Catch fish with Mike Ladle.

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.

Some of these middens were almost a metre deep and contained billions of maggots but no fish came in to feed on them.

Nigel Bevis playing a schoolie.

The fish was hooked on a plug just before high water.

The fish is beaten.

The little fish fought hard but was no match for the tackle.

Almost ready to release.

Small fish like this can be lifted on the plug, unhooked and popped back into the water.

The following morning I met Lee and Charles fishing the surf on a headland with a strong tide.

The lads landed a bass and a pollack, both on plugs.

This one took my popper.

I've painted the belly of the lure white and silvered its flanks - I think it looks more fishlike!

Another small bass.

This one took my blue and silver J11.

Steve Pitts joined me the next evening.

Steve landed two bass just as it was getting dark.

This was one of them.

The fish took Steve's Thunderstick.

Another friend (yet another Nigel) fished a fly all night.

One of Nigel's bass took this surface popper.

I had another one on a surface lure.

Again this one took my repainted Skitterpop.