One Rod, 1 Lure, 1 Chance to Catch a Fish: Part 1 – LRF Tactics

If you could only have 1 rod, and 1 lure, with 1 chance to catch a fish, what would you chose and why? I asked this of some of my favourite angling influencers today and was so delighted with the response that I’ve decided to make this a mini series of posts.

Now I fully understand those people who love the blanks as part of building the bigger picture. I get those who are making the rod choices based on giving themselves the absolute best chance of catching that 80cm bass or landing a 30lb Chew reservoir pike. I get those people who will stick with a slow jig when hunting down pollock off the boat, who would never unclip the patchinko when surface fishing in the Solent, but I’m still not there yet, and I 100% want to catch a fish every session and that explains my rod choices for now I think, and having spoken to the upcoming LRF anglers and looking at their choices, I can also see how sometimes going small is the answer to consistency or targeting a specific species.

Now, a great local angler (in Plymouth) I really enjoy talking to is Clive Sharp and during a recent conversation where I admitted that I’ve gotten very lazy with my rod choices and just cant stop fishing with the lightest rods possible, he said something to me which not only justified my own rod choices but shone out as a key reason why so many of us turn to and fall in love with the simple pleasures that LRF angling provides. He said something like: “I want to fish heavier sometimes, but in the back of my head I’m wanting to go back to the lrf rod as I just feel so much more confidence that I will catch a fish”.

Any way, one of the other great things other than the increased numbers of catches LRF provides, is the variety. I asked some of my favourite UK LRF anglers to give me there answer to the opening question for a species or method they specialise in and here’s how it went.

Ben Bassett: LRF Flounder fishing

My one rod… That would be the Majorcraft N-One NSL-S662H/AJI 0.8-12g – Chosen because it’s got a lot of backbone for steering large flounder away from sunken shopping trolleys!

My one lure… Hmm a tough choice, although I have had the majority of my success on the Ecogear Aqua Shirasu. These highly scented lures can turn a tough day into a successful one.

My one chance… Early winter, around a shallow tidal harbour at night. Using a headtorch to search the shallows for the flatfish. Once spotted, it becomes a game of cat and mouse as I try and tempt the flounder to take. There’s no thrill in Light Game Fishing quite like it.

Find Ben on Instagram. Read Ben’s incredible Blog here.

Jamie Sandford: Rock Fishing For Mini Species

For me, LRF’ing for mini species such as gobies, scorpion fish, blennies and wrasse is so exciting.

The use of ISOME is really universal in its ability to catch a variety of fish and combined with ultralight rods from the likes of HTO fun can be had from lots of venues like dock, Harbours, Coastal rocks.)

Find Jamie on Instagram or Facebook.

Lee Russell-Clark (Me) – Herring on Jigheads:

When the herring are in, they can be great fun and incredible sport on the lightest tackle, so when I want to to try my hardest to guarantee a catch the rod has to be an LRF style rod that allows the fish enough play to shake without throwing the hook.

I like a tubular tip for feeling the bites so from my arsenal i either use the HTO Rockfish T 0.5-7g or the HTO urban finesse 0-5g.

My choice of lure has to be a small jighead something around 0.5-1g with a small hook like a size 8 or smaller (Ecogear shirazu fine gives me the most confidence) and on the jighead goes a small worm imitation.

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A lot of people will turn to gulp or isome for this but for such a predatory fish i find this is a waste.

My preference is a 1inch soft plastic in white of pink with a pintail, the Rapture Mebaru Worm Aji/Shirazu are perfect!

For my one chance to catch these fish although the seasons are absolutely barmy in recent year I would usually say as soon as the squid run on the shore dies off so anytime from late October right through till March and fish under a permanent light in darkness. Harbours and piers are perfect if well illuminated.

Richard Salter AKA Devon Lerfer – Scaling down to try and guarantee a catch.

In very simple terms, when bites are tough to find in general and I need a fish I would look to a solid tipped rod to give give fish less resistance on the bite. I’d get just as much sport on my tubular tipped rod but it can be frustrating bouncing fish off when bites are at a premium.

I’d rig up with a size 16 hook and a 5g dropshot. My lure choice would be a couple cm of camo coloured gulp (or another scented sp) for scratching out a fish if my life depended on it lol.

Find Richard’s incredible youtube channel here.

Thanks so much for taking the time, if you would like to contribute or believe you have a specialist approach I’ve not yet covered please reach out and hopefully we can get it cover during the rest of this series!

You can contact me via any of the social media links on my LINKTREE here, or direct to YouTube, Instagram or Facebook pages.

Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post are affiliated links meaning I may make a small commission if you were to chose to buy any of the products or others on the websites after clicking on my links. This does not affect your price in anyway but allows for me to make a small commission which comes directly from the sellers profit as a small reward for me recommending their store. I do not make a living from creating affiliate links or content. At the time of writing this post I have earned less than £20 commission in total from all of my affiliate programmes combined, it’s just a bit of fun and pocket money toward topping up my lure box and buying equipment such as cameras, memory cards, microphones etc for creating new content.