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).

12 March 2008

They're about!

It's March and I've been thinking about having a go for bass. Last week my pal Ben rang and asked whether I fancied fishing at the weekend. We decided that it might be worth a dabble in the briney and arranged to go on Saturday morning. We knew that it got light round about six so we arranged to get to the coast just before that. As it turned out we were about ten minutes late and it was already lightening by the time we began to cast. Conditions looked good so we were reasonably optimistic despite it being so early in the year.

On the walk along the shore we noticed that there were still millions of plastic beads scattered among the weed and pebbles. Presumably these are material for use in moulding plastic items and they appeared last year after the big shipwreck in Lyme bay. I don't know whether they do much harm but for sure they won't do any good to marine life. We also passed the recently dead carcase of a dolphin or porpoise (we didn't look too close because it was already beginning to reek a bit). In the past few years I've quite often found these creatures washed up - presumably the victims of pair trawling for bass.

Anyway, to get back to the fishing. There were three of us (Phil had come too) and we spread ourselves over a hundred metres of beach and began to fish. The water was quite clear and it was just coming up to high tide. Within minutes Ben, who was the furthest east of the three, hooked played and landed a nice bass of four pounds in good nick. We admired his catch and took a few pictures before returning to our fishing but none of us had another bite. Perhaps that ten minutes made all the difference. We'll be earlier next time.

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

Plastic junk.

Cetacean.

Hard at it.

Nice fish.

smile please.