarks of a big Pig producing area. All thats left is to work on achieving the target of presenting the lures effectively to them and catching them consistently if possible...
Not long after this conditions became too much and so it was time to call it a day, just riding the swell to dismount on the shore was a trick in itself but we manged it with no mis haps thankfully!

4lb 6oz, A genuine big Rockfish

'Quick' Kayak session

Another quick session, this time on the Kayak at a venue I have been keen to fish for a while to explore the Wrasse potential. Initial results were very promising with plenty of bites despite a difficult drift, resulting in 3 Wrasse boated along with a School Bass all in about an hour and a half. Lots of ground to go at and I would be staggered if there were'nt some biggies lurking down in the depths...
Also first time I have caught on paddle tails, Reins Rockvibes seem to work well here.

First LRF Corkwing

First Lrf Corkwing Wrasse, caught along with a Ballan, a Scorpion and around 10 Mackerel.

'Quick' LRF

Had hoped to do another Yak session yesterday evening, but the wind had other ideas and did a one eighty later in the day scuppering my plans. So it was a quickie session at a little LRF venue we have discovered, where a few species are on offer to the light gear. I think we were only there about an hour and a half but I managed 7 or eight of these little fella's and missed a whole lot more.

Afloat again!

Well, it's certainly been a year for mixing it up, new methods new techniques, some old style fishing and a return to the water, on, not in! I'm talking about a return to kayak fishing. The new HRF and LRF techniques I have been using this year lend themselves very well to fishing from a plastic tub, access from the shore to prime ground for Bass and Wrasse and all the other species available on these methods is sometimes difficult if not frustratingly impossible. We tried the kayak fishing last year but with normal spinning and fly fishing techniques, but I personally didn't get on with it, and so I sold my kayak. Since using the new methods however, I realised just how much more effective they could be if I were to get afloat again, and so I began to reconsider. The truth was that the one I bought last year was totally unsuitable for the job. Too big for me personally to handle, both on and off the water and totally the wrong shape with very limited room making it very uncomfortable to spend long periods in. What I needed was a smaller lighter craft, built specifically for fishing, and easy for me to handle.
I began to research and looked at all the usual suspects including Ocean Kayak, and Wilderness kayaks. I paid careful attention to the details and assessed which had the best features to suit my needs. The Tarpon range by Wilderness seemed to be exactly what I needed, and the smallest craft in the range at 10 feet seemed ideal. After a lot more looking around and some emails and phone calls I eventually found and ex demo model at a very good price...

The day after I collected it from the dealer my friends and I went out to try our luck at our favoured spot, but, due to the conditions it was apparent that we would not be able to fish so we took to some sheltered inshore estuary water to just have a paddle and get used to the kayaks once again, ( my other mate had just bought himself a kayak too ). We spent a nice couple of hours paddling around the estuary looking at the wildlife and dodging the small sailing craft whizzing backwards and forwards across the water!
Suitably re aquainted with the vessels the next day came with better and calmer conditions with the sea being a lot more settled so we were able to take to the water at our venue of choice.
Wrasse were the target over some very rough and broken bouldery ground. My friend had managed a good session there the weekend before so we hoped for more of the same but it seemed the fish were in contrary mood and bites were infrequent and difficult to hit. trying different lures and rigs I eventually managed to connect with a Wrasse, the only one of the evening and very welcome it was too! Only a small fish but proof and justification that getting afloat could and will pay dividends when the fish are in a feeding mood. Hopefully there is more to come and we shall have access now to the prime ground and be able to capitalise on our opportunities. I am very pleased so far with the Tarpon, it is everything I wanted, light, easy to manouvre and very comfortable thanks to the seating system, and it has lots of storage options and room to work from as a fishing platform.

Lrf weekend

A last minute decision to fish a pier again last night, the wind had dropped which gave us a window to fish through dusk and into dark for some Pollock. I must admit the Pier fishing has been a bit of a mystery to me so far. They hold plenty of fish to target with Lrf gear but, finding the right way to present a lure to them is crucial. The fishing position is awkward at best, and not the most comfortable fishing I have ever done, i.e hanging over the side of a Pier!
Anyway after some huffing and puffing and a few tips from my friend who seems to have the knack, I began to get the hang, ( no pun intended ), of it. Several Pollock were landed in quick succession by me and between us we probably managed a dozen or so before they seemed to go off the feed. Lure choice was crucial, I tried all the usual suspects to no avail, before, once again, my friend came to the rescue with the required choice. Thanks J.
So that was that, and today was centered around finding some Wrasse to fish for. The first venue, was out of sorts, though we tried for a while and found a few bites none of them converted in to fish. Our fishing position was beginning to get a bit uncomfortable due to swell so we retreated to another venue where we hoped things might be a bit calmer. On arrival things looked good, still plenty of tide to go at and the water was crystal clear, and the wind was practically non existent, ( makes a change ).
First cast and I'm into a hard fighting fish looking to get into any little bit of structure it can, the shinjin is bent double but I keep the pressure on and in comes a decent Wrasse. Good start!
Another three followed over the next hour or so, all around the same size, all fought hard and were a better stamp than I have had before. No monsters, I left that to my mate who landed a clonker ! ( well done J ), along with a few other smaller fish as well. The Lrf techniques are certainly proving their worth at the moment, and done properly it's immensley enjoyable. Light lines, tiny lures and a 0.5-7grm rod equals lots of fun!
There is a promise of some warmer weather this week, along with a lot less wind, fingers crossed that this will be the case and that it will bring the Bass back in, much as I'm enjoying myself Lrf'ing, the lure of some big Bass is calling.

