Fridays, over the next few weeks would be best for me. Come on lets get at least 5 yaks out there. The pollock and Wrasse fishing is great!!! and sea fishing beginners are very welcome!

I must say in this daft age of litigation – the sea fishing blog, its users or contributors will not be held liabable should any accident or injury occur and all participants join in and take part at thier own risk. This is not an orgaisned event, just a meeting of like minded people and by taking part in this trip you are happy to sign an agreement as stated above.

Further to the above – If you are interested in increasing your kayak safety knowledge and learning how to sea kayak with a degree of proficiency then please contact the fishing blog here as I am looking to organise some deals with local instructors.

The first on the list is the Tuna hunter. There are some images on this site that are truly awe inspiring. Huge catches of fish set in dramatic surroundings on clear blue waters. The range of sport species including Tuna, Shark, Flounder, Haddock and Bass open to these guys is truly amazing and the methods they use to hunt fish are very diverse. Including the Mermaid fishing technique.

This paragraph taken from the Tuna Hunter web site I feel is very important and applies to us all

he is always searching for new fishing hot sports, new techniques, and new ways to get fishing to bite – always hunting and fishing in some way or manner.

Rember that, looking, searching and seeking for new ideas all the time. That is a very improtant key to your Sea fishing.

Tight lines

www.fishing-blog.co.uk

The weather was mixed yeaterday, showers and a cold breeze was blowing. The tide was low at about 10:00 hrs and I got to my mark with fresh rag worm right on low tide. I checked for the gullies I thought the fish would use to navigate to the fresh mud and made a very simple running ledger rig witha 1/4 oz ball bullet and a size 1 long shank hook. I decorated the rig with a few sequins and pink and green beads, 5 in total.

The initial flood started and the water was gin clear and no fish were moving, then as the tide reached the midway point the water became cloudie and the fish started to feed. The first fish I had was this lovely school Bass. It was returned safely to the water, not thrown back in as I see to my anger so many times!! After the Bass came the first Flounder. It was a very gentle bite, drawing the rod tip towards the water twice, then still. I gave it time to mouth the bait and tightened the line into the flounder.

The second fish took a little longer to come. I had to really work the gullies, allowing the wind to catch the line to move the bait around, helping to hunt the fish out. I could see in the shallow spots the tide was catching the beads and making them sway in the current. It looked a very attractive and well presented bait. I was threading one worm onto the hook and then just nicking the other in the head, allowing it to dangle from the hook and flow in the tide. This proved to much for the flounder and I caught the second.

It was time to pack up and I headed for home very happy with my result. 2 fresh Cornish flounder and a great few hours sea fishing.

Westbay was a popular venue for us when we went on a spur of the moment fishing trip. It was local, there was a good tackle shop for bait and tackle and it was very convenient.

We never had huge fish from the mark but we never blanked and we got a whole range of species including all the above and Ray, Pollock, Plaice and Whiting in season.

Balanced fishing tackle

We mainly fished light, using 10lb main line and spinning rods. On the odd occasion we would use light beach casters (Bass rods 1-3 oz casting weight) but the rigs would be basic,including using floats.

As a side note I remember fishing here once and running out of bait, On my last cast I caught a rig complete with live worms, God was watching us that day!!

Great Sea fishing

The day in question was a hot calm September day. We started float fishing using a small fillet from a sand eel about 4 foot below the float. This technique produced Gar and Mackerel which fought like demons on the balanced tackle. A few small Bass also were caught using this method. But better Bass were taken on small lures flicked out from the spinning rods.

Mullet were swimming out of the harbor and with a little ground baiting they came on the feed and using the same float but small hooks we started to connect with 2 – 3 lb Mullet. Anyone who has caught these fish will know full well how hard they fight, taking line of the reel and making 3 -4 good runs.

As evening fell, small red gill type lures fished from the bottom up, close to the side of the wall produced some 3/4 to 1 1/2 Pollock.

Adapting our fishing

The day was amazing with fish being hooked all the time. The secret was that we were adaptable and changed our technique to suite the changing day. Having a small tackle bag full of light fishing gear allows you to do this and move quickly if needed to where the fish are feeding.

THE MARK

This location is one I found by chance about 2 months ago. I was on the Kayak looking for inshore Bass fishing marks when I saw some pot bouys about a mile out. I paddled in their general direction and when I got within about 10 yards I worked out my drift direction and speed. I choose a line that again would take my closest to the line of bouys and started my first drift. I dropped a rig down and caught Wrasse and mackerel. This mark was entered into my GPS which is mounted on my Kayak for trips in the future.

