The Great Sea Fishing Lure Rationalise

I have lots of Pike lures, but that's OK, as I'm targeting just that one species so need lots of choice, plus I'm not exactly trudging down cliffs to get to them.
On the other hand, I have a lot of Bass and sea lures, but DO need to climb down cliffs...
So I decided to pare down my collection to the essentials.
Here's how I got on.
Incidentally, Mike has been going through pretty much the same process, and we've come to startlingly similar conclusions and decisions.

My Bass Lures started out like this.


After a sift through, I got it down to this.


A long hard think about weight and how many lures Id actually use on any trip, meant I went through them again. This time, deciding I only really needed 1 plus 1 spare of each type, and a few of the two key lures - Subsurface minnows, and rubber eels. The subsurface Minnows are of the Saltega / Maxrap / Susuke variety. The eels are Slug-gos in a couple sizes.


So that's surface, subsurface, midwater, and weedless bottom baits all covered, in Half the size and weight I was carrying.

I ended up with a lot of lures going back into the cupbaord and a collection I wont use, so they will go up for sale.

Shore Trip

I was sat late on Sat night, wandering whether to go online and play world of tanks, or grab my new spinning rod and go down to Saltash pontoon and test it in the dark, at low / incoming tide.
Odds stacked against me, but what if I catch? Could lure fishing at night at low tide be the way to do it at this mark? Am I just being daft?
I’ve got the go ahead from the boss that I can go out and play....
Decisions Decisions....

Well I braved it. Got there and fished from 9:30pm to 1am.
Tried all sorts of surface plugs, fished slowly just sub surface, and some rubber jigs, slowly twithced along bottom.
Also tried my bass rod under the tip with some small shiny hockeye things, with the bottom two baited with berklely gulp maddies, and the third painted with 'lug juice', top two left as shiny feathers.

The wind was blowing well downstream, and the tide moving up.

Nothing. Not a sausage. Met antoher chap down there who was trying all sorts of baits and he only had a few small pout.

oh well, worth a try.

Shore Trip - Hannafore Point

Whilst thinking about going sea fishing and checking the tides, I noticed that whilst high tide was at 6pm on a day I had off, 6pm was also the time of sunset, and the time of moon set. The same day was also the calm after a strong blow, so a trip was nailed into the diary.
Mike and I went to Hannafore Point next to Looe Beach, to try surface and subsurface lures and float fished sand eel, after Bass and Wrasse.
It looked great, choppy, colored, clear spots amongst weed, but despite all this we blanked.
We even tried ledgered sand eel near white rocks for the last hour, but not so much as a nibble.
It was weedy as hell along most of Hannafore. The lures kept picking it up and it got rather annoying, but then that's where the fish would be so we put up with it.
It all looked right, but either we had chosen the wrong approach, or the fishing fairy just wasn't on our side. She is a fickle wench that fishing fairy.
On another note, and possible the reason there was not a fish in sight, was the half ton bull seal we saw happily toddling along just 40yards off the beach. Ive never seen one that size. Massive bugger.
Now either he was there because he knew the fish were, or he was there and all the fish had legged it. Or indeed he was on his way up the river to snack on the mullet that come in on the tide.
Either way I'm blaming him.
It felt great to do some salt water fishing again.

Trangia Mini

I picked this little fella up as it was cost effective.
I only wanted the fuel Burner, but that was £12 or so, plus postage, but for £20, I could have this whole pan set, with a burner included, so....
Cant wait to try it.

In a similar way, I got this fuel bottle. I only wanted the special tap that's on it, but its £5.99, plus postage, making it about £9. Well, this bottle with the tap on it was only £10, so again, easy choice.


The pan set is tiny, but big enough for one, and super light, and clicks together neatly. The fuel bottle is neat, but holds half a litre. More than enough for a weekend or even a week according to some claims.

I'll use the pans and burner with my Trangia Triangle though, as that's more stable and has better wind protection.

