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

Emerging from Winter.

Well I don't need to tell anyone in the UK what a truly bad winter it has been, in fact not only bad but plain weird!

Thunder and lightning in December and January, hurricane like winds throughout February, I've never known a winter like it, we haven't even had a hard frost!

Of course this has meant for me, no fishing, major cabin fever setting in and only a little retail therapy to keep me half way sane.

I managed to get out with young Ben Edwards Sunday last, the weather was good but landslides and the rainfall run off meant the water clarity on the North Llyn was dire, there was literally 4-6 inches of subsurface visibility, hardly great for lure fishing! 

However, it was nice to be out on the coast and also good to check out some new potential ground, there wasn't a hope of catching much without resorting to stinky bait. I must confess to wishing I had've taken some, it seems so damn long since I caught a fish its unreal!

I did manage to pluck out a couple of tiny Long Spined Sea Scorpions, but it was hardly worth the journey. In saying that though, I did have a smile on my face which Ben commented "was much bigger than the fish".

I went out today just seeing if any Bass were starting to show. There was some lovely movement in the water and some nice rip tides, but it just feels a tad too early yet. Perhaps when the tide builds a bit some schoolies at least may start to show.

At least today gave me the chance to try a few new lures, and it allowed me to try my new reel.

Shimano Complex Ci4+ 2500HGS F6

I bought it after selling the Shimano Sustain 2500FG, I have to say I was not very happy with that reel, it felt a little grindy and even though I sent it to Felindre Servicing centre to be sorted, it came back the same (apparently there was nothing wrong with it).

Anyway on first use, the Complex feels lovely and has a real feel of quality about it. The stock knob was a bit naff so I have fitted an aftermarket ZPI Anchorfin, which make things feel and look a whole lot better. She's spooled with 0.8 PE Duel X-Wire just now, I believe its a discontinued line and thats probably why I bought it so cheap.

I have made a few other new purchases, but to be honest I am not all that keen on blogging about tackle. I may do a little show and tell at some point, but I'd rather post catch reports, sadly the lack of those has meant my blog hasn't been updated for some time. I sincerely hope that changes very soon!

Til then, 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.