Catch fish with Mike Ladle.

Catch Fish with
Mike Ladle

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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).

Lucky me.

The other morning I struggled to get out of bed for a fishing trip. It's not like me - I generally have no trouble but I was late to bed, it had been a warm humid night and I didn't sleep all that well. Anyway when I woke up it was drizzling and mild with no wind so I put on the gear and drove to the coast. Needless to say I was the only idiot there and I was a little bit later than I would have liked. It was a neap tide and about half-ebb so I paddled into the shallow water to get a better angle on my casts and began fishing.For perhaps fifteen minutes nothing (I was using an 18cm Pearl Evo Redgill because there was no weed and the sea was calm and slightly coloured) then I felt a tap. I was certain it was a fish so the next cast was made to the same spot with some optimism. Sure enough I had another bite, a bit stronger, but again I missed it. The third chuck resulted in a firmly hooked fish which I played in, slid ashore and photographed before returning. It was no monster but it's always nice to get one.

After catching and photographing another fish I hung the camera round my neck and slipped the pliers (for unhooking) into my jacket pocket so I wouldn't have to fetch them from up the beach (where I'd left my bag) next time. After a few more casts I had a third bass - it was looking promising. For the next hour-and-a-quarter I flogged away and every few minutes I had another fish. The bites typically came in groups with lulls of perhaps eight or ten biteless casts in between. Before I packed in to go for my breakfast I landed thirteen bass. All were smallish fish with the best perhaps three pounds but, for some reason, they fought like tigers. I mostly unhooked them in the water by grabbing the hook with my pliers. All in all a very pleasant fishing trip and a nice change from catching sea trout in the river.

I think that a couple of my pals went down the following morning and had only the odd fish between them - that's fishing! Glad I went when I did.

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

First bass.

Well hooked - they rarely come off the huge hooks on these lures.

Another.

Notice that many of the fish seem rather hollow bellied.  I wonder if they are having a hard time finding food?

- and another

I took this one in the water.'

- and another.

There's a limit to how many pictures of smallish bass anyone wants to see (and to how many I can be bothered to take).'