Short But Sweet

Just adding a few pics from this week's Plymouth LRF meet.

Was nice to see yet another new face checking out the scene. Open minded anglers always welcome, even if it's just to query what's happening. Multiple species taken on lures, in fact I'd be willing to say that we caught more as a group on lures than if we had all fished with bait. Searching out the fish, that's what it's all about.

Andrew Younger's pristine Schoolie

Ben Field with a nice Flounder

Last weekend saw me getting into a nice few Wrasse on soft plastics. Awesome sport for sure, got to love the brutish nature of the Wrasse, they know where they want to go and they do their damndest to get there. More on that later though. I'm off fishing. 

It Was T H I S Big

Check this video I found on YouTube. I'd seriously hate to be the Mullet! Which by the way is apparently 50cm itself. The guys estimated the Bass to be in the 130cm mark!!!!

There have been a few reports of Bass starting to take lures, so hopefully I'll see some action on the planned trip for tomorrow. I'm on the hunt for a lunker this season, with a set target of 70cm. A big fish, but a definite possibility if I find the rite ground - I've got a feeling it's going to be from a nasty, weedy reef somewhere. I guess time will tell eh.

The Pollack are definitely showing a better size still, with many fish over the pound pulling our strings in flowing current. Last night a few of us fished a relatively new mark (for light game) in Plymouth and it was absolutely alive with fish. Decent schools of Smelt, Mullet and even Launce under our feet, plenty of food for lurking predators.

New Ground

Sunday saw me make the journey to a mark on the South Cornwall coast, to meet up and fish with Luke Fox and his buddy Shaun from the Lure Forum. I arrived at the estuary mark on low tide, to find a rather large and exposed sandbar. I could see from where I was stood, there were massive undulations in the sand - perfect for holding bait fish in the current, and consequently Bass. I had a great feeling about this place from the offset. On top of that, the weather was great with just a little cloud cover.

As I have a fair amount of experience fishing estuary flow, my plan of attack was to drift small hard bait's in the current. Hopefully seeking out any pockets of fish. Upon wading out, I spotted several Sand eel half buried, that appeared to be basking in the sun.

Adding to this the odd fish (likely Mullet) breaking the surface, further enforced the feeling that today would see a Bass or two, but unfortunately the fish hadn't read the script and failed to make an appearance. The tide then turned pretty viciously and began chasing us off the sandbar - I'm glad I wasn't fishing there on my own for the first time, as it would of been so easy to stay put just a little longer. Before you know it though, the bar is completely surrounded by flooding water moving at a rapid rate of knots. The day was still young, so I was escorted to a rock mark 10 or so miles down the coast to try for Pollack and Wrasse with an outside chance of Bass. Walking down the coastal cliff path, I was taken back by the ground down there. Amazing shallow reefs with drop offs in to deeper water, deep kelp strewn gullies and ledges over broken ground. Awesome stuff. The boys were rite about the Wrasse. Although today the star of the show was Shaun.

In an error of judgement, I had not come prepared for Wrasse fishing - Leaving all weedless hooks at home. I had a small selection of jigs with me, but they just weren't up to the job. Shaun managed 3 Wrasse, all of which came from a thick tangle of tackle hungry kelp. Weedless presentation was a must! I had one rattling bite in between tying new jigs on. Was still great to see a few fish caught and Shaun was more than happy that he had bagged his first lure caught Wrasse. Well done that man.

I'll definitely be heading back down that way a few times this year. These guys have a few nice marks up there sleeves that have yielded several Bass over 70cm and up to 78cm!!! In one season! Now that's good going for sure. Thanks for the hospitality guys, I hope I can return the favour over the coming months.

The light night games are still going strong, with good numbers of fish per session. I'm sure some of you guys will be aware of the raging debates centred around LRF/HRF at present. It's all a bit mad really. Arguing about fishing? LOL. Come on, what's that all about? This stuff is fun, so let's please try and keep it that way. It's not cool for people who are just entering the world of lure fishing, to get smacked in the face with this stuff.

Yamatoyo Spinning Fluoro

After now fishing with this as my mainline for a couple of fruitful sessions, I thought I'd share with you the delight that is Fluoro mainline for Light Game work.

