After fishing through Saturday daytime and a number of new species for Owen and I, the scores were doubled from where we left them on our first session the prev ious Wednesday at 8 – 4 to me (I had much more opportunity to fish than Owen due to being an adult).
Now feel free to stop reading if you want to hear about more species caught in the competition for us, because although we tried, we did not catch any further species to add to our tally. I will be talking about tactics and tackle used at the end of the blog post though so you may be interested in skipping to the end.
Saturday night after leaving Adam down at Mountwise we headed to Lidl and Aldi to pick up ingredients for some beasty hot chicken rolls with all the trimmings.
Soon after I put Owen to bed and headed back out to fish.
I decided to try a few different locations starting with Devonport floating pontoon down by the Steampacket pub.
I tried casting a jig head in every direction and fishing at different depths with both gulp and Isome but couldn’t find any bites so jumped back in the car and moved on.
My mistake here was to go back over old ground as I headed straight to the backside of Sutton Harbour and started to fish over the ground where I had caught my Scad and Tompott.
With no luck for first 15-20 minutes on a jig head I switched to the dropshot and fished at a bout 12 inches off the deck. I had a Pollock very quickly followed by 2 more rock gobies. I followed the wall around the corner towards the cinema complex when I saw something seriously cool.
A dog-fish swimming around the surface over some rocks. I very quickly broke my line above the hook and tied the jig head back on with some gulp sandworm. I now stalked this dogfish for a good 10 minutes but it simply wasn’t interested. It kept me entertained but I was here to catch fish. The dogfish disappeared and I moved back around into the main bulk of the harbour but failed to locate any fish.
We were planning to get up at a sensible hour on Sunday morning and I had a return Journey back to the South East to drive so I called it a night.
Sunday morning we headed down to meet Adam Davey who had offered to sell Owen his spare LRF rod which is a Shakespeare agility LRF. Owen was extremely excited. We paired it up with the smallest spare reel (still oversized) I own so he could try it out for the day.
It was now time for another breakfast out where we met up with my brother and his partner before heading to theirs to meet their new kittens. The whole time I couldn’t help but feel that our opportunity was slipping away from us.
I was determined to get another wrasse species so headed to the Elphinstone Car park which has always been a successful mark for me with Goldsinny and Ballen wrasse. We both setup on the dropshot and rigs and were constantly adjusting and swapping out lures until we started to get bites. Unfortunately neither of us had many and neither of us got any fish on the final day. Gutted.
I left Owen with my spare reel and his rod and a small bag of tackle so he could go out with his mum again before the end of the comp. He did try another day and witnessed Noah who many of you from Plymout LRF may now catching a few final species himself but Owen did now manage any extra fish.
Tackle we used:
HTO Rockfish Tubular rod: This rod was bought specifically for this competition. It gave me great sensitivity fishing smaller lures including 1g jigheads.
I find the rod is slightly too long for a lot of the fishing I would like to use it for and would prefer a shorter rod for working close in.
It does handle bigger fish, I christened it with a pike and have had a perch I think to be around 3lb on it already.
Spro Urban 510 Reel:
This was one of the cheapest reels I had come across for this kind of fishing, I have used it in both fresh and saltwater and have had fish up to 3lb on it giving the gearing and drag a really good test. The reel is very smooth and balances perfectly with an lrf rod.
Berkley Trilene 4lb Flurocarbon:
Make sure you keep this line tight!!!!! I have had a lot of tangles when using this line but this is 100% down to user error. If you give this line slack it will find a way to mess you up but when operated correctly it is faultless. Great connectivity with the fish and it cuts through wind and current well helping you get to the fish and stay in contact with it. You can tie your dropshot straight on your mainline meaning less messing with rigs etc.
HTO MAIKURO jig Head 1g: I caught a lot of my fish during this competition using this jighead with Gulp sandworm and Isome ragworm type lures. Different lengths and colours all managed to tempt fish in different locations. I have also used this jig head successfully in freshwater with pike and perch recently. Teamed up with the Gulp fish fry I was catching a fish every cast in one session on my local canal.
Artificial Worm Baits, Maryaku Isome and Gulp Sandworm:
They come in different colours and sizes and they might as well be bait. Fish love them! Add a little movement and they are irresistible. I find the Gulp sandworm easier to handle (especially on freezing cold days) and also find it gets more bites although the isome is a better visual bait with its superior flexibility. For LRF you have to have these 2 baits in your arsenal!
Gulp Fish Fry:
This almost became my favourite ever lure when I caught around 40 perch during a lunch break session on a canal. In the salt however I haven’t managed any fish on it yet. I have seen many others using it successfully though so have not lost confidence in it.
I use pliers to get it them in and out of the jar as you have to literally dip your fingers in to get one out…. There is so much liquid in the tub that I use it to top up scent on my other lures.
Gamakatsu Drop Shot hooks:
We used size 12 and size 8. size 12 was perfect for the little gobies and fishing around the rockpools with split shots. These hooks are unbelievably sharp, absolutely perfect for delicate fishing.
Drop Shot Weights:
We did use a branded weight but I don’t think the brand gives any specific benefit so am not mentioning it. For quick change and reducing snag risk the dropshot weights are a must. we found even the smallest weights were a little too big for some rockpools and changed down to smaller split shot but they are perfect for deeper water, harbours, down the side of walls, in and around structure etc.
Methods Used:
Splitshot: In the rockpools we found jighead and dropshotting to be overkill and decided to scale down. Using a size 12 hook and a small split shot we were able to present small pieces of isome and gulp around the features of the pool delicately enough to tempt out gobies and blenny type fish.
Dropshot: Fishing with the drop shot rig we were able to adjust depth using the drop shot weights and fish the lures close to bottom whilst still preventing snags. Adjusting height enabled us to fish different depths to find different species in the water column. Rock Gobies seem to be almost hard on the bottom whereas Pollock and Wrasse were further up the walls.
Jig Heads: I love fishing with a small jig head, You can change the speed of retrieve and turn it into a surface lure, slow it down and straight retrieve to fish mid-water and bob it along the bottom at just about any speed to mimic worms or dying fish trying to escape danger. I was able to change tactics without changing lure or pattern and try to search out fish at each location I fished. I strongly believe that using this method over dropshotting gave me the edge over Owen in finding different species.
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How To Trick A Fish 