Carp trip - Method Feeder

Another trip to our local pond this time armed for action.
We had mixed up a smashing method mix of Ringers carp ground bait, laced with molasses, curry powder, and salt, and some other bits. It bound together and smelt fabulous but not too strong.
We arrived at midday, to find the pond mobbed out with anglers, so we hid ourselves on the farthest hidden back bank to do a little quiet fishing. Problem was we had intended to use the method feeder, and we soon found out that in our cramped and overgrown swim this wasn't going to work. It was also baking hot with the sun in our faces, and even Mike, who is seasoned at burning jet fuel round the world to 'forn-parts', admitted it was 'rather hot'. For my part I was dying right there in front of him on the bank.
Anyway, we really weren't in the groove, as we had tangles in bushes, Miss-casts, and generally buggered up our fishing. We resolved to move as the day wore on and other people left. We got lucky at 4pm, and soon moved to a nice open swim that was also shaded - yay!
Mike had 6 fish in total.
In daylight on the bottom, an 8lber we didn't photograph, and this nice 10lb 2oz (on x2 fake corn)


and these two 8lbers (on x2 fake corn)


and at night, this 11lb and 9lb on surface bread...


Mike also had a roach of 1lb 9oz (on halibut boillie 10mm)
and an eel of 2lb (on x2 fake corn!)

For my part, I had nothing during daylight, fishing the method and fake corn, but at night changed to one sinking fake yellow and one floating fake glow in the dark corn, and had one fish of 9lb.


All the carp scrapped like we had never known them too before. Each one put up an account of itself way above its weight, just refusing to surface for ages.

We also saw something Ive only ever seen once before, and that was Grass snakes. Several of them. Mike got a photo, and I managed to grab this little video clip.


A very pleasant afternoon and evening, which we managed to rescue after it going very 'Laural and Hardy' on us.
A bit flipping hot to start with, but worth the effort.
What was strange (apart from catching an eel on fake corn), was that I only had one fish, after fishing the same spot I did last time and did so well. However, we think that because there had probably been a lot of bait going in during the warmer weekend and how busy it has been all round the lake, the fish has become dispersed all over the place and well fed.

Coarse experiment

Well I went out and got myself some decent ground bait - Dynamite Baits 'Steve Ringer' carp method mix and Sonubaits 'TigerFish', and even bought some standard feeder pellets. Now Ive always stuck to either a fluffy GB mix for feeders, or a stodgy mix for method, but Ive never tried what I always see in the magazines etc, and that's dampened pellets on a flat feeder, so I thought id give it a try chasing carp again locally as I only had a few hours.
Mike couldn't make it so I was alone.

So, I fished from 4pm till 9pm, in the same place, in the same way as the previous trip, but with dampened pellets instead of method mix. The pellets proved to be wonderful to work with. Simple, clean, fast and easy. Fill bait tub, just cover them with water, wait 5 Min's, done. Fantastic. And of course you can flavour them so simply by just adding some liquid flavour to the water. Why on earth hadn't I tried this before ??? The only problem I had was the pellets not 'quite' binding to the flatbed very well, so I had to press some around the flatbed to keep it all on in a kind of ball. I reckon I just need to practice getting the wetness right, plus I was doing it by hand, as Id forgotten to bring the feeder mould I got free off Angling Times - doh !
Well, I pretty much blanked except for one snotty skimmer (on white plastic 10mm boillie).
What happened? Was it just the whimsical fishing fairy? I got a hunch its because the method mix I used last time had fish flakes and salt in it and that really turned the carp on, but tonight was just pellets, so didn't have the same kick to it.

A beautiful evening and very relaxing, but I learnt a lot. I'm thinking of combining the Method with these pellets, and find a happy medium between damp pellet feeder fishing for small stuff and stiffer method balls for carp.
I had loads of knocks and liners, so the fish were there and moving about, but just no takes.
I primarily fished plastic corn, tried a white plastic boillie, then changed to glow corn at night.
I'll definitely be using pellets again, even if used in conjunction with GB. I look forward to trying the other GBs I bought too :-)

On another note, I used the Enterprise Tackle UV light on my glow corn, and can heartily recommend it, as it made them glow like crazy and for longer then a normal torch can, and only took about 15 seconds.

Carp Trip - The Method

Mike and I decided to try a decent baiting approach on our local pond, heavier than we usually do, but more in keeping with what all the experts say, (constant method feeder going in every 20 mins), so I mixed up a batch of Halibut Method Mix from Dragon Carp Direct. This was a 2kg bucket.

However..... I got the distinct impression all was not well. I could see an awful lot of straw and hay and 'bits' in there, and it didn't really smell of anything. Certainly not halibut!

I riddled it, and guess what I found? A huge amount of small plasticy bits, and two 3inch chunks of fiberboard, and it turns out the bits were fragments of formica chipboard surface. Basically, the bucket contained 2 kilos of floor sweepings and dust.

The problem was, I had already added to it a kilo of top quality high oil Dynamite pellets, so I was about to lose more money if I binned it all now, so I ploughed on trying to rescue this bucket of crap.

