Having a Lerf – Chapter 2 – When Saturday Comes

To think that people look down on Light Rock Fishing as ‘just fishing in rockpools’ seems nuts to me. For a start I would happily spend all day fishing rockpools. but anyway here is part 2 of my Big Lerfin Adventure down in Weymouth.

Now at the end of chapter 1 I mentioned a Kebab much to the liking of Ray Neville hahaha, and since he stated the best posts involving kebabs it would have been wrong not to start there! After my large chicken shish (no onions or cucumber as I am not a savage) with a side of large chips, cheese and plenty of garlic sauce I let Wayne try and sleep whilst I started trying to prep for the festivities ahead in the morning which really wasn’t that many hours way. I picked what i thought was the most suitable 4 rods for the day giving us both 2 rods so we could use a lure clip on 1 to change tactics like the wind if needed and a 2nd rod for dropshot/splitshot rigs for a bit of scratching.

I switched my Nomura Kuro 1000fd reel from my go to sunline fluro to my new Majorcraft Dangan 6lb braid in pink which was a bit of a gamble for me as I haven’t got a great deal of experience using braid as a mainline on LRF tackle. I tied leaders, filled my small double sided lure box with quick change lures I could use if pelagics were on the cards including 70mm Fiish Black Minnows and a range of metals, I made sure my jighead stocker was rammed full of options from 0.2 to 2g as well as some different shapes and eventually tiredness got the better of me and I jumped into bed with the intention of finishing off the following morning.

A few hours late we were woke up rudely by seagulls and we clearly weren’t getting back to sleep, so we had tea, showered, sorted some more tackle and set off towards the meet. Suprisingly only really just making it in time and without any breakfast.

Wayne volunteered to fetch something from the golden arches ‘ba da ba ba ba’ whilst I rigged up all four rods and listened in for when Ben Basset called our names to collect our competition entry cards. Meanwhile Dominic (Dom) Braxton showed up to join us for the day. We were ready to fish. I said hello to a few faces I recognised and finally met Rich Salter after talking on social media for possibly as long as 5 years? and someone even pulled my leg about only being allowed 2 rods as I was standing by all four and of course being tired I fell for it hook, line and sinker (you git).

My bacon roll, greasy hash yellow, and orange juice arrived (thanks Wayne!) which I demolished before you could finish saying ‘I’m Loving It’ and we set off straight to look over the wall by the carpark to see if we could nab a first fish early.

We had a few bites but no fish and made a plan (the same plan I think most had) to work our way through the harbour across the bridge and to the stone pier before heading back to finish the day on the pleasure pier right by the car park just in case by some miracle any of us were in with a shout of a prize.

Within half hour I was concerned, I had had a little interest from a mullet and a couple missed bites on dropshot but nothing else and Wayne and Dom weren’t looking much better so I kept the momentum going and encouraged them to try more scented baits and keep moving and we then switched tactics and started targeting the tiny pollock which were clearly every where. Wayne jigged for em with dropshot tactics successfully and I tried a small metal unsuccessfully before rigging a gulp alive fish fry in yellow on a 0.2g jighead and tried cast and retrieve. Bizarrely my method wasn’t working which in my experience is usually killer for pollock and seeing Wayne still catching them on gulp worms on dropshot I switched back and of course got one right away (apprentice teaching the teacher here haha). You are always learning when fishing!

Can even see my failed jighwad combo to the left 😪

Dom tried and tried for one but it just wasn’t happening and unfortunately he just couldnt hook one all day even though his methods were working and was getting bites from them all day.

We spoke to a few others and I felt a bit less worried when most were on either 1 or 2 species meaning the fishing was harder than I thought and it wasn’t just that we were completely pants!

We saw Ben Coleman who I think was on 3 species at the time just before crossing the bridge and bumped into Jack Perks who I had been really looking forward to chatting too as I follow his youtube, podcast and even have a copy of one of his books that my wife picked me up for Christmas a few years back.

Still frame from go pro later in the day.

Dom and I realised then that we had lost Wayne (Or Wally with how many times I said where’s Wayne throughout the rest of the day lol) who had gone back to the first spot we had fished as he had left his coffee flask behind. As soon as across the bridge I dropped in with my ultralight jighead and fry combo mentioned above and let it fall to the bottom in a little bit of shelter from the flow provided by the bridges structure. Once I could feel the bottom through the braid I started to scratch my way back a few inches at a time and on my 3rd nudge of the rod I forgot a tap, a gentle pause and then a pull which I lifted I to enough to hook my first of several black gobies for the day.

