Time For A Update!

Hello everyone just writing a quick post today to let you guys know what has been going on lately in my fishing and also fill you in on some great news I received lately. So I am going to contain my excitement about my news and work in order of what happened when. Firstly then I have some news of a very short fishing trip I went on with my brother, Dad and Ryan a friend from work, this trip was very much like the previous few, we headed off lure fishing down the Quay, not much of a surprise there then as that seems to be all I have time for lately, which also though to be fair is not a problem seeing as for me as it is for most of you I'm sure fishing is fishing, it doesn't matter where or when I just enjoy being out fishing and once again at the moment lure fishing in particular. Ok so on to the fishing, we had set out to get a few more Bass on lures after the success of the previous trip, nothing really changed from what we were doing before I went straight in with the Savage Gear Sardine but this time in the blue colour, after a few casts of just straight retrieving I decided to try the sort of sink and draw that worked last time and on the second cast I was in, once again only a small fish but it was the target species so I was off to a good start. I made a few more casts with the same lure but to no avail so decided a change was the right move, this time I opted for the Savage Gear Sand Eel six inch (or so) and began casting and straight retrieving again, I managed another two fish on this method before we decided on moving spots, we only had a hour left of the trip as three of us were all working on the same night shift and it was getting later in the day. We set off to the other end of the Quay in search of a last fish or two, as we were in a new spot I decided to change back to the Sardine but back to the brown colour that worked so well last time, two cast in and I hooked something that felt completely different in its fight but only for a few moments as it gave up very quickly, enough so that I simply reeled it in on its side and it looked like a big Flounder in the water, it was however my biggest Ballon Wrasse to date and I could not have been happier! We decided at this point to pack up and head off to try get some sleep ready for the shift ahead. 

Ok so moving on, finally I am at the part where I can now fill you in on my awesome news! This is something I have personally been working towards for quite some time now and for me it feels like a dream come true, I could not be happier to tell you guys the news that I am now a blogger for Fin and Tide, in my eyes these guys make the best clothing in the lure fishing world and I cannot stress enough to you the quality of the items! I had some new stuff come from them the other day and every aspect was great, the quality of the products, the style and design of the clothes and not to mention how fast they get stuff delivered is great to. For any of you that have read my blog in the past you will see that I have been advertising them and the products for quite some time so this is not just something I am saying because of my new role. I am that excited about this that I could probably sit and waffle on about it for hours but I did say this was a quick post and I'm trying to stick to that!

Ok so lastly on to todays session and one I have been looking forward to for a very long time even more so after I finally decided on my first LRF rod and reel thanks to John Wheeler and Hastings Angling, I decided on a HTO Rockfish UL rod and a Shimano Exage reel and on testing them out together for the first time today I could not be happier with the set up. The plan for today was simple, head straight to the Quay from work, so we would arrive there around 6.45am high tide was just after 8.30am, taking that into consideration I decided that jigging a small Savage Gear Eel to imitate the white baits that are normally being forced up off the bottom by the small Bass at this time in the morning, this though turned out to not be a very good decision as the water was racing through and was very hard to fish, however before calling the day a complete loss as I did not have long before the rain was due to come in I had one more thing to try, I upped sticks and headed back to the same place I had gotten the Ballon from a few days previous. The idea was to head there and try drop shotting for some of the other species that reside in the harbour, there is a whole load of obstructions and things in the water here that help to break up and slow the tide, by this point I felt like this was very much my final chance to get some action and christen the new rod so hooked on a small piece of Marukyu Isome worm in the white colour and large size hoping that the forever faithful bait would do the job and produce a quick bite for me again. Once in the water true to form it didn't take to long before I started to feel a few little knocks on the end of my rod, to start with they were only little taps and it didn't feel to me like the fish was on yet until I got this one big pull down and I lifted into a species of fish I have not caught before which was another bonus! I had landed myself a Tompot Blenny which although a new species for me I couldn't help but think it was fitting that the first fish I ever caught in the sea was a common Blenny on a practise session that I now christen my first proper set up with a Blenny also!

Once again guys thank you very much for taking your time out to read this post I hope you enjoyed it, I have a few new things in the pipe line so I'm looking forward to sharing them with you soon!

Early Morning Bass Fishing.

Good morning and welcome back, I realise it has ben quite some time since my last post this is due to a few reasons, the main reason though is I have recently started working night shifts again and as anyone who works nights will know it takes a good few weeks to adjust to sleeping in the day time. As most of you know I have two children one aged six and one aged just six months, this has also attributed to the struggle to sleep in the day. With that being said I have been thinking and come up with the idea of heading out on a fishing trip straight from work on Friday morning, again there is a few reasons for this, not only have I then finished work for the week but I also try to stay awake as long as possible on a Friday with the plan of reverting back to normality for the rest of the weekend. I nearly started this post with a apology for not posting in a while again but realise I have done that quite often and continuously say I promise to write more, I don't set out to make these empty promises but sometimes I just don't have the time to write them so this time I thought I would just start off by explaining instead.
    
