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

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

0.4PE Gosen 240

Fluorocarbons

25lb Sakuma Fluorocarbon

15.4lb Seaguar Hard Ace

0.198mm Toray Premium Protype

Lures  

Fishin' Magician Skid Stick

Tronixpro casting lures

Madfish "Bad Ass Bob" 

Tacklehouse Nebura Deka

Ecogear Paramax

Berkley Gulp Fish Fry

End Tackle

Decoy Rockfish hooks, Home made assists, Decoy Delte Magic SV51 Jigheads

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.

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.