Catch fish with Mike Ladle.

Catch Fish with
Mike Ladle

Information Page

SEA FISHING

For anyone unfamiliar with the site always check the FRESHWATER, SALTWATER and TACK-TICS pages. The Saltwater page now extends back as a record of over several years of (mostly) sea fishing and may be a useful guide as to when to fish. The Freshwater stuff is also up to date now. I keep adding to both. These pages are effectively my diary and the latest will usually be about fishing in the previous day or two. As you see I also add the odd piece from my friends and correspondents if I've not been doing much. The Tactics pages which are chiefly 'how I do it' plus a bit of science are also updated regularly and (I think) worth a read (the earlier ones are mostly tackle and 'how to do it' stuff).

18 August 2006

Phew! House move interferes with fishing!

I may have mentioned that we were about to move house. Anyway, we did. All the packing, unpacking, sorting, tidying and swearing seriously curtailed my fishing so I'll hark back to last week for this piece.

One of my "email fishing pals" - David Baker - rang me to say that he was going to be in Dorset for a night and was desperate to catch a fish on a surface popper. Now I'm sure that Dave doesn't mind me saying that he's fairly new to bassing. I suppose he's been catching bass on lures for a couple of years and in that period we've had a fair bit of correspondence about the whys and wherefores of lure fishing. I don't want to give the wrong impression, Dave knows what he's doing and has caught some decent fish but when I told him of my pal Nigel's catch of upper-teens of fish, on fly, the previous evening he said it was probably more than he'd caught in his life so far.

Anyway, that sets the scene. Nigel and I were going to have an evening's fishing and we met Dave down at the coast. It was much more difficult to fish than when Nigel had landed his big catch. The wind had stiffened and made fly casting a much more difficult proposition. Added to that the fish were less keen and we struggled to catch . Having said that we landed several fish between us but Dave couldn't tear himself away from his favourite Maria shallow diver on which he had a couple of modest bass - so still nothing on the popper.

As we walked back to the cars I suggested to Dave that we could try the following morning to tempt a fish on the popper. He was game and so just after 04.20 we met and walked through the gloom to the shore. At first there was nothing doing. Ben and me were fly fishing and Dave was again spinning (with the Maria). It was 04.50 when we began to get bites and soon the fish were coming thick and fast on the fly gear - pollack, mackerel and small bass flung themselves on the flies and Dave had a couple of bass on the plug.

I decided that I'd better try and give Dave the confidence to switch to the popper (it really is just a matter of confidence) and first chuck with my TD Pencil lure I was into a mackerel, then another and another fish smashed it as it lay on the surface. Dave was convinced by all this action that at least the poppers work so he cut off the plug (it must have been traumatic to switch from his favourite) and tied on a Skitterpop. After a few casts he found himself attached to a fish and after that it was easy. One fish (or even one bite) is all it takes!

If you have any comments or questions about fish, methods, tactics or 'what have you.'get in touch with me by sending an E-MAIL to - docladle@hotmail.com

Nigel fly fishing.

On the previous evening Nigel lost count of the number of bass that took his fly.

A bass for me.

This one had engulfed my fly.

Dave's favourite lure.

These Marias are excellent bass catchers.