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).

A good 'maggot' session at last.

It has been a crappy season for maggot tides. In years gone by (I'm talking about the 1980's) you could almost guarantee that on the largest few spring tides of every series between May and October there would be places on the beach where weed had accumulated. The rotting piles of weed would have generated billions of Coelopa maggots and when the high tide was round-about the 2m level the maggots would float out onto the surface of the sea and the mullet (and bass) would be there to feed on them. I may be looking through rose coloured polaroids but I have the diary entries to back up what I say. Of course there would be times when there were no weed piles or the sun would have dried the fronds to a crisp or the weed would be so fresh that the maggots had not yet got going but, on the whole, it was pretty consistent fishing at two-weekly intervals. This year - nothing! Even though my own fishing was a bit restricted my pals tell me that there have been virtually no good maggot tides in 2023.

I'll start with a few blasts from the past -

A weed midden - Steve Pitts sits on a good stack of maggot food.

The gut of a maggot feeding mullet.

A very youthful me, well into a mullet on the maggot-fly.

Last week Bill rang to remind me that it was likely to be our last chance of a maggot bonanza before the clocks changed and made it too dark for sensible mullet/bass maggot fishing. He said that he would pick me up and we'd meet Nigel at the coast. Now, we knew that, because of recent rough weather, any accumulated weed was likely to be too 'fresh' for maggots and we also knew that with the prevailing weather it might even be too rough and windy for us to fish (certainly fly-fishing was likely to be out of the question). We went anyway.

Here we are - rods at the ready - rarin to go. (picture by Bill)

As it turned out we were wrong. For sure it was rough, as the amount of surfing activity testified. But the wind was non-existant. The weed on the beach looked pretty fresh but a scrape of the boot showed that it was full of little white maggots - a miracle.

From the start we could see that there were plenty of fish there, the vast majority being bass with only a few mullet. The fish were mostly close to the beach in the breaking waves. There was quite a lot of loose weed in the rough water so fly fishing really was out of the question. All three of us were geared up for spinning so on went the weedless soft plastics and we began to spin. As it turned out most of the bass we caught (15 between us) were on the small side (1-3lb) with just a couple of slightly bigger ones. The majority took Nigel's small, plastic sandeel imitation and two of about 4lb+ were on my Evo Stix Redgill - random chance. Just before packing in I tried a small Delta eel on the fly rod and managed one tiny bass, but it really was too difficult to trail a fly through the weedy margin. All in all, a good evening.

Nigel with a small bass.(picture by Bill)

Another smallish bass.(picture by Bill)

One a bit larger on the Evo Stix.

.... and another.

– PLEASE TELL YOUR TWITTER, FACEBOOK, EMAIL FRIENDS ABOUT THESE BOOKS.

THE SECOND WAVE

Written with Steve Pitts this is a SEQUEL TO THE BESTSELLER "Operation Sea Angler" IT'S AVAILABLE ON PAPER FROM - "Veals Mail Order" AND ON PAPER OR FOR YOUR KINDLE FROM"Amazon"

HOOKED ON BASS

Written with Alan Vaughan. NEW PRINT OF THE ORIGINAL: IN PAPERBACK. Copies available from all good book shops RRP £14:99 - "Waterstones"

ANGLING ON THE EDGE

Copies can now be ordered (printed on demand) from Steve Pitts at £34.00, inc. Royal Mail Insured UK Mainland Postage.

To order a book send an E-MAIL to - stevejpitts@gmail.com

FISHING FOR GHOSTS

Written with David Rigden. Copies from "The Medlar Press"