Catch Fish with
Mike Ladle
Information Page
SEA FISHING
15 May 2002
Schoolies on all sorts of lures!
Last Wednesday morning I got out of bed at three o'clock, dressed, collected the gear, climbed in the car - AND THE ******* THING FAILED TO START! Apparently a camshaft sensor had packed in. I was not a happy man. Having recovered from that and got it fixed I was raring to go by Friday. The spring tides were building up over the weekend so, on the Friday evening, when Nigel Bevis rang me and said he was going down after work, I said I'd see him on the beach. To cut a long story short, even though the tide was pretty early, we managed five school bass on the plugs. There was lots of weed and loads of maggots in the water but no mullet (or bass) showing.
The following morning I fished from a rocky headland with two B.A.S.S. members and we had a small pollack and three school bass. One of the fish was my first to take a surface popper this year so I was well pleased. That evening there were several keen bass anglers on the same beach as the previous night. This time seven bass were caught including fish on plugs, sub surface flies, popping flies and another one on the Skitterpop (not huge but probably the biggest fish of the evening). Again nothing showed on the surface (three or four mullet poked their heads up for ten seconds at most).
On the Sunday evening I went and sat on one of the biggest piles of weed and maggots I have ever seen. All I saw was one tiny shoal of three inch mullet skimming the surface. Where are they??? Surely the fish must come in soon.
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
Weed middens on the beach.
Nigel Bevis playing a schoolie.
The fish is beaten.
Almost ready to release.
The following morning I met Lee and Charles fishing the surf on a headland with a strong tide.
This one took my popper.
Another small bass.
Steve Pitts joined me the next evening.
This was one of them.
Another friend (yet another Nigel) fished a fly all night.
I had another one on a surface lure.