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).

How about that!!!.

Regular browsers of the website will be aware that I recently made up a couple of spinners with luminous, green Betalights attached to the shaft and coated with Aquasure wader repair stuff. The idea is that the lures glow in the dark and I was hoping to try them for seatrout in my local rivers after dark. Well the truth is I haven't yet got round to going for the seatrout but once or twice I gave the lures a go in the sea. I was fishing alone when I tried my glow in the dark spinners so although I caught a few fish I'd no idea whether I'd done any better than normal (always a tricky business to decide).

Anyway, this morning I went to the coast with my pal Nigel with the idea of catching one or two mackerel and perhaps trying one for livebait. For my part I'd replaced the treble on my luminous lure with a single dressed with a few strands of glittery tinsel. Nigel decided to start off with a Dexter Wedge - the usual mackerel catching device where we were fishing. We were on the rocks by 04:30 so it was still pretty dark and as it turned out it was a very low tide with patches of kelp showing everywhere. I should add that Nigel's wedge obviously cast a lot further than my little spinner. Anyway we both cast out and a few seconds later I called 'fish on!' The fish turned out to be a scad, a species for which I'd successfully used a luminous spinner previously - many years ago. Excellent! I cast again - wallop, I was into a big mackerel which I duly landed. My next fish was a decent pollack of perhaps a pound-and-a-half, a big specimen by the usual standards of the venue. Several more mackerel and pollack followed along with a fair few missed bites on my spinner. By now Nigel, who was yet to get a sniff on his lure, was beginning to grumble a bit and needless to say I was winding him up about my radioactive spinner.

Of course as dawn approached and the sky lightened Nigel began to catch plenty of mackerel and he added a reasonable bass, after which he tried a live mackerel for a while. By this time I was fiddling about with poppers, plugs and Slandras in hopes of tempting a better bass - all to no avail - although, much to my surprise, I did manage a good mackerel well hooked on a huge Slandra. All this is more or less irrelevant with the exception of the fact that my tiny glowing spinner seemed to be 'the thing' in the dark. Not only had it completely outfished the Wedge being used by my pal while the light levels were very low (it lost its advantage once the sky lightened) but it had also caught a variety of species. I can't wait to give it a go for the seatrout, for which it is intended, one night.

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

Scad.

Mackerel.

Pollack.