Summer Mackerel.

On Thursday I headed of on the long walk to one of my Bass marks and characteristically lately had a rough session. Just as the Bass turned up to feed a couple of Jet bikers came along and even with the whole ocean to play in, they decided to donut right in front of me. They were making so much noise it was unbelievable and consequently scared the fish away.

They did eventually bugger off and seeing as I had walked for an hour or more I decided to tough it out. The fish did eventually show again and I could tell there was the odd decent fish among them but, you wouldn't believe what happened next! 5 Jet skiers turned up and scared them off again!

I was livid to say the least and decided to head home. I was almost two thirds of my way along the beach when I kind of got a consolation prize, the sea was erupting with Mackerel hitting baitfish.

I tried to get a few photo's, but they did not come out well. You can get an idea of the amount of bait present from this one though;

Armed with a 7 gram jig I caught a fair few fish! I did on occasion put bigger lures on to see if there was any Bass hitting the Mackerel, but they did not appear, strange!

Well I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth and for the last two nights after work, I have been absolutely smashing the Mackerel with my light game gear! Fishing ultra light is the ultimate way to get the best out of Mackerel and it has been seriously good fun. It was nice just to fish for giggles, not being so serious about it all!

I have caught a serious amount of Mackerel and its been amazing watching them go ballistic for the tiny smelt with airborne acrobatics to boot, I have never seen anything quite like this on my local marks!

I caught pretty much all my fish over the past two nights, including a beastly Weever on a 7 gram ima Gun and a 4 gram Fish League Tiebo jig.

My friend Tim was out with me tonight and believe it or not he had never caught a Mackerel before! He started off with feathers, but I gave him one of my Yoshikawa jigs and before long he has caught his first Mackerel, happy days. I must have caught 50 plus fish over the last three nights and I am still a tad pumped! Call me a Mackie basher if you like, but at the end of the day they were caught on gear pretty much designed for this type of fishing, Mackerel are about the nearest thing I am going to get to Aji on my patch! It beats that feather nonsense hands down too.

I have kept a few of them for dinner and a few for bait, I have been wanting to do a bait session for a while, so this has set me up pretty well.

Oh just before I go, I'll leave you with a picture of a small piece of the aftermath that was strewn on the shoreline;

Till next time, tight lines!

Back at Home

On arrival back in Wales, I had one day of holiday left before returning to work, depressing stuff!

Still, I wanted to get back on the Bass as I still haven't beaten my personal best yet, though of course I may not this year. Anyway I decided to head out Sunday afternoon.

There was a fairly stiff South westerly blowing, so I decided on an estuary mark which is fairly new to me. Here I could have the wind blowing from behind me, thus making fishing easier.

I also opted for my Yamaga Blanks BlueCurrent 80, as the fish feed on tiny fry here and my light game lures would be a better match to the prey.

I arrived at my mark early because I knew I was going to get cut off by the high tide for a couple of hours.
As the tide flooded I could see the Bass coming in and the odd splash ensued as Bass lunged at baitfish, I became a tad excited.

It was a mighty hard session, the Bass seemed so occupied with the masses of baitfish present, they were completely ignoring my lures and it became most frustrating!

It wasn't until the tide actually started to recede again that I caught my only Bass of the session! The Bass took a Daiwa D'fin shad fished on the drop, it gave a reasonable account of itself and when measured came in at just over 51cm. One fish is certainly better than none but I couldn't help feeling I should have done better somehow!

The fish was captured, pictured and released.

Tight lines

A Couple of sessions in Cornwall.

Recently I have been on holiday in Cornwall with my family. I didn't do a lot of fishing and neither did I want to, I intended to spend some quality time with my daughters and that certainly went to plan. We spent time bodyboarding, sightseeing and a bit of shopping, it was all good.

I did hope to meet up wit Josh Fletcher (twice winner of the Cornish lure festival species comp) for a short session, but that didn't arise unfortunately.

I did however manage a short session in Mevagissey.

Mevagissey is well known to the lrf species hunters and a variety of fish are reported to be caught there. Typically, the day I picked to go the fishing was tough and really didn't meet my expectations. Heavy showers and a low tide made things both difficult and unpleasant. I did however manage a few small Pollock, a Long Spined Sea Scorpion (my first of the year) and some Blennies.

My girls especially liked the Blennies and laughed when they bit me!

I had hoped to get a Goldsinney Wrasse, but those wee buggers are still eluding me and its becoming most frustrating!

On my last night in Cornwall it just so happened that Scott happened to be down and after a day on the beach I met up with him. We took a trip down to Fowey which is another spot frequented by light gamers and again the fishing was tough! Even Scott struggled a bit and he was using fresh Ragworm as bait.

I managed a couple of Long Spined Sea Scorpions and Scott caught a Tompot Blenny, A small Plaice, some Long Spined Sea Scorpions and some crabs.