I got another on the next drop before moving on. Over the next hour and half or so I did a lot more talking than fishing but witnessed a fair few micro pollock caught by others and Saw Dom catch some awesome looking black gobies in around the boats where we also bumped into Andy Mytton and I think Ben Coleman and Jack Perks caught up with us here also. In one spot there were 3 or 4 of us hooking up with them at a time there were so many down there. Just a shame there didn’t seem to be many more species adding to the mix.

Whilst having a catchup with Mervyn (what a nice bloke) I had an incident with a fairly decent mullet which really showed my poor angling skills in full light as it sucked in my droshotted white isome not once but twice (see the video here of my reaction) and both times I just froze and didn’t lift into the fish like a moron. Chance missed and may have even been biggest fish of the day. Glad I had witnesses as I’d never have believed myself.

We next stopped near a little slipway just before a walk around to the final stretch before the pier. It was a popular spot and we spoke to several people here including the organiser of the day, fundraiser and competitions (thanks again!!) Ben Bassett (Check out his blog here) and much more importantly Clive Sharp who I really enjoyed getting to know and fishing with during my few months stay in Plymouth this spring!

Ben Coleman also showed up again and appeared to be having about as much luck as us from his expression.

Once both Ben’s had moved on I continued to try and pick out another fish whilst Clive and Dom had a chat and got lucky if I’m honest as I’d seen several people drop in right where I did in the last half hour to no avail and I managed to wangle out species number 3 of the day for myself and one I’m no stranger two the common Blenny or as many know it…… the shanny.

The fishing took a break for a while as on the way to the pier was a cafe, some benches and finally some sunshine. I called Wayne who had of course disappeared again and he came and met us for lunch (Sorry Ray , no Kebabs!). I really pushed the boat out and went for Cheesy chips, tea and can of coke as I’m a very cultured guy you know. HA.

I couldn’t wait to get to the pier, I’m not sure why but I seemed to think it was going to fish so much better and I’d be wracking up species in no time. But it was bloody hard fishing. Heavy weed, lots of swell, next to no bites at all. I was really starting to drop my hopes. Spoke to a few more people and saw Maurice and Jake off to the left of the pier as well as a few others. It wasn’t until about 45 minutes on the pier I found a bite.

I was getting rattled every drop in this little nook near the end of the pier on the seaward side and I fished it hard, changing to fresh gulp and giving little vibrations through the line before eventually (finally!!!) getting a proper bite. And in came the Corky!

Now Wayne had appeared fishing beside me and Dom at this point and was being very very very annoying by catching something like 20 pout back to back whilst I was still desperately wanting to catch one. He wasn’t even trying, simply had to just drop his bit of brown isome down and they would hook-up almost instantly. I copied his rig, same hook, same dapeth everything and i was just getting rattles and no hook-ups every drop. I was giving serious thought to taking up golf. Wow it was frustrating. I even took a piece of isome from Wayne’s packet and it still didn’t happen for me for ages.

I reckon I spent an hour trying to pick out a pout from about a thousand which were clearly under us as you could see them following your lure up every time you reeled in the check you still had it. Dom got one as well almost as soon as he tried for one, Mental!

But persistence does pay off, and I wasn’t leaving that pier without one!

And then this happened.

With not long left in the day we needed to get back across to the pleasure pier quickly if we were going to have any time fishing on it before the final meet up for the prizes ceremony, so we took a cheeky shortcut and jumped on the boat across the river with Clive (Thanks for the photo).

On the pier at last and we pitched up next to Jack Perks again and had a good laugh over the last half hour to 45 minutes and I managed to find and fish a bite through to capture again, and it was a fantastic way to cap off the day as my previous highest species count in a single fishing session had been 5 species a few weeks before down in Plymouth (see the video here), and that day I had actually gone out after the species I was finishing the competition with. But of course already having had 5 species ion the comp, this was my 6th and final species for the day and one of my favourites!

The Tompott Blenny – What an awesome fish!

A very welcome surprise ending to my days fishing.

Whilst the fishing was frustrating for most of the day, it definitely beats not fishing and by the end of the day all of the frustration had left me and I was chuffed to bits with my 6 species mini haul, getting to meet and talk to so many top people throughout the day.

I want to take a minute to say a well done again to both Dom and Wayne, neither of which had fished LRF before as both did great and caught new species they hadn’t had before, and of course I really appreciated the company and laughs throughout the day (well when I could actually find Wayne haha).