Lessons in LRF

Took my two boys LRF'ing yesterday for small Wrasse. Both caught their first Rockfish, to add to their already impressive tally of fish. They are spoilt really as they have had it easy with me to teach them, and sometimes they take it for granted. They are learning that Sea fishing is a lot harder than coarse fishing however, and that is a good thing as they will begin to appreciate their catches that little bit more. The oldest one is already doing that, as he is a very keen angler and has had some frustrating moments since he started coming Sea fishing with me, so even the tiny Wrasse that he caught yesterday had him beaming from ear to ear as I took the picture.
Mind you I know how he feels, because despite my success with the Bass fishing this year, the Wrasse still remain a bit of a nemesis for me, certainly the larger specimens. I have never really struggled that much when targeting particular species of any kind, especially in recent years, so my lack of consistency with this species is coming hard. Having said that I did do reasonably well yesterday, even though the fish were only small I began to get a feel for how they wanted the lure fished, and when the bites dried up, ringing the changes with lure colour seemed to spark their interest again. Something to carry over when attempting to fool their larger bretheren. Lure wise smaller definitely seems to be better, and is something I think I need to get right in relation to the size of fish to be expected at any given venue. It seems they will attack almost anything of any size but to get the hook ups the lure needs to be of the right proprtions. Still a long way to go yet but the five or six fish I had yesterday have boosted my confidence and given me a better idea from now on. Anyway we all enjoyed ourselves despite the unrelenting wind yet again, ( when will it ever end?? ), and we are coming into some nice evening floods again this week so hopefully some windows will open up and some fish will be caught.

A selection from yesterday:

First LRF Wrasse!

A small window in the weather allowed us to have a dabble with some LRF tactics for Wrasse this evening. The session took place across high tide and and hour or so of the ebb. I had previously been struggling with finding the right approach when targeting the Rockfish, plenty of bites had been forthcoming from them but I had failed to hook up during several attempts.
This evenings session changed all that and at last I managed not one but two fish! ok they weren't the biggest Wrasse in the world but it's a start and a confidence booster now that I have an idea of what i'm doing and what the fish want. All thats needed now is to find a few venues capable of producing a reasonable stamp of fish on a regular basis. There is plenty of promising looking ground to go at locally, that is almost completely untapped as far as Wrasse go, it just needs exploring, and thats exactly what we intend to do over the coming weeks as often as possible. There is definitely a certain appeal in fishing for Wrasse, particularly with these methods, and the fish themselves can be stunning to look at with their much and varied colourings and patterns, part of the thrill of hooking one is wondering what colour it's going to turn out to be! The other of course is their fighting prowess, and I'm looking forward to making contact with some of the more serious specimens to experience this. There's a lot of work to be done yet, but if the progress with the Bass fishing so far this year is anything to go by, there's an awful lot to look forward too!

Uncovering new ground

The last few sessions have yielded no fish for me, not surprising really as my friends and I have been attempting to get to grips with fishing for Wrasse on the soft plastics. The ideal ground for it is hard to find here, as we are not surrounded by the type of structure that is to found in the Rockfish mecca's of Jersey, Gurnsey and Cornwall. With a little hard work and some pioneering spirit however, we have managed to locate a couple of prospective venues and signs have been promising. We experienced bites right from the off, though clearly only from quite small fish, they were hitting the lures but not enough to find the hook, one bite off on the tail of a lure proved this. The interesting thing was that they seemed to show prefferences for certain lures and all but ignored others. Eventually my golden sphered friend Mr B managed to latch into a decent fish and landed a very pretty Wrasse of around a pound and a half. Not a monster but proof that we are on the right track and if a half decent sized fish should come across our lures then there is no reason why we can't be successful on a fairly regular basis. Encouraging and exciting, as it adds yet another dimension to our fishing, and an alternative for when the Bass aren't playing ball. We have some other spots to look at that have a track record of producing good fish on bait, but have to my knowledge never been fished with the SP's before. Sadly at the moment strong Easterly winds are playing havoc with the conditions and we will be on a forced break for the next few days. Time to catch up on chores, re-assess lures and tactics and generally re ignite the fire for when conditions come right again.

I also have some new Fly patterns to tie and try when I get the chance, as I am keen to develop some larger patterns to use when targeting bigger Bass.

Until I can get out again, Thanks for reading.