         Anyway lets get onto some fishing shall we, right so since the last post I have been out a couple of times unfortunately though I didn't get many pictures of fish, one trip I was out down the Quay teaching my brother how to fish and the other my Dad came down with my brother and I, this was a very rare thing as other than the odd lunch break messing around catching Minnows and tiny Dace about ten years ago, he hasn't fished since I was a small boy, when he used to fish Flounder comps and quite successfully to I might add. Needless to say even though they were short trips they were both special as time with the family is rare these days. One picture I did get from the first trip whilst teaching my brother was a extremely happy one for me, as you all would know by now I am still very new to sea fishing and have been really enjoying the LRF style of this, most of you will probably laugh at me now but this was my first ever Pollack and I was ecstatic!

I guess you are reading this next paragraph quite some time later now you have dried your eyes, for me though it is always about the fish not the size, don't get me wrong I do go out specimen fishing and will be out targeting a much bigger one at some point soon, I did also have what I classed as a result on the second trip with my Dad and brother, as you will have seen in my past LRF practise trips I have only ever managed one type of Wrasse that being the Corkwing, on this trip I managed three different Wrasse species one being Corkwing again but this time I also managed a Goldsinny and a Ballon. Unfortunately the only picture I got of a Goldsinny was of the fish my brother caught on a worm as when I had mine I was not paying enough attention to realise it was different to Corkwing other than having some super funky teeth. Again the picture of the Ballon I have is not the best as I caught it a few minutes after my Dad arrived and he and my brother went off to the tackle shop down the road to get him a new rod.

So other than yesterdays trip that's you guys up to date with the only fishing I have managed in the last few weeks it makes sense to get straight on with the Bass hunt my brother and I went on. Ok so the plan was simple to head down and catch a few Bass and hope for a good one or two as well, we knew from past trips that the Quay is absolutely bursting with them but most are of a small size with the odd one or two bigger ones and in the past they have been caught up to 14lb on the other side of the harbour so fingers were crossed for a few fish as I said. As you may know by now I'm not really one for live bait fishing and lately have much preferred to lure fish, this trip was no different, as soon as we had arrived at the Quay I tied on a Savage Gear 3D Sardine in the Brown/Green colour, I cast about fifteen yards along the Quay wall and began to retrieve, this time I decided to almost sink and draw the lure giving it a three foot twitch up and letting it sink but making sure to wind down as I lowered the rod to keep in contact with the lure at all times, it was on only around the forth twitch up on the first cast of the morning and I felt a small knock followed by a big banging sensation to which I struck into Bass number one of the day. I was using my seven foot Korum Snapper 10-30g rod along with a Snapper KDS2000 reel loaded with 13lb Daiwa 8 braid with a 6lb Snapper fluorocarbon leader tied to a snap link swivel to which I clipped the 3D Sardine lure, as you can imagine using a light rod like this I had a lot of fun playing the fish and it put a great bend in the tip to!

As you can imagine I was more than happy with how the trip had started and could not wait to get back in the water, after around five or six more casts each and two more fish between us we decided to pop into the small tackle shop which is located down an alley way not far from the building you can see over my shoulder in the above picture. As we went in we heard the usual "hello, I'll be there in a sec" come from the small room behind the counter, The guy in the shop never forgets a face and he said the same as usual when he see's me "oh hey its the lure guy" to which I always chuckle a bit. I told him what we were doing today and that we were after some Bass on lures, he then came round and showed us his range of Tsunami Sand Eel lures and some Tsunami Shads with weedless hooks, I'm pretty sure between us we bought every colour he had in stock in both styles and off we went to the next section that was clear of boats docked. To start with I clipped on a white coloured sand eel and made a few casts this time I started off just straight retrieving the lure but varying the wind speed each time just to see if I could get a easy bite with them, it didn't take long as on my forth cast if I remember right I was into another fish, this one was a bit smaller but I always take a picture of any fish I catch first on a new lure.

After returning this fish though I had to make another change but not in tackle this time I found myself routing around in my bag trying to find some gloves, however for some strange reason I only had a single glove with me, this was because after handling the last few fish I found my hands being cut to shreds on all the different spikes all over the Bass. To save on looking like a total mad man I decided only to put the glove on to unhook the fish and if I got another good one then I would use them for pictures also. We spent the next hour or so casting around and we ended up having around twenty fish between us with my brother landing the biggest one with that being about 45cm which also went back in the water unharmed other than where it was hooked, unfortunately though by now the tide was well and truly on its way out and the fish were on they way out with it so it was time to head off home. I can safely say though that both Matt and myself will be both back down on the hunt for a big Bass again very soon, for myself personally I will be restarting my youtube channel again soon so will be out at some point in the very near future making my first video in a long while, I'm not 100% sure what I am going to be doing or fishing for, I do know for sure though there will be a lot of different content to watch on there this time! One video I will be doing soon is one where I will take everyone through my set up and various different things I use when I'm out and about lure fishing. I hope you have enjoyed reading this post and I will try to do a few more as I'm starting to get more and more used to working at night and sleeping in the day so my time management should get better again soon.

Don't forget to use the link tabs at the top of the page to get to my social media pages and subscribe to my youtube also check out StickySharp Tackle for all your fresh water Carp and Specimen fishing needs, Be sure also to head to Fin and Tide to check out the awesome clothing they do for the modern lure fisherman! Thanks for reading and see you next time.