Catch fish with Mike Ladle.

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).

Bass and barnacles - The deadline for a book is looming for me so these will be the last pages until mid-October. You'll have to make do with the archive for now - Cheers, Mike.

The fates have been against me recently (I think that all my luck has rubbed off on my pal Nigel for the moment - he can do no wrong). Anyway, at last the weather has settled and after finding Swanage unfishable early in the week (the swell was frightening) my weekend early morning trip with Ben was light relief. We had a pleasant walk and one or two bass on the plugs - excellent stuff. On the top of the springs there were mullet and bass surface feeding on maggots but the numbers were nothing like those of two weeks earlier and again the big swell made fishing tricky (there were a few wet people on the shore). Nigel had half a dozen small fish on a little popper and one decent one the following night but, all in all it was frustrating.

Perhaps the most interesting thing was the goose barnacles washed up on the shore at Kimmeridge. The first sign of them was an orange aerosol can with three or four attached to the top. Someone had kindly picked it up and put it on a rock for all to see. A little further along was a big plastic buoy with a well over a metre of rope fastened on the end of it. Like the aerosol can the buoy must have spent some time drifting across the Atlantic because it's rope was absolutely covered in barnacles. These animals are quite big (bigger than a 50p piece) and each has white chalky valves on the end of a long stalk. The stalk is flexible and rubbery so the animal can twist this way and that. Just like the barnacles on our rocks these creatures feed by kicking food into their mouths with a whole bunch of feathery legs. Many of the ones we saw were still alive and kicking so they must have washed up very recently.

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

Saturday morning bass

Ben had this one on a plug.

One for me.

This one was a bit bigger and took a large plug with one of the trebles removed (why do they put three trebles on long lures?).

Air freshener.

Could this be from Florida or the West Indies or possibly a bit of cruise ship rubbish?

This is more like it.

What a bunch of barnacles.

Close up.

They look as though they might make a decent meal if cooked.  The stalks are a bit like squid or razor fish in nature.  I guess that they'd be easy enough to 'farm' if they grow like this.