Difficult Times.

Hello everyone, so as the title suggests things have not been easy at the moment, I'm talking about LRF as there has been little to no species around and what I have seen have been extremely shy biting and very hard to hook.

My first 3 sessions of the year resulted in blanks, this was a little bit strange to me as by this point last year I had a good few weeks where I picked up a couple of nice early species.

My usual banker spots had not been producing anything at all even with trying out small pieces of ragworm instead of the Isome!

I realize that this time last year the weather was a whole lot better than it is at the moment and whilst I'm not an expert, I have been putting all the blanks down to the colder weather this year!

I kept on plugging away at it and eventually I did manage one, I spent a full morning down the Quay as I'm off of work on holiday at the moment, I walked from one end to the other trying out countless spots, nothing was going on at all until I got to a spot the other side of the bridge I had not fished before and decided to give it a go.

I decided to start out fishing ragworm but to no avail, so decided to go back to the Isome, this is probably the only lure I use in the early months of the year just to see whats about.

As you can imagine after failing so many times this month even this tiny little Ballan made it all worth while.

I gave it a few more days before heading back out again and that paid off for me as well, this time I didn't bother buying any ragworm it was going to be an out and out Isome approach.

Once again I was there for a few hours trying many different spots until I finally found a few fish.

I spotted a few small Wrasse in a hole in the concrete but they would pop out peck my bait and back up again, nothing was happening until this Rock Goby flew out and engulfed the lure.

I also hooked up with a small Shanny but unfortunately it dropped off as I lifted it out the water, it was a shame but I will be back down there to get him out again very soon!

Thanks for reading and once again I hope you enjoyed!

 

Getting Started.

Hello everyone, I'm sure by now you will have seen on my Twitter, Instagram or Facebook I have finally managed to get out and do some fishing. Something very different for me though by way of heading to the beach to start off my salt water species hunt for the year.

I started out last week heading to a local tackle shop and buying 2 of the cheapest rod and reel combo's I could find, The main reason for the cheapness was that I wasn't sure just how much I was going to be able to get out shore fishing or if I would even like it. To start out with I went to a local beach by the name of Durley Chine to see if there was anything at all about.

That session was only about 2-3 hours long and ended in a blank, usually I would walk away from a blank feeling slightly down on things, this time though it only made me more determined to get things right and finally break my lifetime shore fishing duck!

After this trip I just wanted to get a species or 2 under my belt so it was time to get out and dust off the LRF gear!

Unfortunately once again I managed to miss read the tide times and arrived at an extremely fast moving Poole Quay, one that was absolutely impossible to fish! After all these Issues I decided it was time to call in the expert from the last time I went shore fishing Mr Mark Tiller.

We decided it would be a good idea to head over to Chesil Beach, somewhere I have never been let alone fished. Our target species was Plaice, although to be honest we both just wanted to get off the mark species wise so would have been happy with anything.

We for reason decided it would be a good idea to leave home at 5am... however to be fair once we arrived and I was hit with these views on the road in I wasn't fussed at all by how tired I was!

After getting the rods set up and cast out it was now back to the waiting game, we decided on leaving the first cast 30 minutes and see what the baits came back like, if there was no bait we would shorten the length of time between casts and vice versa.

After speaking to guys in local tackle shops before the trips we took Mackerel, Squid and Ragworm as bait, we were told there was a few Plaice, Dogfish and the odd Ray being caught which was the reason for the bait selection.

Mark was first off the mark with a nice little Whiting, taken on a Pulley Pennel rig baited with a few large worms.

Quite some time went by with no other action so I decided to have a change up of rigs and bait, I went with a 3 hook flapper rig with a small strip of squid on each hook. I didn't notice any bites but when I wound in I had a nice little surprise by way of this awesome little Rockling.

We were both ecstatic to be off the mark in the species hunt as well as our own personal goals for the year, as you might recall from my post where I outlined my goals I am aiming to land 20 salt water species this year, unlike last year where I set the goal for LRF only this year is by any means, so with lures, bait or even on a boat.

As I already said above our target species for the trip was a Plaice, so with that in mind I took the flapper rig off and put on a Wessex rig, both hooks baited with Ragworm and sent out around 50-60 yards.

I put the rod up on the tripod and returned to the comfort of my chair, as I sat down I had 4 decent tugs on the rod tip, followed by 3 more and then as I walked over to the rod 5 more big tugs so I hit it, after winding in what felt like a bin liner full of water my mind was blown by what emerged from the surf!

Some may call it luck, personally I believe it to be a massive amount of skill but either way I had done it! The decision to change over rigs worked before I could get comfortable in my chair, to be honest I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, I read Plaice on the rig, put some bait on and chucked it out, but it worked out good so I'm not going to complain!

After this success I had other things on my mind, like the thought of a Ray, so both rigs came off and fresh Pulley Pennel rigs went on, both with a chunk of Mackerel and a whole Squid elasticated together with bait elastic.

I'm starting to realize that sea fishing baits are absolutely disgusting, most things explode random gunk all over you and or try and bite you, to be fair though if its going to catch me a fish I have zero complaints on the matter, but when I put my cloths out to wash when I get home the other half has a few!

We fished on into dark but that was the end of the action for us this time, with a near 2 hour drive in front of us we had plenty of time to make some more plans for the next session, I think its going to be down Sandbanks trying to get Mark his Plaice and I'm going to have a go for anything that swims.

Thanks very much for reading and I really do hope you enjoyed the post, I have a lot of fishing planned in the near future so hopefully these are going to be a whole lot more regular again, as I realize I said they'd be weekly. I will do my best to keep to that from now on!!