Slow for the mo

Not much happening fishing wise for me at the moment. I have however been invited to a day on the Tweed by a client next Tuesday. I don’t have much experience fly fishing on rivers of this stature so it will be hit or miss for me but I’m looking forward to the challenge. Following on from that it will be Loch Sunart in November. This has been my seasonal pattern over the last 10 years or so fishing for Spurs along with my fellow club members in what is usually a very wet but sociable weekend.

The flights and fishing have been booked for a few weeks now for our trip to the Ebro. Scott and I will be teaming up for a lure based assault on the predators swimming around the Caspe region where we will be fishing with Lee

The targets will be Wels catfish, Zander, Largemouth and Perch. I’ve no doubt Scott will winkle out a few other species on the trip and I wouldn’t expect anything else. The last email I had from Lee he mentioned that an angler with him had a 162 pound Wels on a lure. I’ve not had a Wels before so I’m looking forward to adding that to my own species tally. A week in the sunshine catching some nice fish would be just the ticket at the moment but it’s a long way off for the time being.

 

For auld times sake

After yesterday’s success I fancied more of the same today. The strengthening wind forced a change of location to a part of the coast that I’ve not fished for a while. I had spotted a track on Google maps that I know leads to stretch of beach that has the scattered parts of an old wreck just about in casting distance. You can actually see it in the satellite image if you know where to look. I’ve not been to this part of the beach before so I ended up having to reverse 1/4 of mile back along an increasingly overgrown and muddy track which was leading to nowhere other than getting pulled out by a tractor. I eventually got to my destination and worked my way along the beach casting and looking for any signs of activity. Two hours later I puffed my way back to the car fishless and headed for a spot that I used to do alright on about 12 years ago. I’ve only fished it a handful of times since but it was on my doorstep back then. I climbed down to the mark and took my backpack off and found the nice smooth rock I used to sit on and began fan casting the area. I cast my mind back, as you do, and it occurred to me that it’s still the place that I’ve caught the most Bass from in a tide, this was followed up by a similar result the next day. It never did produce as much on any other visit but was always good for a fish or two. I wondered if any of those fish were still swimming around and if they were they would be old and indeed, a fair size, you can but daydream. Just at that the rod jolted over and snapped me back reality.

I checked my watch after putting the Bass back, right on the money, same stage of the tide and as it happens exactly at the same part of the rock point that 90% of the fish hit the lure. It seems some things never change.  Anyway that was it, a snag and a lost lure brought my session to a close two hours later, but at least it wasn’t a blank.

Time for a few more before the sun sets on my Bass season. I’m hoping for decent weather on the run up to the next set of tides.
 

Grip'n & Grinning

I’ve been needing a fix for a while now having been busy with work and other commitments over the weekends recently. I snapped my 9ft HPR in the garage door in what was a bizarre accident mid-week, third tip in three years. Having never broken a rod in my life before I got this rod makes it an unwelcome PB, correction PW. If I didn’t rate the rod as much I would move on but it will be off to Century yet again next week. I stepped on to the beach today with a £29 8ft replacement, the Rovex lure Quad travel rod.  I used it in Aruba back in May while on honeymoon, really great little rod for the money, certainly for hard lures and things like SG eels anyway.

It was a pleasure to be back fishing again on a glorious October morning where I joined the otters and seals looking for their fix as well.

I positioned myself low and well back from the point where the tide was pushing past and made a few casts up-tide thinking that a Bass might be sitting behind the point of rock just out of the flow. This worked and I had two fish in 30 mins exactly where I thought they might be with both takes coming within inches of each other.

 It rarely pays to take route “A” and put yourself right on a point of rock such as this and when I fish alone I’ve got the luxury of knowing this and making the most of it.

I moved up the rock later on as the depth increased having dropped a fish in the same spot as the other two. I got another fish just as I should have been exiting the mark as I was about to get cut off. The Evo eel was barely visible as the fish had wolfed it right down, thankfully no blood and the fish went back.

 I walked for as far as the cliffs would let me and caught another fish and had one tag me almost at the end of the retrieve leaving a considerable foot print in the water. I only had the faintest of contact with it but the by looks of the displacement of water it might have been a decent fish. The tide was well up by now and I was bumping a few rocks which were now being covered and I lost an SG eel, when this fish hit I thought it was rock, it was nice to be proved to be wrong.

The sun was warm, I found a nice slopping rock and set myself down for a bit, this turned into a 45 minute kip. I made my way back along the rocks stopping here and there for a few casts but I was ready for home. The weather is about to change but I might try again on Monday; days like today will be few and far between in the months ahead.