Catch Fish with
Mike Ladle

Information Page

SEA FISHING

For anyone unfamiliar with the site always check the FRESHWATER, SALTWATER and TACK-TICS pages. The Saltwater page now extends back as a record of over several years of (mostly) sea fishing and may be a useful guide as to when to fish. The Freshwater stuff is also up to date now. I keep adding to both. These pages are effectively my diary and the latest will usually be about fishing in the previous day or two. As you see I also add the odd piece from my friends and correspondents if I've not been doing much. The Tactics pages which are chiefly 'how I do it' plus a bit of science are also updated regularly and (I think) worth a read (the earlier ones are mostly tackle and 'how to do it' stuff).

Three mornings per page.

I was acutely conscious that I won't be able to update the website for a few weeks. "Must catch something for a last page!" was in my mind so I thought that I would have an early morning down on the rocks before I went. I had no intention of wandering along the shore so I took three rods. The fly rod, the spinning rod and a third armed with a big circle hook in case I caught a suitable livebait. It was the start of the recent hot, calm spell so I was quite hopeful. Wrong!!!!! I could hardly buy a bite. I tried the fly gear - nothing. I tried a plug - one or two pollack plucks. I tried a wedge with a single hook - a bite, something wriggling on the end, just a small pollack, and that was it. Rubbish Mike!

The following morning I went to the river in hopes of a perch or a big chub at first light. Again, nothing doing. One decent fish followed the small Rapala over the shallows at the tail of a pool - big chub or big trout I thought but it wouldn't bite. After half-an-hour flogging I hooked a pike which, although it fought pretty well, wasn't a monster. Still not really worth writing about.

Now three early mornings on the trot is about as much as I can tolerate these days (always was!) so I thought I'd make one last effort at the coast. Up at quarter-to-three. Drive to the shore. Look at the sea - tide still well out and lots of wrack poking above the calm surface just visible in the gloom. Unclip the plug and put on a seven inch 'Texas Rigged' soft plastic eel to avoid snagging. On the first couple of casts I could feel the weightless lure knocking against strands of wrack in the shallow water. I cast along the beach so that the Slug-Go landed only a metre or two from the edge. Twitch, twitch, twitch, I reeled in with little bursts to try and give the bait a bit of life. It was almost back at the rod tip, I was considering where to put the next cast when there was a great snatch, a crash and a splash as a bass grabbed the lure, hooked itself and cartwheeled out of the water. I played the fish to the edge and slid it ashore. A couple of pictures and back into the sea it went. Enough was enough and I went home and was back in bed by 04.30. Phew! back again third week in July.

Pathetic pollack!

Wow!

Pike.

Bass relief.

Closer.