So I wanted to catch smaller fish??? Species Hunting – Chapter 1

This blog post is the first of 3 accounts I will be writing about the Species hunt Competition ran by Osborne and Cragg Tackle Shop in Plymouth. I hope you enjoy the read and come back for the future posts!

What a season so far! I caught 70cm bass from the shore in pitch black darkness.

I’ve caught fairly large trout 3-4lb on the fly for the first time, I caught a 5lb chub (my first) with free-lined bread in a narrow and shallow stream.

I had my first ever perch and got it on a lure and then have been lucky enough to catch many more while lure fishing my local canal including this chunky fish pictured below.

I also nailed my first ever pike (also on a lure) with only 4lb line and a 0.5g jig head to break in my new 0.5-6g HTO Rockfish T LRF Rod which I bought from Simon at ‘Osborne & Cragg Tackle’ in Plymouth.

Now it seemed to me that I was definitely on a bit of a role, so why oh why did I decide to start trying to catch smaller fish????

Because it is so much fun. After a few unsuccessful sessions in a row, Owen (my 10 year old son) wanted to get some rag worm and target wrasse and pollock. Within an hour we had run out bait and decided to have a try with the ‘wonder lure’ as I had heard it called Maryaku Isome. First cast with a gentle retrieve over the rocks and the lure was smashed and my first ever lure caught wrasse was being reeled in for unhooking .

Now those who know me will know I have fished for years now but only recently became obsessed with lure fishing. So having got a wrasse on a lure, I have refused to buy any bait since.

I have followed the facebook group Plymouth LRF for a while as it has great write ups and a real friendly crowd of anglers with mixed specialities, ability levels, backgrounds and personalities. I have got to know the ‘Osborne and Cragg’ tackle shop owner Simon through the page and saw that he was running a ‘Lure Only Species Hunt Competition’ for the Month of November where LRF tactics and aiming for small fish would be key to success.

I don’t live near the sea anymore but the idea of this competition really got me excited and Owen was buzzing for it too when I told him. So we entered the competition and set out not to win but to try to catch new species ourselves and to really have some fun with little fish on lures.

I had 4 sessions, 3 of which with Owen.

The first was a cold Wednesday evening where I had 2 hours spare. I picked Owen up we set up 2 rods, one with a small jig head and the other as a dropshot rod. We fished the Elphinstone car park but couldn’t find any bites. Then we moved into the harbour. We had a few nibbles by Captain Jaspers but no hookups so moved again further round towards the 3 Crown pub.

Owen got a nibble on his dropshotted Isome, tap-tap tap and fish on. He reeled in a tiny little fish which we were pretty sure to be (and later confirmed) Owen’s first rock goby.

We quickly unhooked, photographed and released the fish. 1-0 to Owen

Being the cheeky angler I am, I dropped in a bout 2 feet from where Owen was fishing and the second I had straightened the slack, I felt a bite big enough on my jig head convinced me to lift. With the fish still in contact I reeled gently until I could lift it over the rails.

My first Rock Goby on a lure (And it was bigger than Owen’s 😀).

We were made up with catching these tiny little fish. At the time we were feeling confident that we could find the usual suspects in wrasse species, pollock, mackerel, even bass etc over the upcoming weekend where we knew we could put the hours in. So Gobies seemed to be bonus fish towards our tallies.

We moved again maybe 100 metres until I saw some pontoon like structure I could fish around and aimed my cast to get the jighead running under the structure.

My rod bent over quickly and a better fish was hooked. I started laughing towards Owen who came over as I reeled in a little pout. Probably the smallest pout I had ever seen but on a 0.5g+ setup and 4lb line it was as much fun as reeling in huge wrasse on regular spinning tackle.

Now both of my fish had been caught on gulp sandworm whilst Owen was droshotting a small piece of Isome worm.

We moved again and saw other LRF anglers on the back wall of Sutton harbour. One of the anglers was chasing a shoal of tiny little scad.

I started allowing my jig head to rest hard on the bottom for a time then lifting, gently reeling and waiting repeatedly hoping to get a different species slightly further from the wall than we had been fishing. after 2 or 3 casts I got a bite, set the hook and retrieved. My first ever Tompott Blenny making it 3-1 to me for the evening so far.

We were fast running out of time so decided that we should both copy the tactics of the other guy we had seen and target the tiny little scad we could see near the surface. I took Owen’s drop shot weight off and replaced it with a small split shot, he dropped his Isome right in the middle of the shoal and was smashed violently by a slightly bigger fish, I predicted it was a mackerel at first which may have been picking of the scad but once reeled close in realised it was a small pollock.

I helped Owen unhook and photograph the micro-Pollock and got it back in unharmed before once again having ago myself. I had been getting bites but not hooking up, so changed from gulp to the smallest white Isome and cut the worm down so only a few mm were over hanging the jig head. The tactic quickly paid off and I caught my first ever Scad.

It was getting late for a 10 year old on a school night so we packed up happy that we had both caught some fish including 1 new species for Owen and 3 for me and the overall score sitting at 4-2.

Please don’t forget to follow to hear how our next session went!!

If you want to find out more about catching UK fish on lures, I strongly recommend you try this great book here which provides info on everything you might want to know about lure fishing in the UK and how to catch a huge variety of species