Though the fishing wasn't epic, it was just great to spend some time with Scott again and it was a nice calm moonlit night to be out.

The only pictures I have are of my fish, unfortunately I forgot my camera so the shots were taken on Scotts phone.

The last fish hooked that night was by me and it was a species that has given me nightmares since Jersey last year; the Topnot. I hooked and lost one at Bouley bay in Jersey, I was gutted, it's such an unusual species and I'd have loved to have landed it.

Well at Fowey I managed to hook another and on the retrieve, I managed to get my hook and fish stuck in some weed on the harbour wall and thought I'd lost it for sure! Scott came to help me and after some time we managed to free my hook and fish, I started to celebrate and thought that was it, home free. Still to my disbelief however, as I lifted the fish up the harbour wall, the Topnot managed to shake itself free and I once again was robbed of my prize! Gutted again.

We did laugh about it too, but I have to say it wasn't my most defining angling moment.

Oh well, I just hope its third time lucky with the Topnot, but I do not know where I will again find one. Well it was on that loss that ended my time with Scott and also where I shall end my report.

Tight lines.

Jika Rig

I thought I'd just post up a picture of a Jika rig because hits keep coming via google searches and the photo google displays is all wrong. I wouldn't want people to think that I don't have a clue what I'm on about hey! ;-)

The beauty of the Jika rig is that you can choose your hook size or weight to suit the depth or conditions you are fishing, just like you would a jig head, this makes it a very versatile method.

You can buy the rigs already made up for you, but I find those pointless and expensive. I also find the bespoke weights are too often expensive and neither do they minimise losses or often come in the weights I need, any old bomb will do. You just put a split ring in the top of the lead, a split ring in your chosen weedless  hook and then join the rings together. Next, rig your chosen soft bait, clip on your rig by the hook ring and away you go, a simple and very effective way of rockfishing.

Peace

Ringing the Changes.

I spoke to my friend and fellow BASS member Steven Neely the other day and told him I was getting a bit bored of chasing Bass, I think he thought I was mad as he said "I never thought I'd hear a man say that." Truth is though, I do find targeting the same species over and over a bit boring and with that in mind I decided to camp up the peninsula and target Pollock for a couple of days.

It wasn't the only reason I went, sometimes a person just needs some time out and to get some head space. So armed with more lures than I really needed, off I went for a little solo fish and camp.

The fish over the two days were not of any great size but they certainly kept me on my toes. In order to keep catching I had to keep changing style and technique.

On my first mark it was dropshot Gulp sandworm that was doing the trick.

I had a few of these, but I did not really want to catch such tiny fish, so I moved along the rocks a bit and clipped on a 40g Fiiish Black minnow. I think it was on my second cast that my rod hooped and I had a fish on!

It doesn't look all that big in the photo, but it was a good bit larger than the ones I had on the drop shot rig. I did have some smaller ones afterwards and I was actually surprised how quite small fish would take the 120mm lure, greedy little fellas!

The fish then seemed to switch off, so I changed to a Carolina type rig, using a 40g drilled bullet as the sinker. I used a number of lures on the rig , but by far the most popular was the OSP Dolive stick in Bluegill.

I next tried some metal jigs and actually I think the metals accounted for more fish over all. Heres a picture on one taken on a cheap jig that I purchased on eBay.

The only down side to using metals is you do tend to foul hook a few fish and so I did, one Pollock right through the head and the biggest Launce I have ever seen, through the tail.

I must admit to being tempted to freeline it on a chinu hook!

After a bit I fancied another move and decided on a sheltered spot just around the corner.

At first I regretted my move as there didn't seem to be any fish, that is until I changed to a Jika rigged Dolive stick and caught the biggest fish of the couple of days!

Must work on these timer shots!

Before I left that night, I noticed some bait fish flipping on the surface of the sea and knew what that meant - Mackerel!

With that I clipped on my Megabass Bubble header and had some fun with those guys for a bit.

Although I had considered fishing in into darkness, I decided it wasn't the wisest idea, being both alone and tired. I did enjoy a dramatic looking sunset before I left for my tent.

Today I only ended up fishing for a few hours, but it was more of the same really. I started catching from my first cast on a Tronix Pro jig in Mackerel pattern.

Then the Megabass Bubbleheader.

Lastly; dropshotted senkos.

All in all an enjoyable and varied couple of sessions!

I hope you enjoyed the report :)

Tight lines.

Kit employed;

Rod : Sakura Mazzera 742MH
Reel: Shimano Rarenium 4000FA
Braid: Suffix Performance 20lb
Leader: Triplefish Fluorocarbon
Lures: Metal jigs by Tronix, Megabass, Tackle House, also unknown brands, Senko's by agmdiscountfishing, OSP Dolive sticks, Fiiish Black Minnow 120's and many other lures.