I added some chili powder and salt, and 3 tins of sardines to try and give it some fish flakes, flavor, and ability to bind together. It didn't work, even with the correct amount of water mixed, and left to soak, it was just like trying to bind sand.

I called mike and got him to bring something along to help bind it all.

We arrived at the lake at 3pm.

Mike had half a bag of decent ground bait, so we mixed that into the bucket, plus the starchy liquid from a tin of sweetcorn. Finally, after about an hour, it 'just' about bound together to be serviceable, but we were NOT happy as our fishing time and money is precious. Ill certainly be asking Dragon Carp some questions and letting Angling times know.

(update on this GB issue here)

Mike focused on setting traps in the margins, and had a 9lb 4oz (on plastic corn) and this 10lb 14oz carp (on double 10mm spicy shrimp).

I settled on regular feeding and fishing towards the back island on the submerged slope.

I had a very small 3lb carp (on corn) that was a perfect common and a couple bream of about 2lb (on spam)

I also had four carp (all on corn). Two about 8lb....

...this lovely leather of about 7lb.

...and this 10lb 4oz

I actually bothered to clip up as I cast to the island, which is something I never usually do, and it worked a treat, allowing me to keep casting till midnight in pitch black, and the carp kept feeding. I had a few missed bites, and a couple lost on the way in, but it was a cracking session.

In the last hour, I tried double plastic corn, (one sinking pink, and one floating glow in the dark, both having been soaked for two years in talin - super sweet liquid). I charged the glow one up and it looked brilliant. I had an aborted take on it, but Ill be trying that again!

Ironically, by the time it got to midnight, the ground bait was FINALLY beginning to bind properly, but that's no good.

Ill report back with the results of my contacting Dragon Carp and Angling Times.

Karls River Trip

Karl recently drove up to a river he loves, and had a great trip catching a nice chub, and his first ever Barbel.

Waterproofing

I thought it was time to reproof all my waterproof clothing and my bivvy for the winter, so I took all my fishing kit to a mates garage last night, and hung it all up, then sprayed the lot.
I used 2 tins of this stuff...
Jack Pyke Waterproof Spray

It uses new nano-technology to proof fabric, so Im looking forward to seeing the results.

Autumn ?

Wow, is it really Autumn already? What happened to summer? Did I blink and miss it?
Its September, so it must be Autumn, so, I suppose with the temp dropping slightly, I could think about doing some early season Piking, but I haven't done half the Tench fishing I wanted to do this year yet!
Oh well, I can still fish for Pike and Roach and Perch etc. Doesn't matter what the season is, there's always something exciting to fish for and blank trying :-)

Hybrids ?

Mike and I were discussing the business of Roach, Rudd and Bream Hybrids the other day. We looked back over our pictures of Roach we'd caught and posted on this blog, and realised that a number of our 'Roach' were in fact hybrids.
Use the Roach label Link on the left, to decide for yourself.

Evening coarse trip

Mike and I ran off after work for a quick local session, as we just fancied playing with a float road for a change. Arriving at about 7pm, we fished right in front of us in the margins on lift bite rigs, using good old sweetcorn. We had lots of lift bites but connected with none of them, figuring it was smaller fish just pickup at the corn.
We'd also brought our stalking rods, and dropped them in the margins either side of us, on ledger rigs. Id gone heavy on mine, using a 2oz lead, short 3inch link, and huge (for us) 18mm malt choc and tiger nut boillie (dynamite baits) . After dark, that rod shot off, and netted me a carp of 10lb exactly.
We had a lovely night chatting away in the dark until we realised it was gone 11pm, and time to get home!

Mikes phone doesn't have a flash on the camera, so the pic was taken using 2 headlamps and a generous amount of fiddling with light levels in photoshop. :-)

Carp

Chased big carp again in our local pond.
Heavy gear, standard running ledgers, bigger boilies. Fresh freezer baits too. Cell, Grange, and Black Snail.
However, we didn't hit anything like our target, we didn't even get a double.
I ended up having x5 carp, x2 under tree on Cell. x2 off island on Grange, and x1 stalking on bread, all about 5lb to 8lb.
Oddly, Mike blanked, yet he was sat next to me on similar baits and rigs.
We were both very tired and didn't even think of taking any pics, as it was a pleasure fish after a hard couple weeks in work.

