Its Not A Competition, Right?

Myself and young Ben have had a fairly bad run of late, even during days when we have had textbook conditions, the fishing has hardly set the world alight.

We have both remained pretty determined to keep on slogging it out however and today we headed up to the North Peninsula for some Rock-fishing.

Our mark looked promising on arrival; a slight westerly breeze blew as the tide rose. Water clarity was near to perfect and Launce were smashing baitfish in the margins, everything looked a bit better than what we have become accustomed to this year.

We had our day pretty much planned; we decided to fish the natural harbour area with light game gear until the ebb and then move to access the deeper water on the ebb.
Ben has just started out lrf'ing and it has been quite refreshing hearing someone so excited about it, especially given some past comments from him on the subject. :)
Ben was actually first into the fish, catching a couple of greedy Launce, but refused to have his picture taken with one.

I was fishing for Wrasse using a Texas rigged HTO Mini Stick in Ayu, which are my "to go" light Wrasse bait these days. Although I was getting bites pretty instantaneously, a Wrasse would not be my first fish, in fact it was a Launce.

Apologies for the quality of the picture, for some reason I find these fish difficult to photograph, which is a shame because they are a nice looking fish.
I found this capture really strange though, I never thought their jaws would be strong enough to expose a weedless hook let alone pull it through the lure!

It wasn't long before I did get some Wrasse though, one of them even managing to reef me before I got it out, I would have sworn it to be bigger!

As I was fishing for the Wrasse, I spotted a Scorpion fish on a ledge just by me and called Ben over. Ben took a peek and with true lrf stealth, he stalked the fish and offered his white HTO Mini Stick. It was proper kool watching the wee Scorpion dart off the ledge to intercept and engulf Ben's lure, his first Sea Scorpion on lure too!

Shortly after this I also managed a first for me; I cast out my Ayu Mini Stick towards a pot buoy and let the lure fall through the column, when I got hit! I knew it wasn't a Wrasse and thought it to be a Pollock, yet to my surprise after a pretty good scrap I actually landed a Codling, my first ever on lure.

I was and am pretty pleased about that one!

Another Wrasse followed before the bites went off the boil a bit;

 With the bites starting to decrease I scaled down to fishing a 1.5g #10  Jighead and a Berkley Gulp Angleworm. Bites again were pretty instant and I caught a succession of Corkwing Wrasse and Blennies;

The fish that bites back!

Ben also followed suit!

After having our fill with the seriously small stuff, we moved off to try our luck with some HRF tactics in deeper water.
Ben was having trouble with the Ballan Wrasse today and hadn't caught one. Even with the move he struggled to turn his bites into hookups, I really felt for him as I bagged up.

Fair play to Ben though he persevered and switching back to lrf tactics eventually managed to catch a couple of Ballan Wrasse.

Well with that we decided to call it a day; well almost! "Time for one last cast?" I asked Ben, "Yeah OK" Ben replied.

I did give Ben a bit of grief over getting such a battering, but hey, its not a competition right?

Well all in all, a pretty enjoyable days fishing, nothing big, nothing epic, just enjoyable!

Tight lines.

Gear I used;

Rods;
Breaden GTRF85 PE Special Houri Island
HTO Rockfish Revolution 7'10" 7-28g

Reels;
'12 Daiwa Luvias 2506H
Shimano Complex CI4+ F6 2500HGS

Lines;
YGK Jigman X4 0.5PE
Duel X-Wire 0.8PE
Seaguar Ace Fluorocarbon leader
Varivas Fluorocarbon Leader

Lures;
HTO Mini Sticks
Berkley Gulp Angleworm
HTO 3.8" Pro-Worm
HTO 3.8" Real Stick
Nories Ladyfish

Terminal Tackle;
Texas cone weights 2g-14g
Gamakatsu G-Lock hook #2 (more like a 4)
Decoy Rockfish Hook #1/0

Light Wrassing

Sorry for the lack of reports of late, I've had a hectic time lately and I am in the process of moving house.

I did manage to redeem a day yesterday and had a cracking time on the Llyn peninsula targeting rockies.

I figured it would be a good chance to try out some HTO lures I have just acquired and boy did they exceed expectations. I was mainly using the HTO Mini Sticks and Mini Shads, they looked perfect for T-rigging, so I used a #4 or #6 weedless hook and 2g cone weights, a pretty perfect combo in my opinion.

The first Gully I arrived at, I caught two Wrasse on the first two drops and working along the coastline I had some pretty consistent action.

These lures look really good underwater and have a really nice shimmer to them when falling through the water column, they certainly triggers some very positive takes. I did get busted up twice by a couple of decent fish, thats was a shame but par for the course at times.

The Scorpion fish seemed to like them also. They are not the easiest species to catch on a weedless hook either and for one I changed to an Aquavave Straight rigged on a 1.5g Aquawave Lockhead.

All in all a very enjoyable session and hugely needed, hopefully I'll find time to get some more action soon.

Tight lines

Swanage Pier, Day 2

After a pretty decent nights sleep in Rivendell Hotel, Swanage, Scott and I headed down to the beach around 7ish. Scott wanted to see if he could tempt some curious looking fish that we spotted the night before. I think it was the fact it was dark that made the difference though as there was not much biting, I managed a tiny Pollock but that was it.

