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).

Good fun!

One of my grandsons, Marcel, aged 6, came to visit during the bank holiday weekend so we had to go fishing. I'd purchased a dozen ragworm and fitted up a couple of rods with small weights and suitable circle hooks and together with Marcel's dad, Mark, we trogged off down to Worbarrow Bay for an hour. It was a lovely afternoon and despite the car park being full there were few people on the beach. The tide was out but otherwise it looked perfect for a spot of wrassing. I baited up the hooks with sections of worm and we flicked them out from the shingle. Within seconds young Marcel had a bite but failed to hook it, On the next cast he got it right and landed a nice little ballan wrasse - wonderful. After that it all went wrong. Both rods snagged up and we lost the weights. I guess that the sea bed had changed in the winter storms (like so many other stretches of this coast) and where there had been no snags now it was rocky. The real disaster was only discovered when I delved into my bag to set the gear up again - NO WEIGHTS!!!! The little canister that I carry my bombs and bullets in wasn't there. My name was mud. We fiddled about trying to freeline worms but it was no use. Marcel's fish was the only one we caught. Still , it was a good afternoon.

That evening my pal Rob rang and suggested that we might try fly fishing the following morning. I'd been thinking along the same lines myself so I was up for an early session. When we met in the carp park, although there wasn't much wind there was an ominous growl of heavy surf. Undaunted we made our way down to the rocks and decided that it was 'fishable'. Because it was pretty rough we started off with spinning gear - Rob with a Rapala and myself with a Redgill and a tiny Delta as a dropper. I suppose we both hoped for bass in the foaming water. No such luck. To cut a long story short we each managed to land three small pollack and we had a number of missed bites - presumably off more small pollack. No bass, no mackerel, in fact nothing else. We gave it and hour and then trudged back to the car thinking that it was about time we had some decent calm conditions for fly fishing (we never had a sniff on our fly gear). Perhaps 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

Marcel's wrasse.

Not a bad fish and made all the better because his dad's never caught one.

Pollack.

This one took my dropper but Rob had fish on a plug and a wedge.