On a nice note, when I was stalking, I had a little wildlife safari going on right by me. I had a couple of baby robins sat on branches just 18 inches from my ear, watching me, and flitting about seeing what I was doing. I had a frog in the water by my feet, gently swimming about, and a kingfisher giving me a lovely little display of his fishing technique just ahead. :-)

Stalking

A quick few hours stalking for carp the other evening gave us a surprise.
Mike had a lovely female tench we haven't seen before right off the surface on bread.
Never had one in this way before.

(sorry about the image contrast. Id messed up the settings on my cam and not noticed.)

Bait Boat

Mike and I went to our pond the other day, and took Karls new (second hand) bait boat with us.
We tested it out for Karl as he was really busy and wanted to know how it performed.
It did well, with only a couple minor things that Karl intends to sort out, like balance and steering needing a little tweaking, but that wasn't the pinnacle of the test.
The real point that made the day, was getting it stuck under the branches of a tree on an island, and mike 'getting back to nature' to go swim and rescue it. :-)

Of course, as a good and supportive mate, I filmed it .....



:-)

Kit - Trangia Triangle

Ive been trying to get my kit weight down as much as possible, which has meant getting rid of some leads, not carrying stuff I don't use etc.
Also, Ive decided to get my brew kit down in weight, so I have got a Trangia Triangle, with a gas burner (instead of the usual Trangia alcohol burner)
Its incredibly lightweight, its design incorporates wind proofing, and is robust and small.
It boils fast and basically did me proud.

Chasing Ghosts

Giant 20lb+ carp in our local pond? Really? We've fished there for 15 years, and it took me 7 of those to get a 10lb double out. Ive caught so many fish out there I'm starting to recognise the tench individually.

Mike and I are not convinced, so we have laid up the usual specimen tench and roach kit, and gone back to heavy rods and leads and bigger baits, to see if we cant winkle out one of these legendary 20lb carp that have supposedly been photographed coming out of our local pond.
We've made several trips now, and caught a lot of smaller carp, but no giants yet.
However we have been told by the owner that on average we out fish other visitors, so we cant be doing all that badly !

On the most recent trip, just yesterday, Mike had x2 carp of about 5lb, taken off the surface.
I had a couple 5lbers off the bottom, and also had this PB Roach of 1lb 14ozs.



Again, we haven't seen any tench for a couple months now.

Quick Trip

Mike and I made a quick trip a few weeks ago, and the only fish on the bank was this rather feisty little fellow.

Karls Stag Weekend

This post is rather late, but is worth posting :-)

Karl decided his stag do was going to be a fishing trip instead of some horrible pub crawl, so some time ago, Karl, Alan and I hooked up at a lovely old local pond to chase some big fish.
Karl and Alan got there on Friday, and fished all weekend.

Alan had a cracking 31lb 6oz Common carp, in the early hours of one morning, and a superb 45lb Sturgeon one afternoon.


Karl had nothing all weekend until just 5 Min's before we left, whilst he was packing up and had just left one rod in the margin 'just in case', and off it went for this cracking 45lb Sturgeon.


I had 'one of those weekends', and didn't get there till late Saturday night, so only had 12 hours fishing. I blanked, but had something huge crash in my margin like Ive never heard before.
The lake was stunning and a pleasure to be on.
At least Karl caught on his own Stag do !

There's also Catfish up to 60lb and double figure Tench in there too, so I'll be going back !

Mikes Coarse trip

Mike went off for an afternoons fish recently, and had a great afternoon, with several nice smallish carp of about 5 to 10 lb, that scrapped well, and a couple roach, including this beauty of just over a 1lb.
Nearly all came to Dynamite Baits 'Spicy Prawn and Shrimp'.
Oddly, there was a distinct absence of Tench.

Mikes Coarse trip

Mike tried the far end of our local pond, where we never really fish, and had a productive day....

A hot spring day, official temp got to 23c but it was probably warmer than that. A gentle breeze was pushing a few ripples straight into this area. Approach was simple, Greys prodigy 1lb 8oz tip, with stonze set up for roach as a margin rod. Harrisons 1lb 6oz Avon with centre pin lift biting just on the shelf in front.
Prodigy in the margin, no feeder mix, a few small boillies as loose feed, within 5 minutes an 11.5 carp started the day well.

It was followed within 30 minutes with a second fish in around 9lb. Both fell to small strawberry boillies. It still seems the bait of the moment.

Next fish on same set up on same spot. A lovely 1lb 10oz roach pure and in great condition.


