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).

24 August 2006

Bassing - mixed fortunes.

Ben and I had our usual Saturday morning session last weekend. Last time that we went to the chosen stretch we blanked completely - a fairly rare occurrence lately. Anyway, we started off with plugs (Ben) and poppers (me) at first light - all to no avail. After a half-hour with no sign of anything we decided to press on along the shore. I should say that the conditions were quite rough and there was a bit of colour in the sea. Quite a few stretches were more or less unfishable because of drifting weed.

Perhaps understandably we were not too optimistic after the previous abortive trip. After trying a couple of spots without results I switched to a sub-surface plug to give myself a chance of a wrasse if there were no bass about. After a further ten minutes with no bites it was something of a surprise when suddenly the rod was yanked round and I found myself playing a fish. The fish put up a fair show and proved to be a modest bass so I was quite pleased and got Ben to take a picture for me. We fished on for a further half hour but this only produced one more small schoolie. At least we weren't waterlicked this time.

A couple of days later I decided to have an early morning session from a spot with deeper water. When I got to the shore I found the sea too rough for me to fish from my usual perch and for safety's sake had to cast from a ledge about two metres further up the cliff. I tried with a plug to start with and had one possible touch in about a half-hour before switching to a popper. This proved to be much more attractive and in all I had five attacks from fish in the next thirty minutes. Sadly I failed to hook any of the takes although one fish had three attempts to grab the lure right under my stance. In fact I think that the high stance was the problem. All the takes were in the white water surging round the base of the cliff and I think that the steep angle of the line to the lure may have made it difficult to get a hook-up..

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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

Another angler.

Ben trying hard.

My fish.

The morning session.