3lb was used in this test

At this point, I feel that I must tell the complete story of the Fluoro and I. It all started at the last Plymouth meet. I arrived to see others already fishing and I excitedly set up next to Paul, anxious to try out the new line. It was spooled perfectly on to a brand new Shimano Rarenium 3000 and balanced beautifully on my Light Game rod. Lure tied, bail off, cast..... SPLASH!!! WTF? Look at rod tip, still there - Phew, thought I'd snapped it. Work my way down the blank checking for anything missing or broken, but it looks fine. Get to the reel - Or at least what's left of it! In my excitement, I had loosened the spool just a little too much. Ok, way too much! As I cast, the spool had actually flown off of the reel and in to the water. Not impressed, the air may have turned just a little blue. Fear not though, all ended well. I managed to pull the actual spool straight back out of the water, but was missing the end cap(drag adjust). Thankfully, it was a particularly low tide that night and I managed to find the end cap by climbing down a boat access ladder and foraging around in the weed. Lesson learned.

Pollack - Yamatoyo Spinning Fluoro 3lb

I really wasn't too sure what to expect from the Fluoro mainline, I did know however that the Japanese use it for most of their Light Game applications - Choosing it for various reasons over super fine PE braids. The two facts that interested me most were that you can feel 'drop back' bites (fish picks up bait and runs toward you), and also that the line sinks, enabling you to utilize retrieve styles more effectively. Upon making my first cast, I actually felt the lure splash down, and the feed back through the rod was reminiscent of my days beach casting - where you could often feel the bait hit the water when casting at range.

The next thing that I noticed, was casting range. I didn't expect it to match the normal 0.4PE braid I use, but I wasn't to be dissapointed. Perhaps 30% down on distance. This was made up for though in the fact that the Fluoro didn't get caught in the breeze, instead it traced the exact arc of the lure during the cast. Excellent. Something that seriously annoys me while fishing fine braid is the huge arc you'll get floating through the air in anything other than 'sneezy' conditions.

FISH ON - Now this to me is obviously the most important bit. If it doesn't feel rite when you're actually fishing it, you'll lose confidence by the load. The good news is that it felt awesome with a fish on. I kind of preferred it over the PE braid if I'm brutally honest. The slight stretch in the Fluoro seemed to compliment the action of the rod perfectly, and the lunging runs of each Pollack were absorbed with a far less 'jagged' feel than usual.

So, in conclusion. I don't see the Fluoro mainline as any sort of replacement for PE braid, but more as a compliment to it. They both have their uses for various methods we are fishing. For OTD and deeper water, it's always going to be the braid for me. But breezy conditions, shallower water and slow retrieved styles are definitely going to see me using the Fluoro mainline as 1st choice.

 Yamatoyo Spinning Fluoro is now available from http://www.artoffishing.co.uk/

So Close...

Literally just weeks now and the local Bass fishing is likely to shift in to gear. I can't wait!

While fishing a new mark on Sunday evening, instantly I noticed there were bait fish breaking the surface. Every so often though, there would be an almighty crash of a good fish breaching the surface. At first I thought it would be Mullet, but the bait fish would go a little crazy just seconds before a fish smashed the surface.

I managed a couple of nice Pollack to the usual Light tactics. With a pretty heavy flow of water running from the estuary, my casts were pin pointed to a bridge support and then left to drift down the eddy. Bites were extremely tentative and reactions needed to be super sharp to connect. I'll admit, I missed a good few 'unmissable' bites though - Lost my focus while watching the bait fish and imagining a 'lunker' Bass about to inhale my bait at any given moment.

Last week's Plymouth LRF meet went pretty well again, with a good number of species landed - Including a bonus Schoolie for Ben. His first of the year, still nice and early. He looked a happy man!

Slowly Slowly, Catchy Fishy

It's been a slow week for me, with numbers of fish way down on usual totals per session. I've tried everything in my box, managing to get very little interest. The saving grace though, in my opinion, is that the average fish(Pollack) size has been up on previous weeks.

Wednesday saw me meet up with local boys Steve Arries and Mike Sullivan. Action was slow off the mark, so Steve and I moved to a dark and deep corner, just outside of the main Harbour. It didn't take to long for us to find the bites and landed a few Pollack and the 8-10oz class. I hooked and quickly lost a good fish while trying out a creature bait. The take was OTD and I think it may of been down to me striking into it too quickly, the bait was a bit of a mouth full and incidentally, the fish may never of really found the hook. After this, the bites dried up completely.

