fishing for answers

I dream of using the good old lugworm again but in Orkney although there are plenty of casts the worms are so deep that unless you use a JCB you have no chance of gathering enough for a decent days fishing, Any ideas?

Can any of you help Michael with the above question. I have never been to the location to dig bait so I cannot really help or advise on this question. Please comment on this sea fishing question if you can help out.

Here are some past posts on lugworm collection

• Collection lug – from youtube
• Digging lug worm

Using Rag worm as Bait

1. A single or a few small worm can be hooked through the head area leaving the tails to wiggle below. This creates a bait full of movement, ideal for Flounder fishing. Harbour rag or Maddies work well for this.
2. Use a bunch of rag worm laced up over the hook onto the line. This is good for presenting bigger baits and casting longer ranges than from using the method above
3. The use of rag as a cocktail bait can prove very successful indeed. Thread on a bunch of rag and tip it with another bait ie. Crab, Squid or fish bait.

So depending on the target species and combined with the sort of range you are looking to cast, or the tide strength you are fishing in if from a boat, Rag can be used in different was dependant on the circumstance, location, method and prey fish (don’t give fish with small mouths a huge bait!!)

Digging Rag Worm

Find a location where it is legal to dig. Ideal Rag worm beds tend to be more gritty, composed of coarse sand and gravel. Harbour Rag are found in softer conditions, more silt / sand mix. Get some local knowledge and go from there.

I use a wide pronged fork and generally trench (dig in a long line through as many surface holes as I can find). Take out a fork full of substrate, then another one further back, but joining the first hole. I then go back to the first hole area and go one fork deeper, keeping to this pattern. Effectively you are making a trench two forks deep. You need to check each fork full carefully for any rag and place them into a bucket as you find them.

You can dig individual holes. Start infornt and dig quickly taking small fork fulls at a time, back and past the hole. Rag will move quite quickly, so be sure to dig at a reasonable speed.

For storage keep them in some torn up news paper or vermiculite to keep them moist, but not dry. Stored in the fridge they should last a good week as long as you remove the dead and dying on a daily basis.

If you have any tips or questions regarding the digging of Rag worm please comment on this post.

Collecting Lug worm

The above video is a great bit of work showing you how to dig and collect Black Lug worm. I also have written a few ideas here – Collecting lug worm

Live Prawn

Fishing a Prawn

Float fishing with a live Prawn is a very successful and exciting form of fishing. It is not common practice, Sand Eels for example, get used a lot more as a live bait.

The nice thing about the common prawn is its easy to collect. You can either have a prawn trap set up off shore, or collect them by hand. Here are a few notes I have written before about collecting Prawns for bait

If you consider how many Prawns there are and the locations they are found in, they must be a staple food source for most of the UK fish species. They are packed with goodness, found everywhere and loved by all!

How to use Prawns as Bait

This is very easy. Get your Prawn (don’t drop it, they are lively little critters) and put the hook through the tail around the 4 segment up from the the end of the Prawns tail. I would use a 3/0 fine wire. This should allow the prawn to be able to swim and look natural under the float. Try and fish it about 1 – 2 meters from the bottom, or the top of weed etc, depending on where you are fishing.

If you get a lot of missed bites, you are either being plagued with small wrasse or Cuttle fish. I would change my hook to a small treble and hook the prawn using one of the three hooks.

For a float anything will do, a jiff lemon bottle if you need to cast a long way. A bubble float or a normal pier fishing float will also work just as well. Make sure you keep your line tight all the time, as you need good contact with the sharp end!

Tips for float fished Prawn

• Catch and store your prawn
• Use 3/0 fine wire hook for a 1.5 to 2 inch Prawn
• Hook it in the 4th segment from the tail
• Allow the Prawn to swim but not get to cover
• Keep in contact with the hook
• Enjoy the exciting results

Let us know by commenting on this post how you get along with float fished Prawn.

Hooking Crab No 1

I am not as keen on this method as crabs have feelings! But you remove a leg and thread the crab on, making sure the hook point is proud.

Hooking Crab no 2

 This is much more crab friendly – simply get your crab and use elastic bands or bait elastic to attach the crab to the hook. The knack is not getting nipped.

The most important element is making sure the hook point is well exposed, allowing for a sound hooking action.

