Lure and Light Game: Fishing with friends.

Saturday, 31 May 2014

Fishing with friends.

I've had a little bit of free time lately and as a result I have been able to catch up with some friends, which has been a huge positive.

We've had some pretty good fishing, sunshine and some laughs too.

Thursday night I was out with Ben and his mate Ed; I've never met Ed but he seems a thoroughly nice chap and clearly a passionate angler. We were fishing a new mark and Ed led the way kicking off with two feisty Bass while myself and Ben were blanking. A little later I dropped a small fish and thought I'd blown it when literally just before we left, I managed to save the dreaded blank by tempting a Schoolie to take my 5" Skid Stik in Holo Yellow. Nice!

At the time the fish took, I actually had a small audience consisting of a father and his two children. They got incredibly excited to see the fish, which was quite funny and the young girl snapped my picture for me. I gave them a small education on Bass as a predator , they seemed to really like the fact I cut my thumb on the gill raker!

Friday morning I had planned to meet my good friend Ross Johnson as he is over on a holiday from his work in Alderney Angling. Ross also bought his friend Rich along too and we headed up the peninsula.

The fishing started slowly so we made a little move and things kicked off for Ross and Rich as they started catching Wrasse and Pollock, yet I was still to get off the mark. At first I employed the same tactics as the guys without any joy and decided to stick a jig on which worked a treat!

Off the mark!

From that point on we were all getting some pretty good and constant action with fish averaging around the two to two and a half pound mark. I wish I had pictures of the guys as Ross pulled out some Wrasse with some stunning colours and Rich was bagging up on Pollock, Wrasse and Coalies.

Unfortunately you are just going to have to put up with pictures of my fish.

40g "Bad Ass Bob"

My first Coalie in maybe 20 years!

30g Tacklehouse Nebura Deka

4" Ecogear Paramax

40g Tronixpro jig

I lost all my jigs during the action, I got absolutely owned by a really big fish which took me completely by surprise and lodged itself under a deep ledge. Admittedly I am not very experienced with really big Pollock and I was totally overwhelmed, the thing pulled so hard I nearly lost my footing on the rock I was standing on, its something I will never forget and I was gutted to lose it.

I lost another fish this was and another to a really dodgy clip made by Flashmer;

Shit clips!

I'll be throwing the rest of those in the bin for sure! I did also lose another fish and jig due to a bad knot, I have no one else to blame for that except myself!

After losing my Jigs, I changed to a deep spinning carolina type setup and after a little experimenting I found that a rig consisting of; an initial 25lb leader with a 28g drilled bullet weight, a bead, then tied to a swivel. After that; a 2 foot 15lb trace and a 4" orange curl tail at the business end, this put me back in the action along with the boys.

That rig actually landed me the biggest fish of the trip which I was very pleased about! It still didn't even begin to compare with the one I lost, but a nice fish none the less.

4lb 12oz

It was an intensely enjoyable session, but the day wasn't quite finished.

Ross wanted to come down my end to catch some Weever on lures and have a bash at the Turbot, so we headed back and fished with light game gear. Ross out fished me on my own mark and the jammy bugger got a Flounder on his first cast with a Daiwa prisoner jig, literally just as I said to him "I've never had a flattie on a jig"!

We both caught a few weever but failed to land any Turbot, we couldn't really grumble after such an epic day though!

We actually reminisced a bit throughout the day and I felt genuinely privileged to have made such good friends through this awesome sport. I hope that myself, Ross and Scott can get together at some point, we've had some great times in the past.

Well thats for the future and who know what that'll bring?

Thanks for reading and tight lines all!

Gear I used;

Rods

Apia Foojin' AD Flow Hunt 89ML

Sakura Mazzera 742MH

Breaden GRF85- TR85 "PE Secial" Houri-island

Reels

Shimano Rarenium 4000

'13 Shimano Complex 2500HGS F6

Braids

Sufix 832 20lb