Off we go again

So welcome to 2018 and Happy New Year to anyone dropping into my blog for the first time this year. I was thinking about blogging a retrospective look at last year but decided against it, with one exception. I’m sure there will be plenty to look forward to in the year ahead with some luck.

Hands down, favourite fish of last year, a superb saltwater sea trout, I’m allowing myself this one.

After suffering back to back migraines on Friday and Saturday I decided that I was still going ahead with another Pollack session on Sunday. I had made my mind up that win or lose it would be the last direct shot at them for a while. I’ve had Pike on my mind occasionally , the sea trout season starts shortly and I’ve got something I’ve wanted to try for a while knocking around my skull. I’m surprised I’ve not heard of anyone fishing here on a boat, certainly in recent years and never on a kayak that I can recall. Now, there might well be a reason for this. The idea however won’t go away, so the first chance I get I’ll be off to a spot that produced the biggest conger I’ve caught as well as some other bits and pieces. Also, if I were a spawning Pollack I might be hanging around here as well at the moment, we’ll see.

My first fish of the year, a modest Pollack, a nice bend in the rod on the first trip of the year shortly after sun up. What’s not to like?

It was a good day for numbers if not so much for the size. The upper water temperature had dropped by about 2c so I wondered what mood they might be in. What surprised me was how high in the water the fish were hitting the lure at times, also, how fast they wanted it. From frustrating tentative plucks, to the lure disappearing out of site, mixing up my colours seemed to help. I did try adding strip baits to some curtail worms to see if this tempted any bigger fish but had no response from any fish at all.

Hot pink and chartreuse lime seemed to get the best response in the bright conditions, not my go to choice but the Pollack told me what they wanted. When I've used the Bass Assassin Turbo Shad I’ve noticed they love to hit this on the drop. It has nice paddle and thin wrist, can imagine that making its presence felt falling through the water.

I played around with an extension pole to my RAM mount but it's very top heavy due to battery I'm using with my GoPro. I'll make some changes and try to get some different type of shots for both still images and video in the months ahead.

• Reels-Daiwa Certate 10 3000/Daiwa Exceler 2500HA
• Rods-Savage Gear XLNT 9-32g, Shimano Vengeance 20-50g
• Braid- Sufix 832 0.20
• Leader- Seaguar Ace Hard 20 pound
• Lures-Bass Assassin turbo shad, SG sandeel, Berkley ripple shad,Tronixpro fire tails
• Hobie Outback/Lowrance 7Ti