With that, we headed to the pier for a mini species foray again. The fishing was a little slower than the Tuesday and I started off fishing like a nob again, losing my first fish as it reefed me. To be fair I was fishing ultra light and I am pretty sure what I hooked was a large Ballan. I started off fishing on the drop too see if I could tempt the specie that I lost the day before, but soon gave in and targeted the mini's once more.

Corkwing and Pouting were ten to the penny and provided a good deal of fun. Scott was of course catching tons of fish and his bait rigs often yielded double hook ups, in fact at one point when I got busted up, Scott caught six fish in the time it took me to tie a new leader and rig! There really are just so many fish around that structure and I am just not quite used to that kind of fishing, well except from  when I used to coarse fish in my youth. I guess that is what it reminded me of, it was just rocking up for some chilled out fishing with plenty caught, proper nice!

We added a few more species to the mix too, I think being a sunnier day bought a few more out to play.

Scott caught the only Goldsinny Wrasse.

The Goldsinny is another specie that continues to elude me, I really love Wrasse and I want to catch them all!

I caught my first ever Dragonet with the Angleworm rigged on a 1.8 gram Decoy Rocket Plus Jig head #10 hook.

Beautifully posed by Scott.

Scott also caught some Dragonet and his first one spiked him in the finger, he made a bit of a song and dance about it and to be fair I did feel bad for telling him to man up while he was bleeding to death. The word of that day was "anti coagulant" I think ;-) 

The Dragonets were quite strange in the respect that I hadn't caught one before despite fishing places where they frequent, yet once I had caught that first one, I caught a few more. Here's another;

Long Spined Sea Scorpions were caught both by myself;

and Scott;

Scott had a number of Ballan Wrasse over the couple of days, sadly I only caught one, good job it was a monster.

Scott also added a Bass to his 2013 species tally.

Proper Bass angler pose!

Although a slower day than the day before, we still had countless fish and just reflecting on it makes me want to go back!

Before we headed home, we popped over to Weymouth for an hour or so to see if I could get that Goldsinney I so desperately wanted. The fishing in Weymouth was also unreal and I kid you not, we must have caught 30-40 outing each in the very short time we here there. In the Mix were also Pollock, Whiting, Black Goby, Ballan Wrasse and Tompot Blennies. The only thing is, I am still after a Goldsinny Wrasse!

My first ever lure caught Whiting.

Scott loves his Gobies and this Black Goby brings a beaming smile.

Pouting aren't a bad looking fish!

An unexpected Ballan Wrasse.

After a KFC we reluctantly headed off for the long journey back to my house. Scotts insane driving got us back in an impressive time ready for a celebratory Doom Bar.

I can't thank Scott enough for both taking me on one of his fishing adventures and putting me on to a ton of fish, some of which were firsts for me. It was a good laugh and a very memorable time, cheers Scott.

Oh and when Scott got home, I thought I had better inquire as to how his finger was after it was savagely attacked by that Dragonet and he graciously assured me" it's fine".

Thanks for reading and tight lines.

Chilling on the Llyn Peninsula.

With the very small tides this weekend I just could not be bothered fishing for Bass, they are about but they are few and far between in this area. To be honest I've had a challenging run with the Bass of late and couldn't be bothered anyway. Perhaps when all the holiday makers and pleasure craft owners go home, things will pick up again.

I therefore decided to head up the peninsula today, I originally wanted to fish the deep water at the very end, but the wind and swell prevented me.

I opted for the shelter of a nice little spit on he North for some light rock antics, I wanted nothing too serious, just some fun.

Arriving on an ebbing tide things were hard going to be honest, I saw some mini species swimming around a stone breakwater and realised I had left my small hooks at home. Rummaging around my gear I did find one and rigged a dropshot rig with a piece of Gulp! Sandworm as a lure/bait.

I had a short succession of tiny Pollock.

They are a bit boring to be fair and it would have been nice to get some small Wrasse species or something,  I guess you just have to catch whats there.

I decided on a short move and on my way I found a critter basking on the path, I do like finding beasties on my jaunts!

Climbing on to an outcrop I changed my lure to an ima Trilobite rigged on a weedless jighead and fished "on the drop".  The occasional Pollock was landed.

I then tried some Yoshikawa Paddle-tails  I bought off of eBay for 99p, I wasn't expecting much, but they are excellent! Fishing OTD again, I had plenty of little Pollock.

As the tide turned I caught a Ballan Wrasse on one too. Wrasse are quite possibly my favourite species, full of character and colour !

A shoal of Mackerel fry swam into the cove I was fishing in and they were getting smashed by the Pollock. Mackerel fry are just amazing to look at and they have a really superb colouration.

These Mackerel fry were darting about, trying to escape the feisty Pollock that had them corralled in the cove. I matched the fry as near as I could with a Tict dart jighead and the smallest ima Trilobites. Twitching the lure to make it dart near the surface three or four times before letting it fall proved absolutely deadly and I was getting near a Pollock per cast!

I picked up another Wrasse on the same technique too.

I finished my session with a few more Pollock and a few Blennies whilst on the way back to the car. Catching Blennies is just sheer childish fun yet strangely addictive, I have Scott to blame for this!

The session turned out just the way I wanted it to; fun and fish filled!

Till next time, tight lines.