Rockfish Zakynthos

My latest trip was not the usual jaunt with Scott and Ross, it was a family holiday more designed to get some chill time and bond together. I did however pack my Rock Rovers and managed a couple of hours here and there.

I stayed in Argassi which is about three Kilometres from Zakynthos city where the beaches are shallow and Sandy, lots of small Bream, Derbio and Red Mullet were present but were so small they even presented problematic hooking on a size 10 hook. I did manage a few Striped bream though.

A couple of days later I took Adison with me in to Zakynthos to catch his first holiday fish too. I set up Adi with a drop shot rig and I used jigheads mainly. Adi caught his first holiday fish and we both caught Goldblotch Grouper, a first for us both!

It turns out Zakynthos Port is riddled with these aggressive wee fish, while I saw other species such as Saddled Sea Bream, White Bream, Painted Comber etc, I found it challenging to get past the Goldblotch Grouper. I did get a couple of different species when I switched to a drop shot isome rig.

This Method of fishing just not my favourite no matter how effective and productive so I switched to jigheads and Paddles for the remainder of my stints, and the Grouper just loved it especially the 2” One Up Shad and Aquawave Lockhead combo, though Keitech lures were certainly popular too. 

Nothing too major but as said before; this wasn’t a serious fishing holiday, I’ll need to hit up Scott and Ross for something soon though eh?!

Tight lines.

Pack N Play

 As any reader might know, I’m a bit of a fan of one rod in particular from the ever expanding HTO rods available from Tronix fishing; namely the Rock Rover.

I own many high end rods from Smith, Apia, Yamaga Blanks and so on but, this little five piece pack rod just lives in the boot of my car.

Lure fishing for me aside from many other things is largely about convenience and fun and this is where the Rock Rover really lends itself. It is there literally ready to deploy but taking up no space for whenever an impromptu moment might arise.

This week though I received the original Rock Rovers supersession; the HTO Nebula Rock Rover.

The rod has been around a while but the original has been so good to me, I’ve caught hundreds of fish on it, large and small I resisted the upgrade out of superstitious thoughts of jinxing my fishing, but finally buckled.

On first impressions It was noticeably light which I liked but was unsure about the skeletal reel seat and what seemed like a long handle; I needed to try it.

I therefore popped out yesterday evening after work for an hour and a half to a new spot of the Suffolk Stour to give it a whirl.

Well straight away it just casts effortlessly, using a 1.4g Decoy Round Magic jig head and Keitech Easy Shiner I started catching small Perch straight away.

The rod is very sensitive and detecting bites was incredibly easy, especially when paired with some 0.8 PE Nebula braid.

I moved down the tasty, Reed strewn stretch picking up small Perch along the way, I then god a more savage take.

Not really what I was hoping for but a good opportunity to test the curve and reserves of the blank. Yep, a Pike.

Like the original Rock Rover, the Nebula is a Pack Rod that packs a punch. I was easily able to pull this lean fish from snags and the curve was such I maintained a solid hook set and bought this spirited fish to the net.

A very quick snap before release left me pretty pleased. I don’t much like catching Pike during the summer months in this water, it’s slow and low in the dissolved oxygen they very much need but they’re somewhat unavoidable.

I fished into Sundown, catching more Perch and the odd Small Chub of which I didn’t bother with Photos. Needless to say though, I am pretty pleased with this rod and look forward to racking up species with it. I’m not sure I will completely retire the older brother, but we shall see. I shall use the solid tip soon as that was in my opinion, the one thing that I wasn’t so keen on with the older variant.

I’ll report again soon.

Tight lines

Becoming a theme

 I headed out after work Saturday and found the river quite heavily pressured, I guess the fair weather anglers we’re just out in force, I scored one alongside a couple of Jack Pike.

Chub of course!

Koshinmushi of course!

I did head off to explore some new water but just caught small pike but was hoping for perch, I actually find Perch strange in this area, they seem to be intermittent yet 10 minutes on the Hampshire Avon the week before and I had a decent stint in no time, maybe I’ll find some decent ones locally soon.