FISHING THE MARK

I knew this was rough ground and the weather was perfect, flat and little wind, just rain. I programmed my GPS and off I headed. I had bait and Storm lures to try on the mark to see what I could get this time.

Lowering the bait onto the rough ground brought that rattling take of a good Wrasse. A reasonable fight brought to the surface a fish of about 1.5 lbs. I discovered the Wrasse are very numerous in this location.

I changed tactic and used a storm shad on a 6 foot trace with a boom made from bent carp tube to stop the trace twisting. I dropped it to the rocky seabed and retrieved very slowly, winding the lure to the surface, read more here about wreck fishing techniques.

I tried this about 10 times with no joy, I considered the conditions and due to the small tide and clarity of water doubled my leader length. This made the rig hard to manage, but needs must!

A couple of drops later and I felt a tug about 10 turns from the bottom, then 20 turns up and the rod set with a great bend. I didn’t strike I just wound into the fish. A great condition Pollock came to the surface of about 3 lbs.

I stayed here for about an hour catching 7 fish in total. Not huge size, but great eating! I filleted the fish when I got home and froze down the poetions I didn’t eat that night. I was delighted with this session, not monsters but good sport and an addition to the freezer as well as a new mark – good result.

FUTURE FISHING

This mark will be worth investigating throughout the year and in better tide conditions to establish if it holds larger fish. It will be worth trying live eel and joey Mackerel and see if there are some Bass hunting the mark!

This is an often overlooked part of sea fishing. Whether fishing from a Kayak or Beach casting, you can save yourself a lot of time and effort by spending a few hours walking your local beach or kayaking its length to select a few prime areas that you can revisit at a later date.

E.G. This time of year after a good onshore blow you can see decomposing seaweed along the high tide line and this contains a myriad of small beasts including seaweed fly larva. This compost heap containing “food stuffs” will mature and stay on the beach until the next high tide when it all gets washed into the sea, carrying this goodness out, away from the shore into the open mouths of Bass and Mullet as well as anything else that may be there and hungry. An ideal opportunity to catch some fish!! I have written this post about Indicators for good beach casting

In the Helford I was going to the head of the creeks on the down wind side of the river valley, this is where any floating or just subsurface matter gets blown, and there should be, in theory a greater concentration of “fish food” therefore fish in these areas. If you look at the image above you can see the surface is littered with flora and fauna.

As always I had a rod with me just in case, and decided to wet a fly. I tied on a Mysis shrimp pattern and had a few casts, more as a casting exercise than anything else as I thought nobody could see me. I ended up in an almost trance state with the heady sent of tree sap, wild flower perfume, and the splash and silver flashes of playing mullet until it I was brought down to earth with a crash…. A group of HOLIDAY makers on their kayaks ambushed me; splashing and laughing, scaring my fish and bursting my bubble. I was a bit pissed off for about 30 seconds, but then on reflection I was pleased to see others learning water sense and enjoying themselves without polluting the environment on jet skis!!

Anyway, I now have yet another mini fishing session where I blanked, but I have got some great marks and ideas for future fishing sessions. All this planning and preparation will pay off soon, watch this space.

I headed to Porthoustock and launched towards the Manacles, about 1 mile from the beach. The conditions were great, sunny, slight swell, light winds and small tides. Ideal for a first explore of a location.

On getting there I headed towards a point and lowered a string of 3 lures, flashing Mackerel lures as I didn’t have a lot of tackle with me. BANG went the rod and I hauled up a Pollock, ¾ to 1lb in weight. I unhooked this and lowered the rig down again this time bringing up a Launce.

I decided to free line the Launce for a while, drifting off the back of Vase rock but I didn’t catch. Next time I will fish the Launce hard to the bottom instead of free lining it.

I released my Launce and attached the string of lures and headed back towards the Vase rocks. There were dive boats working in front of me and a couple of private fishing boats to my side. I noticed that I was drifting at about ½ the speed of most craft, which was giving me longer in the fish zones, but I did have to give way to the Bigger boats. I got close about 3 times to what I thought was the crown of rocks breaking the surface, then I noticed as I almost hit on that it was in fact Mullet in huge rafts. The number of the fish was immeasurable and the size of the individual mullet I could see were 2-4lbs. I have never seen Mullet behave like this in the open sea before. I have seen it in Torquay marina many years ago. The Kayak was so stealthy that I could almost float over them without them diving for cover. To just see this one sight today was worth it.

