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).

Right time wrong place.

My grandson Ben was staying with us for a couple of days this week so fishing was on the menu. He said he'd had enough of waiting for a carp to bite and he would like to go down to the sea wrasse fishing. As it turned out the wind had got up and I knew that some of the best rock marks would be unfishable so we bought a dozen ragworm and set off to Worbarrow Bay.

In the past Ben's caught lots of wrasse from the rocks around the Tout so of course we started by trying in Pondfield with simple float tackle. Not a sniff! We fished for perhaps twenty minutes without even hide nor hair of a wrasse. The sea was a bit rough but it was clear and the tide was fairly well in so it was hard to understand why the wrasse were not biting. Anyway, clearly plan B was called for. I suggested that we might cross over and try fishing from the shingle beach on the other side of the headland. It was only a two minute walk and despite the stiff breeze Ben was easily able to cast his half ounce lead and rag-baited paternoster ten or fifteen metres.

Within five seconds of casting out a rattling bite told us that we'd made the right decision. A minute later we were unhooking the first wrasse of the session. In all Ben landed twenty-one fish (he likes to keep a count) in just over an hour. Most of them were smallish (less than half a kilo = a pound or so) but the range of colours and patterns was astonishing. Green, grey, mahogany brown, gold with blue or turquoise stripes on the corkwings and a variety of spots and stripes on the ballans. It was just the sort of fishing that a boy enjoys most. I had a few chucks with a plug but there was nothing doing. To be honest I enjoyed watching Ben catch wrasse as much as anything.

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

He's in!

Corkwing.

Ballan.

- and another.

- and a bigger one.