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 four 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. 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).

30 June 2005

Lots of bass.

Could I drag myself out of bed at 03.00 hr? None of my pals had called so it seemed that it would have to be a lone mission. I know from experience that if I didn't get up and go some other clever ****** would say "you should have been down here the other morning!"

Anyway, the alarm clock rang, I got up, dressed and drove to the coast. It was warm, muggy and flat-calm and the tide was as far out as I've ever seen it. I knew that I'd made the right decision before I even made the first cast. I was still three metres from the water's edge (in deep gloom) when there was a swirl and a decent fish shot away from my approach.

First cast was a short one (it always pays to do this to get any bugs out of the braid before you start fishing properly) and the lure was almost back to the rod tip when there was a jagging pull and a splash and I was into a bass. I did the usual with a couple of pictures then I released the fish and cast again. Knock, knock, wallop and I was into another one a bit bigger. Every cast it was missed bites or another bass. I switched to the fly rod and after a few minutes managed to hook and land a fish. I took its picture and went back to plugging. By now the sky was lightening a lot and the bites were falling off. Any way I was well pleased with my ten bass landed. I guess I could have doubled the total if I'd simply flogged away with a smaller lure (say a J7 or J9 Rapala) because the smaller fish often failed to get a decent hold on the Maria. Also I 'wasted' a fair amount of time fiddling about with cameras, fly rod etc. Still it was a good hour's fishing.

The following morning I went down again with Steve. The fish were not there. The only difference seemed to be a stiffer NE wind but to be honest the conditions were near identical. I managed to land a couple on the plug and missed one (on the previous morning I often had three pulls on a single retrieve), Steve never had a sniff on the fly. Sixty years of fishing and I still don't understand what's going on.

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

Under the rod tip.

On the shore.

On the fly.

Different lure.

A rare shot.