Tight lines

Xplosive

 Can’t think of a better title although admittedly I’m terrible with titles anyway!

However, I popped out for an hour or so after work last night and caught two Chub and lost one, but boy were the takes explosive!

Drifting the Koshinmushi down stream and into some tasty looking margins where the fish were hitting. The largest of the fish hit just out of eyesight behind the reeds I was poking out of and at first I would have sworn it was a Pike, as it pure tailwalked before making an urgent beeline for a reed island at the base of the swim, it was a pretty decent fight for a Chub!

Having said that I’m finding when these fish are on, they can really be aggressive in their takes and attempts to get away, I rather like them.

I have also caught a few Perch of late, still can’t find any decent ones but they are still fun and a good looking fish in my opinion.

Until next time, tight lines!

The Chub Is The Drug

Or should that be “the tug is the drug”? Either way I think I have a slight problem!

Caught on the DUO Realis Koshinmushi again! I had some small Chub and a Pike too but no photos of those. 

I think I need to target something else soon though, I’d quite like to tick a Zander off the list but I can’t really target them after work!

Maybe it will be more Chub 🤔

Til then, tight lines!

Off The Top Chub

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I finally got my two days off and boy was it worth the wait, I’ve had some enjoyable fishing indeed and quite pleased with myself for trotting small top waters into likely looking zones before pausing and imparting minute little twitches  to induce some savage takes.

Friday was just the best, I had two 50cm fish which followed a 60cm fish right off the bat. These are the results I have been hoping for. 

Terrible selfie!

Lures used were the Taps Biedronka and DUO Koshinmushi.

I also switched to using some Keitech 2” Swing Impacts and Easy Shiners to finish up sessions with some small Perch and Pike, some of which can be viewed below.

Check out this photo I took on a dog walk, Friday evening too, just kinda like it!

Tight lines!

Koshinmushi

Having to reschedule two days holiday earmarked for fishing due to a Renault audit has been doing my head in, so I popped out after work this evening to just wet a line.

I picked a drain off of the local river Stour as I know it holds some decent Chub, boy was it hard going though! I tried everything from top waters to cranks, paddle tails and chebs, but all I could get were small Pike.

I don’t know if the solstice had anything to do with behaviour or whether it was the cooler air etc. Perseverance is key though I guess and eventually I got an off the top take using a Duo Koshinmushi, not an epic fish but very welcome and right on last light.

Please excuse the photo quality, it wasn’t easy in that light and with my phone. 

Anyway, I was happy with that, hopefully I will find some lumps soon!

June 16 2021

June 16th is a date coarse anglers up and down the country have been waiting for; I expect many like me had in the run up bought tons of gear they don’t need fuelled by the excitement and many anglers dreaming of how they’d like to see their season start. 

Looking through social media on the actual day many anglers did very well indeed, lure anglers sporting photos of Chub ranging from 4lb to 6.5lb, Perch caught in the 2-3lb mark too.

Sadly my season start did not go quite so well. I got up at 04:00 but really chose the wrong venue, it is the venue I caught my two largest Chub on but I know very well it isn’t a consistent venue and while I found Chub, they were very small.

I also caught a ton of micro Pike.

It’s potentially good news for the future as the surface was alive with small Chub picking flies off of the surface, but not really what I wanted in the immediate sense.

As the sun rose I headed home for some breakfast and had a wee sleep.

In the evening I chose another venue prolific for decent Chub but there were bait anglers in all the decent swims, I spoke to a few and it was nice to hear their days were good with fish landed to 6 pound.

I did tempt some larger fish out from the overhanging trees with their foliage resting on the surface but could not trigger a take.

I caught some small fish though and it was still nice to get on the bank.

I can’t deny I was disappointed with my first day and even more disappointed that the rains have potentially ruined any chances of decent lure fishing for at least a week. On the other hand I’m still learning this area and honestly relearning coarse angling so I can’t really expect consistent results or can I? Maybe I’m making lame excuses?

There’s the rest of the season nonetheless and there will be other days. 

It’d be sure nice to find a lure angling buddy or two in these parts too, fingers crossed eh.

Tight lines.