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).

Bass on Slandras.

After our five day trip to Nottingham to see Dan's family I was desperate to go fishing. I got up early on the morning after our return and drove down to Purbeck. The sea was flat calm and gin clear and I fished through first light without a sniff of any sort. On my walk back to the car I noticed a few modest bass tailing in the 'weed soup' of a small gully but they showed no interest in my weedless soft plastic so I left them to it.

The following morning I intended going fishing with my pal Dave, who was on one of his flying visits. As luck would have it the weather had deteriorated rapidly and our proposed venue would have been unfishable. We opted to return to the spot where I'd been fishless and biteless the previous day. Experience suggested that the rough conditions might have tempted a few bass to come in for a feed of Idotea.

Sure enough it was rough and for the first hour or so we flogged away with no result apart from a fish hooked and lost on Dave's plug. I was fishing in the margin with a Slandra in the hope that there might be a few bass among the weed. Nothing! By now it was quite light and I wandered off to try the spot where I'd seen bass the day before but again there was nothing so I turned, thinking that I'd better go back to see how Dave was faring. As I looked round, there was my pal beckoning to me. He'd walked all that way to to let me know that some bass had arrived in our first spot and he'd actually had a bite on his weedless lure. That's a real mate!

We hurried back to find a few fish swirling in the water's edge so we began to flick our Slandras along the beach. We were fishing no more than a metre or two out where we could see the bass activity (to be honest the onshore wind made it tricky to cast anyway). It wasn't long before I heard a call from Dave and looked up to see him playing a bass. He beached his fish and I took one or two pictures before he slipped it back into the sea. Excellent! Then it was my turn. The slowly wriggling lure was almost back to my rod tip when suddenly it was snatched by a decent fish. I was in! The bass made a few short runs before I was able to slide it ashore on a wave. Wonderful! We fished on for a while but the bass seemed to have gone, we took the hint and went home well pleased to have caught a fish each in difficult conditions.

If you have any comments or questions about fish, methods, tactics or 'what have you!' get in touch with me by sending an E-MAIL to - docladle@hotmail.com

Dave.

Dave's fish.

My bass.

Well hooked.

Sorry!