With Owen leaving the country for few weeks in January I didn’t fit in any saltwater fishing trips. In fact I barely fished at all.
I managed a handful of canal trips of about an hour each with only 3 small perch for my efforts all falling for small ecogear lures from the ‘Pocket in’ pack I purchased from Osborne and Cragg in Plymouth.
I did hook into a few larger fish on my last session of the month but they somehow spit the lure before I was able to land them suggesting to me that I perhaps wasn’t setting the hook well enough. The first I got a good sight of and it was a fairly decent perch of over a lb and it swam all over the place before the lure popped out a few feet from me. The second, I didn’t get site of as it kept diving deep and taking line. I got it pretty close at one point before it swam into some vegetation on the bank and again the lure popped out. I couldn’t believe my luck.
The session ended on a high though. I was having a chat with another angler when I witnessed a surface take from a pike for the first time. He was reeling in a maggot caught silver when the pike surfaced and grabbed the fish from the side. Wow!!! It looked awesome. I then stayed to talk more about the canal as he continued to fish and to my amazement he hooked the pike, this time the pike taking the baited hook. I asked him immediately what size line he had on and he responded about 4/5lb. Nervous minutes ahead. The fish took line and ran a good 7 or 8 times before giving up.
He was not equipped to land the fish so I helped out with my landing net as he brought it in to the bank. I also lent him my unhooking matt and helped to weigh the fish in at just over 7lb. I was very jeolose but happy to have played my part and witnessed what to me is a giant having only landed 1 small pike myself. What a great thing to have witnessed.
Jan 29th:
So after the fun we had back in November I have signed up to another species hunt. This time hosted by Majorcraft UK. An added bonus is my next target species was due to be flounder on a lure and this competition also doubles as a flounder comp.
I have never caught a flounder, let alone on lures and all of the herring I have caught previously have been on small feathers.
So I can’t wait to get my winter sea fishing started and hopefully tick these two fish off on lures.
Comp Day 1 – Friday 9th February:
I had planned to sneak in a lunchtime session but due to yapping with Simon in the well stocked Osborne and tackle shop I ran out of time on my lunch break and had to delay starting fishing until after picking Owen up from my mums after work.
We drove straight to Mountwise where for some reason I felt we might pick up a small flounder or a blenny.
I set Owen up on the dropshot with and inch of Isome wacky rigged and set the weight about 8 inches from the hook and lure. Before I had even finished rigging my rod with an Ecogear jighead Owen had come back for another lure as he had been stripped immediately by something. Unlucky Owen. I put a piece of gulp worm on for him knowing that it seems to hold on the hook a little better and then put an inch of white isome onto my 1g jig head.
I then wasted 5 minutes watching Owen carefully to see if he got any more bites before having my first cast straight out to sea.
I had read over the last few weeks a lot of articles including those in ‘The Rock Files’ about fishing the lure on the drop or OTD. So after my lure hit the water I flicked the bail arm straight over and lifted my rod tip to act as the top of a pendulum. As the lure swang down towards me in an arc it was hit and I knew right away that I had on my first ever lure caught herring. It was going baserk but was well hooked in the mouth and no matter how much it shook it couldnt wiggle free.
I reeled it in to find what I thought was a decent sized fish for a herring.
I told Owen to get casting out also hoping that a herring might hit his rig on the way down while I landed and unhooked my fish.
Owen asked if he could keep it for dinner so I took a quick photo for the comp before dispatching the fish so Owen could try it for dinner.
I then passed my rod to Owen so he could try and get one but after 2 or 3 casts he still hadn’t any luck. I took the rod back and repeated my method of cast and then point the rod high to allow the lure to fish OTD and almost immediately hooked another fish. I passed the rod to Owen so he could experience the fight.
He quickly got it in and we took it off quickly and chucked it back to join the schoal.
Unfortunately the white Isome was gone and I didn’t have any left so I tried a pink ecogear lure. I had about 10 more casts and no bites so swapped lure to an Ecogear ss grass minnow. Still no bites so we then started to move around and search for some fish.