The other thing I noticed was seabirds including groups of flying Razor Bill took little or no notice of me. They would fly so close I could hear their feathers cutting through the air.

I digress – I decided to try a few wrecks and reefs that I plotted. The first two drifts were over reefs that I have found. I managed 3 Cuckoo Wrasse the first drift all falling to baited feather and of a good size. The next drift saw 2 more Cuckoo Wrasse and a Scad.

At this point it was about 14:00 hrs and I headed back to shore for a rest.

Heading out to sea again on my Kayak and I decided to fish some ground in the other direction. I had an old wreck marked on my GPS after talking with some divers on the beach. I headed of to The Volnay.

I fished this mark about 5 times on slightly different drifts, but to no avail. The fish just didn’t want to show for me. I then spent about 2 hrs trolling a set of Mackerel lures, following the commercial boats. I could easily stay at 2knts which seemed about the same as the commercial mackerel fishermen. But I had no success.

All in all it was a great day on the Kayak and the first real effort to fish from the Kayak with intent. I covered 6.44 nautical miles, my max speed was 4.8 kts I was moving for 4hrs:38mins and stationary for 54mins :55secs and my average moving speed was1.4 kts.

I have great knowledge of marks in Devon, Cornwall, The Isle of Man and Dorset so that’s where I will start. However when it comes to the rest of the country, I am starting to struggle.

Ramsgate, Dover, Sea Brook, Fleetwood, The Tyne, Whitby, Lowestoft are all areas I hear of but know little about so I will have to research them unless you can write them for me and have a chance of winning the £40 on offer on the fishing-blog competition.

This feature will add a great new dimension to this fishing blog and I hope it will help some of its 100 200 300 daily users.

I also plan on adding more video venue guides like this one at Loe Bar in Cornwall

The future

The focus of the blog is also turning more and more towards Sea angling and its many facets, so I feel that some of the coarse fishing and carp fishing articles will take a back seat for a while.

Kayak fishing is taking off in the UK and our users of the site seem to indulge many hours in the kayak fishing section here on the Fishing blog, so there will be a focus on bringing more information forward regarding this method of sea angling.

I have written here about the reasons for trying Kayak fishing

Thank you for your support

Fishing-blog

Abu Garcia, Daiwa, Penn, Century, Shakespeare, Mustad, Berkley, Ultima Lines, Coleman, Petzel, and more.

This tackle shop is located in the Cornish fishing village of Porthleven, 3 miles from Helston and about 14 miles from Falmouth and Penzance.

The near by beach of Loe bar offers great beach casting for species including Bass, Ray, Cod, Whiting, Huss, Flounder, Dabs and Dog fish.

It is also possible to book charter boats from here

For more information follow the tackle shop link above.

The site has only been running for a few months and already we are soring with traffic. The past 2 days has seen over 100 uniques a day.

I will do everything I can to make this the best blog going on fishing over 2007 and with your help it will be, easily.

Here’s to a top 2007 for Bass fishing, Carp fishing, fly fishing, beach casting or whatever you practice.

Ye haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I look forward to next year with great anticipation. GOOGLE has indexed the site well and we are in the top results for many fishing related terms. My Fishing guide is coming along well. A few teething problems have been ironed out and I will be heavily promoting it in the next few months.

I Hope all you followers of Beach casting, Fly fishing, Course fishing, Boat fishing and all other disciplines got what you needed/wanted for Christmas to help you better your chosen sport in the following months.

Good luck to you all,

Tight Lines

Sadly the weather has been against me recently so I have not had chance to drown bait in search of those winter species so I have posted a few angling tips and ideas as well as some possible christmas present ideas.

A friend of mine had 18 bass a few days ago on lug from a cornish surf beach. Nothing of great size but great sport. He wont tell me the exact location yet, but I am working on that.

Allow the reel to dry in a well ventilated area. For protection place it into a sock. When its in the foot of the sock, twist the sock and pull it back through its self, making a double skinned reel sausage.

You can send your reels away for servicing as per makers instructions or attempt DIY servicing.

Rember warrenties may become void if you select the DIY option.