Hello to all
My fishing has taken somewhat of a twist as of late, a few months ago I wouldn't of dreamt of spending almost a month of my summer fishing time exclusively lure fishing, but that's exactly what has happened,What can I say? I'm hooked.
The last few weeks have produced hundreds of fish for me. Sure, there not all 20 lb er's nor are they 20 ouncer's , hell; some would scrape it to make 20 drams but this ultra light lure fishing is just so much fun and with a balanced set up even the smallest of fish can give a good sporting account of its self making for very enjoyable angling.
The visual aspect of lure fishing is also a big draw for me, seeing your quarry smash the lure is awesome.I was out with Mox and Mario the other day casting small floating frogs for Pike, that bow wave follow before the strike had us cheering the fish on like we were at the local dog track.On another adventure myself and Moxy set out to catch some Perch on our local canal, From the off we were into the ever reliable sprack Perch on 1 inch soft plastics mounted on a 1-2 gram jig heads.Half an hour or so into the session Moxy's rod hooped over double,I hoped it to be a perch but it seemed old jack had crashed the party! after an epic battle with some proper clutch smoking runs Mox gently chinned the lil fella for a quick snap before sending him on his way.
After a swift bevvy we moved up to a new swim, on the first cast I connected into a solid weight.I under armed the lure out and felt it down on a tight line when out of the blue it was plucked from my fingers mid drop, I lifted the rod igniting a melter of a run! this fish was ploughing deep and I could not do a sausage to persuade her otherwise.
"I gotta big ol croc on here buddy" or so I thought, man alive; this fish was leading me a merry dance, we were laughing at the whole ordeal as I had my left hand two thirds up the rod trying to give the fish a little back.I just had to do the run around, hang on and pray the fish didn't find a snag. After ten or so minutes we still had not seen the the fish, more madness passed before the creature rose from the depths.Naturally we expected to see the flank of a large Esox thrashing through the clear water but would I be !"£$+% "Did you see that?"I enthused.Carp onnn! I assumed that it had been foul hooked but as the fight wound to a tiresome end we could clearly see the little white jig hanging from the lip of a beautiful old canal Common.
What a jammy git we joked,she went potty when netted giving us a proper soaking,upon removing the hook I noticed it had straightened slightly.If the rod had been any heavier I don't think I would have landed the fish
What a fluke! 18lb 1oz of predatory Carp lol. As I mentioned in the last blog I have also been dabbling with that big old pond that the call the Sea.Salt water fishing has never really been at the for-front of my angling,but as the fishing goes on I'm looking to branch out a bit and take advantage of all the the coast we have available here in Devon.
One species that has really caught my attention lately is the Wrasse,these pretty hard fighting fish come in a variety of couler's and patterns, almost chameleon like to there surroundings.I,m yet to catch a decent one but Have caught a few on the drop-shot which Moxy discovered to be deadly method when we were fishing the local dock one evening
Other than the drop shot fishing I have been plopping around with the LRF ( light rock fishing )
Which has proved to right laugh,it amazed me just how many different types of little beasties live down in the dark sanctuary of the near shore rocks, infact pretty much all this sea fishing stuff is new to me which makes it all the more exciting. last weekend I had the whole of the day to try and catch as many species as I could,I started of on the docks using a 1g jig head with a artificial rag worm.This caught me lots of Gobies and Blennys but there were no signs of the Wrasse or Pollock.After meeting up with Mario and Moxy we headed off to the canal for some fresh water action,We spent the afternoon catching lots of perch on small jigs and a few pike on surface popper's but after a few hours we decided to return to the salt water to fish the incoming tide.
Good job we did too, as it went off! I caught two stunning Wrasse on the Drop shot then switched to the micro jigs and got into some scrappy Pollock,the hits they give on the light tackle are proper wrenchers.A shoal of small fish to the 2lb mark had gathered in front of us to eat all the fry that could clearly be seen balling up in slack water.I also caught a Mackerel which fought like a demon,only a fish of a 1lb but my god do they scrap.
7 species in a day made for a good result,I think I might do some Cat fishing and a spot of Carping in the near future,perhaps i'll visit my old friends Dave Lidstone and Paul Powers down at Emperor lakes.
Til next time
Good luck
