Catch fish with Mike Ladle.

Catch Fish with
Mike Ladle

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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).

Morning raid.

I've had a fairly unfortunate spell lately. I wouldn't mind so much if (a) My mates weren't catching fish all over the place and (b) I hadn't been taking my grandson Ben fishing while he was having a few days at our house. We 'almost' caught some good thinlips on the baited spinners and we 'almost' caught a fair sized salmon that fought like stink and then wrapped the line round a submerged tree before escaping. On the credit side we did catch some nice corkwing wrasse on ragworms with a view to using them as wobbled bass baits when the chance arises.

Anyway, I did have a trip with my pals Ben (not the grandson), Richard and Phil one morning last week. We started off fishing, as it got light, in a little bay. Ben soon had a small bass on an 18cm Redgill and the lads had a few more bites that they didn't contact. I was trying out some recently constructed 'buzz baits' that I'm hoping might produce a few bass when conditions are weedy. One is an 'in-line' version and the other is the typical 'offset' style used in the USA. They both fish pretty weedless (the blade seems to push weed away) so at least that aspect works but on this occasion I had no bites.

After a while we moved on to try fishing from a rocky ledge and I decided to leave the others to it and to try and catch a wrasse by fishing a weedy corner with a J11 Rapala. It wasn't spectacular sport but the lads each had a bass from the surf while I managed a reasonable wrasse on my plug - could have been worse. At least the plug did what I expected and the wrasse put up a decent fight before I could bring it ashore to have its picture taken. Can't wait for some weedy, murky conditions to give the buzz baits a proper try.

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

Ben's early bass.

No monster, but it's been quite a while since Ben went fishing, so it was very welcome.

- and another.

This is the one Ben caught from the surf as the sun was  rising.

Got one!

Not the largest wrasse I've ever caught but a nice fish on a slow morning.

Buzzers.

I intend using these with bait (mackerel or squid) but for my first test I simply added a couple of soft plastics.