I set Owen up with a gulp fish fry on his drop shot and he did get a few more bites and got stripped again before snagging up and snapping his size 12 gamukatsu dropshot hook. I have to wonder how many more fish I might catch if I wasn’t consistently retying rigs for Owen or sorting out his snags lol. Oh well, the joy of fishing with kids.
I rigged him up a jig head (about 3g) and the smallest ecogear paramax in illuminous white I could find and he started to cast that out. He had a few more bites before we were done but unfortunetely no fish hooked up.
I on the other hand wasn’t finished yet. I was swapping between fishing the surface, OTD and twitching the grass minnow around the bottom. I had a small pollock on the bottom which was quickly photographed and released and another just before we packed up which hit my lure OTD right by the T shaped pier near the carpark.
Whilst I was buzzing about the 2 species for the competition the real buzz came from learning this lethal method of fishing. Something I can’t wait to try on some summer rock marks for bigger Pollock.
Day 2 – Sunday 11th February:
Determined to make the most of being in Plymouth I tried to squeeze in a few hours before the drive home. It was raining, hailing and blowing a hooley.
Owen didn’t get a sniff.
I had a bite, just 1. It was a missed bite and the highlight of 2 hours fishing. Some days just aren’t worth writing home about.
Day 3 – Friday 23rd February:
So I returned to Plymouth.
Owen and I headed straight to Mountwise and set up both of our rods with 1g jigheads and white Isome worm lures. I wanted to get him a herring before moving onto anothwer species for us both.
Owen experienced his first ever braided birds nest first cast and my hands became so cold trying to help him untangle it I decided to boycott altogether in favour of finding somewhere less windy. There was no way we would have later long there.
After warming my hands a little in the car I checked my phone and saw a message from local tackle shop Osborne & Cragg’s owner Simon Kingdom.
Simon had seen my Facebook post earlier in the day (Plymouth LRF Group) regarding heading out and suggested we try a spot in Millbay docks to hide away from the wind as he had had some sport with Herring there a few nights earlier.
I mentioned it to Owen who always loves fishing a new spot and after a short exchange of messages with Simon who kindly sorted us out with quality advice we drove for bout 5 minutes and we were once again setting up to fish light jig heads with Isome worm lures.
Thank you Simon!
It took me no time at all to find the fish. This time they were hitting the lures on a slow retrieve across the surface. I tried deeper for the first few casts but ty weren’t interested.
Interestingly they also were ignoring the white Isome which was successful previously and were also ignoring any ecogear soft plastics I tried in favour of brown Marukyu Isome worms.
I wonder how much the venue and artificial lighting was affecting the level they were feeding and the lure colour’s effectiveness. 2 weeks previously in darkness only white seemed to tempt them.
I had put half an Isome lure on each Jig head and we were both getting regular bites and having some serious fun.
I lost one fish but hooked and landed 7 in total including one on Owen’s rod after swapping and a bonus Pollock also caught on his rod whilst he was on the phone.
I also saw what I think was some smelt following my lure in 2 or 3 times but no matter how much I slowed down they weren’t biting.
Owen however just kept losing fish. It was funny to watch although gutting as I was desperate for him to catch one. The herring were taking his lure, diving deep and being retrived back up to the surface before shaking the hook in front of us.
We were getting cold and hungry but I was determined to get Owen a Herring so started concentrating on helping him rather than fishing myself.
I let him use my setup (hence the above mentioned swap) as I thought maybe the fluro was giving me an advantage and after about 20 minutes he finally hooked into a fish which wasn’t letting go. I held my breath as he reeled it in and over the railings. I wish I took a photo but I was fumbling so much unhooking the fish I wanted to get it back in ASAP if it had any chance of surviving.
It swam away as did all the others that day.
Unfortunately due to other plans with family that weekend we didn’t get another chance to fish.
So herring and Pollock seemed to be the fish of the month for me and Owen finally got his first fish of 2018 and his 6th lure caught species I think with his first ever herring.
Thankyou for reading and sorry I didn’t get many pictures.
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How To Trick A Fish 