There must be someone out there that can help? I have been sea angling for over 40 years and the best bait I have found is peeler crab. But finding them when they are about to peel is the tricky bit.

I have found thousands of shore crabs over the years but finding themready to peel is the hard bit!. Can you induce the peelers to peel byany means? ie popping them in the fridge for a time then bring them
in the warm or popping them in warmer waters, what is the secret andis how do you do it???.

I have caught more fish on peeler crab than any other bait. Bass loveit, dogfish howl for it, smooth hound snap at it, wrass whack it, rayrave it, flatty flap at it, Cod, whiting and pout gorge on it. Its agreat bait when you can get it, and its only certain times of theyear you can find them and fresh is best.
Any help will be greatly received.
Kind regards
Delboy!

Talking about collecting and PRESERVING bait, does anybody know how to preserve prawns and colour them red or purple. I’ve experimented but am only halfway there. I tried borax ans salt and food dye. Any body know the elusive secret of the ones you see for sale in little poly bags at about £6 for ten.

From fishing-blog: I thought that food dye was the way to go after talking to a Salmon angler at Tree Meadow trout fishery about this question.

• Lug Worm – 32.58%

• Crab - 15.73%

• Rag Worm – 14.61%

• Squid – Mackerel - 12.35%

• Sand Eel – 11.23%

• Blueys – 1.12%

Now I am not surprised about the first 4 results. It would be interesting to research which people consider to be the most available baits and see if they co-inside with the results to date! However, I am surprised when you look in most of the glossy magazines about the effects of Bluey’s that they only got 1 vote!

For the beginner to sea angling this information should help you out a lot. If you are new to an un-known mark then generally consider lug worm to be your first bait of choice, following the list down. But consider your mark and use this information to help you make a choice.

What’s your level of experience

This months poll is to help me better guage the users on the site, so the more who vote the better, lets beat last months results. I would like to know your level of experience when it comes to general sea angling, so the information can here can be tailoured to suite the readership. The voting options are

• Never tried
• Holiday angler
• Total novice
• 1 years experience
• 1 – 3 years experience
• 4 – 6 years
• 7 – life time

I look forward to the results of this poll, please join in!

I have set a poll on the right hand side below the Categories section where you can vote on your sea fishing bait of choice.

The choices available are;

• Lug Worm
• Rag Worm
• Squid
• Mackerel
• Blueys
• Sand Eel
• Crab

Please join in and tick the box next to your top sea fishing bait bait.

Can you tell me what blueys are. I have seen them mentioned for Pike fishing and sea fishing and I would like to know what they really are.

I have spent many hours looking for the answer for this on the web, as it is a question I have been pondering for a while. I have now searched hundreds of web pages and found lots of results from around the world.

The term bluey seems to be used to describe a lot of different fish from around the world, and a few crabs as well. Ruling out a crab pre-packed as a fish (you never know these days) and working on the average size of the bluey in its vacuum pack, I would suggest its not the black spot tusk fish!!

I think it is the Blue Mackerel – Scomber australasicus. Have a look at the references at the bottom of this post, what do you think? Although the size in length, looks a bit large Wikipedia states they are one of the smallest members of the tuna/mackerel family, making it equal to our Mackerel possibly? Consider joey mackerel compared to channel racers.

Blue mackerel are used as commercial Tuna bait. This is surely a lead into the commercial fishing for these fish and the development into the UK market as a frozen fishing bait.

Considering the fact they are meant to give of a great oil trail, that would fall in line with the Tuna/Mackerel species. I also quote from Pelco NZ ltd

“It’s high oil content is well suited for a commercial bait and smoked for human consumption”

So my opinion is that Blueys are blue mackerel, not likely to be caught from our shores, yet a well regarded bait from around the world.

I would love you to comment on this post regarding whether you agree with these findings about blueys.

Referances:

http://www.pelco-nz.com/species.htm

http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.php?id=116

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_mackerel

To give you an idea how popular this book is its ranked 6117 against all books sold by Amazon. That is truly outstanding for a niche book on Sea fishing. To purchase or see more details click on the image!

Reviews by Amazon,

If you are new to sea fishing then this book will help you through the minefield of technical names and jargon. It will show you how to make simple and effective rigs which do catch fish, believe me i am a serious match fisherman! it then explains the various types of sea baits and their usages how to hook worms etc…..bait presentation is just as important as the rig you are using. This book certainly helped me no end when i started back beach fishing 4 years ago, it will give you the confidence to go into your tackle shop and not look like a complete novice, and also save you money in the long run.