Exactly the same spot produced two other fish later in the day, a superb roach with a little mouth deformity probably from mishandling when young, weighing 2lb.


Final fish from that area a lovely young tench around 2.5lb, A good sign indeed, but no piccy.

Ground bait was crushed hemp and halibut mix 50/50 with red blood worm. Slightly pink light coloured.

------------------

Lift biting out in front with corn produced two 4oz roach and 5 skimmers to about 1lb.
That area was baited with a few small balls of mix pellet and corn.

Slurping carp in the margin under the tree tempted me to see what the centre pin could do.
I got smashed up under wood work in the margin. Could have been a big (and I mean big) tench. Only saw its tail. I could be wrong but if it was a tench it was in the 6 to 7lb range.
That swim went dead, so changed to the island. You have to get really close in and I soon got caught up and that was the end of one rig.
The Avon was very under gunned for where i was using it . The tree roots and snags cost me two fish.

The day ended with a fine mirror of around 8lb just as the light was fading. the centre pin in a scrap sounds absolutely fab. It was a lovely way to catch a fish. The rod lying on the bank, a piece of crust on a size 10 lowered in off the rod tip a few cm out from the bank. Followed by the scream of the ratchet and the Avon looped all the way over. Yates would be proud.

Notably at the end I put in the left over bread as slices . If I had stayed into darkness several fish could have been taken from open water. They were slurping away like crazy, but only at the full slices, not the small pieces.

Coarse trip

Another late evening attack on our local pond.
We used strawberry boillies glugged in strawberry dip.
Mike was there in the afternoon and had a 12oz roach and perfect condition 1.5lb roach both about 4pm in the margin. He also had two carp of 8lb and one of 9lb 2oz.
I set up about 6:30 and Christened my feeder rod with a carp of about 6lb and a bream of about 2.5 lb.
It was perfectly still and mild, and the carp started feeding off the top in the dark, so we floater fished bread for them, and Mike had another carp off the surface at 10lb 2oz.
It was very distracting, and we ended up fishing until 1am without even noticing the time.

New Rod

Had a nice surprise this week. The other week I used Mikes feeder rod, and was very impressed with how light in the hand It was. Well mike must have made a note of that, and went and bought me one on ebay as a early birthday present. Very cool indeed :-)
Abu Conolon Premier 11ft8inch or 13ft. / 3 - 8 lbs Lines. / 5 Tips.

I've taken the quiver tips, two 1oz, two 2oz and one 3oz, and painted the tips, firstly to code them, but also to see them more clearly.


Its quite something. Cant wait to go have a play :-)

Rig & Fishing Tools

I was asked about my tool clip ring, so thought I'd share it here.

I was fed up with either losing baiting needles, disgorgers, or my scissors, or not being able to find them in my box fast enough, so I came up with this.
Now I never lose small tools, I always know where my tool ring is, I can add or remove tools as I like, and they still stow away nicely.
Its basically a stainless keyring, with good sized sea fishing clip/snap swivels threaded on.
The swivels mean I can still use the bait drill with a twisting motion without having to rotate the whole thing, and stops any tangles.

Coarse fish

Local trip. Sunny but rather cool with a NW wind.
Mike fished the afternoon, and I joined him for the evening.
Mike stuck to small strawberry boillies to really test them fairly.

Mike had a cracking afternoon, banking...
x2Roach to 12oz
x1 Roach 1lb 12 oz


x1 Hybrid 1lb 8oz


x4 carp, x1 of 8lb 6oz, x2 at 11lb


and x1 of 11lb 4oz.


A trio of double figure carp from this tiny pond really is a red letter day!

I used small scopex boillies, and had a succession of small bream (foul stinking things - yes I hate them).
There was a noticeable lack of tench!

The temperature was lower than the last trip, and we are beginning to realise that when the temp is warm, they feed into dark, but if its colder, they switch right off at sundown.

Spring Tench and Roach

An evening trip to our local pond. Got there at 6:30 and baits in for 7pm.
Lovely warm sunny afternoon.
Fished in the shallows.
I had a 3lb tench, followed by this cracker at 4lb 10oz. Ive had this tench from this pond before at over 5lb.


Later on I had a couple small roach, and then this little beauty at 1lb 6oz


Fished almost exclusively small strawberry boillies.
Had an awful lot of dropped bites and runs, which we think was down to the hairs being too long.
Mike had 3 small Bream, which we haven't really seen before in this pond, and we've fished it for almost 10 years.

Packed up at 10pm as the temperature dropped.