We moved back to our original mark and fished on. There were a lot of Smelt in the upper layer of the water and to be honest, I was expecting to see a Bass gorging itself, among all this food. No such luck though. For Mike however, lady luck was shining. I was 40 yards away and I heard his drag singing before I spotted where he was stood - Rod arched over and the tip lunging toward the water. Obviously he was in to a good fish, so I made my way over to him to assist with the landing, half expecting to see a Bass in the 2lb class - I was surprised to see a nice Flounder come to the surface. Mike managed to steer it toward a set of steps and I duly landed it for him. It was a notably 'chunky' (pre-spawn?)fish, with plenty of fight in it. We didn't measure it, but it comfortably made 2lb class. A nice fish by any standard.

There have been a few Flounder caught on Light Game tackle in this spot, so they are definitely becoming a realistic LRF target species. Difficult to make out a pattern yet, as they've taken all manor of soft bait's, with all manor of retrieves. This particular fish came to an EcoGear Grass Minnow.

I've had a similar sized fish on a drifted, Giant Xlayer - a world apart from a 1.5'' shad. The aggressive nature of these fish is pretty awesome, know to chase down crab and fish, a spirited fighter on standard lure gear. I can't wait to grab one LRF.

I was lucky to get out last night as well, with the Mrs pre-occupied with Wedding stuff. Joined by Steve and Mike, but also Andrew Younger and Danny Welch. Always good to get out in a group and they're all thoroughly decent guys - which makes it all the better. Things started slow for me(again!), so after a chat with Mike, we decided to expand the field and move on to another mark. This saw us hitting a mark inside of the Tamar river estuary system, fishing in to deep and flowing water over broken ground. Sport was pretty instant for a couple of the group, taking me a while to find the fish and pattern. My final tally was 5 fish, including the Pollack(OTD) above - possibly my best one LRF to date. I'll definitely be visiting this mark again, it seems like it has the potential to hold some fish of a better stamp.

This week's light game review....

It's definitely been a week of two half's for me. A session on Tuesday night saw me hit good numbers of  fish on the light gear, with the added bonus being that we were doing a little filming at the time. Nothing serious just yet, but more of a chance to document a part of what's going on.

Name and Shame! Stevie Quinton can't hide the fact that he fished and caught LRF

I think I owe it to my good friend Steve Quinton, to name and shame him as a new LRF recruit, and subsequently drop-out. Although, according to him 'it was rubbish and made him forget how to cast a plug'. That'll be the first person to my knowledge, to state that LRF had a negative effect on his fishing. I guess it's never going to be for everyone, or maybe just not yet.

Scorpion Fish - EcoGear Paramax

Last night was the fortnightly Plymouth meet. I usually nail a good number of fish at this regular session, but last night proved very difficult(for me) with only 4 or 5 fish. I did nail a nice Scorpion fish though. On the whole, it was a very good night, with others hitting in to some nice fish - Including yet another new species for Paul 'Gunship' Gunning, and Ben Field winkling out a nice little Flounder on a top secret Japanese bait.

It's only a matter of weeks now until the next issue of 'The Rockfish Files' is released by the guys behind http://www.jerseybassguides.com/. The new issue is dedicated to Light Rock Fish(LRF) and should make for excellent reading, with contributions coming from some very interesting places.

It's been a busy week with work and weather getting in the way of fishing - Funny how time seems to just slip away from you sometimes. I have managed to get out locally for a couple hours of Night Light Game. Was an interesting evening as usual, finicky fish meant I had to chop and change lures and technique to induce a bite. It was the EcoGear Straw Tail Grub that was doing the damage this time.

Whiting - EcoGear Straw Tail Grub 2'' (clear glow)

The Plymouth LRF meet looks set in stone as a fortnightly event now, with more turning up and having a go. Plenty of marks still to explore in the area and a couple marks already standing out as holding the better stamp of fish. Too early to call so far, but if numbers of participants grow as expected, Plymouth could well be the LRF epicentre of mainland UK.

Sea Scorpion - Plymouth LRF meet