I have only had this book for a few days and only being a beginner to the world of Sea Angling i have found it very useful. It has show me things that you would never know unless you belong to a club, instead of bying rigs it shows you how to build your own therefore saving money. it also shows how to keep your bait fresh and re-usable for your next fishing trip, that also saves money. All in all a very cheap but valuble book for the beginner to Sea Angling.

If you own this sea fishing book, we would love to hear from you. Give us your opinion on it by commenting on this post.

This sea fishing book is currently available for just £6.99

Tight lines

www.fishing-blog.co.uk

Have you tried a Bluey yet?

Did you catch more fish?

Don’t know what a Bluey is, well nor do I really.

They are being hailed as a new super bait to hit sea fishing. I understand they are an oily fish like a mackerel, but these fish have a greater oil content and therefore create a greater scent trail and attract more fish, allowing you to catch more fish.

I agree that good quality fresh sea bait is very important for most fish (some fish do like a smelly bait) but I am not convinced that a foreign species, even though its packed with oil is the answer.

I like my bait to come from the area I am fishing so they smell local, know what I mean! If you went to McDonalds but it smelt like a Burger King you would think something was up, wouldn’t you!!

Anyway, if you want to try this bait speak with your local tackle dealer and see if they have any in the freezer. If your catch rate goes up let me know.

Lazy Lug and Rag is a preserved worm served in a container. I have not even seen a packet, but for an off the shelf product / something to keep in the boot of your car for an emergency fishing session surely its worth a try!!

I would love to hear from you if you have tried lazylug or the newer lazyrag. Let us know what you thought of the product, it can’t be as good as fresh worm, but surely you can catch fish on it.

This is from the Lazybaits web site,

“This is without doubt the most, innovative and effective product of the last decade! – we were sent two tubs of worms, which we immediately went out and fished with. And… they really do work!”

Dave Barham – Editor of Boat Fishing Monthly, October 2006.

“These Worms Work” – Dreading winter bait shortages and rising prices? Then you might be interested in the brand new LazyLug – real preserved lugworm in a pot.

Alan Yates – Product Editor Sea Angler Magazine, December 2006.

The Lugworm lives in the inter tidal area of beaches and more commonly estuaries. They live in a U shaped burrow, one end is open (the head end) and the other has a CAST which is a coil of sand created by the creature burrowing and digesting the substrate, drawing out the goodness it may contain.

At high water the head end of the lugworm will be towards the open end of the burrow and as the water level goes down so the lugworm will get lower in the burrow until it is at the very bottom. The lugworm uses the hairs on the side of its body, combined with pulsing waves through it body to move in the burrow.

Lugworm stay in their burrows and do not move until breeding in autumn, when it will make a new burrow and release its eggs or sperm into the water where they fertilize. Young lugworms then hatch and create their own burrows generally higher up the tide line moving down as they mature.

I find the best way of collecting lugworm is to find a cast and open hole, normally 6 – 9 inches apart, dig out one spade of substrate 3 inches in front of an imaginary line between the two points, then another spade full a spades length back, so now you have a hole two spades long, then take another spade full out in the middle of the hole you have created, this should include that imaginary line between the 2 points you started from, but this time you are about 6 -8 inches down in the substrate. This spade full should hold the worm and if you break it up you should find it. There is another method called trenching where you simply dig a trench which runs about 2 spades deep through a collection of casts and open holes. This method is best in areas where there are lots of lugworm casts and the collection rate should be high.

Some collectors prefer using a fork; it depends upon the type of substrate. Where you have thicker mud rather than sand its easier with a fork. There is another method using a bait pump to collect lugworms, I have never used this method to collect Lugworm, so until I have I will not mention it here. If you use a bait pump please feel free to submit an article or write a comment onto this post.

Place the collected lugworms in a bucket and add a bit of seaweed to keep them damp. To keep them for a while keep them cool, wrapped in newspaper and in the fridge is the best place for them. Lugworm can be frozen, some people recommend gutting them by squeezing them and wrapping them individually or salting them for a few hours, then wrapping individually and freezing them.