Catch fish with Mike Ladle.

Catch Fish with
Mike Ladle

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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 so if you are new to fly fishing or spinning these are the ones for you).

21 June 2007.

Slow or what?

No one ever writes about catching nothing so I thought I'd have a go. Sometimes it just seems as though the fates are against you doesn't it?

I've just returned from a short family holiday in Rome (no - no fishing there - didn't even see a fish in the River Tiber), but before I went away I'd had a hard time with the fish. My preceding trips to the coast had been blank, unless I count the 'tailing' bass that Ben and I saw when we had our early morning session. My pal Alan Bulmer, on a trip over here from New Zealand, joined us down on the local harbour at 03.30 in the morning (how about that for dedication?). Apart from a couple of small followers after my plug (??bass?) and a surface swimming dogfish that tempted Alan to cast a fly (I told him that that would have been a first if he hooked it) there was zippo.

Eventually I went to the river for a bit of light relief. It must say something about the relative 'ease' of catching fish in fresh- or salt-water that I go to the river when I'm desperate to catch something. Anyway, this time it didn't work. My first attempt (one-and-a-half hours of trudging and spinning produced not a bite, not a sniff, not even a sign of a fish - I couldn't believe it. The next session was slightly better, I missed a couple of plucks then I landed a small trout. Eureka! I missed a better trout, after a bit of a lull, I shifted to another spot just upstream of a bridge. Second cast upstream I saw a big bow wave following the shallow diving plug (an Angel Kiss). I felt a slight pluck and the fish rolled and turned showing a huge silver flank - it was either a salmon or the biggest chub I've ever seen. That was it - no more bites at all. I went home having caught just one small trout. Pathetic!

A fish.

At last I'd hooked something.

Another look.

Even small trout are good looking fish.