Catch Fish with
Mike Ladle

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SEA FISHING

13 April 2004

Blanks.

Sorry for the delay this week. Computer problems and as you will see, lack of fish. Still it has to improve soon (fingers crossed).

I've been fishing three times in the past week and caught zilch. All three sessions were pretty short. The first time was an early morning spinning session down at the coast. I arrived just in time for first light to find the tide well out and the sea absolutely flat calm. I spun for an hour with a Crystal Minnow plug but might as well have stayed in bed.

For my second session I took the fly tackle down to the sea, again at daybreak. This time three-quarters-of-an-hour was enough to convince me that I was wasting my time. However, even on the remote rocky ledges that I was fishing there was plenty of evidence that other anglers had been there recently. The first thing I noticed was a float bobbing in the edge of the sea. Without much difficulty I leaned down and retrieved it along with swivel (massive) and a string of leads. It was a fancy float - not much use to me but I'll give it to my friend Joe when I see him next. Now anyone can lose a float but the rest of the litter on the rocks was shameful. A mass of frozen sandeels well scattered, an old plastic jacket, dog ends in all the pools and miscellaneous packets, bits of line and discarded bait everywhere. Why do anglers do this? Clearly it is not litter left by casual passers by and you would think that there was more than enough junk cast up on our beaches without people spoiling pristine spots

My third, and most recent trip was after carp. I had soaked a bag of Chum Mixer the night before and with the warmer weather I was quite hopeful. In fact as soon as I arrived at my chosen spot I saw the reeds rattling as fish moved about. A handful of dog biscuits chucked across into the reeds soon had one or two fish feeding and my free lined offering (three biscuits on a size six hook) was soon floating among them. As usual the fish ignored my bait for twenty minutes so I recast. I drew the floater back until it rested aginst a reed stem floating horizontally on the water surface. A few minutes later the largest carp in view (a mid-twenty?) swam past my bait making a decent swirl. Five minutes later the same fish came round again and did the same thing. By now I was feeling quite tense and the third time the fish came along my hand was trembling over the rod. Up came the huge lips and sucked in the dog biscuits. No need to strike because the fish turned away and hooked itself. There was a mighty thrashing as the carp fought its way through the dead reed stems but it soon began to come towards me as I walked back with the rod held high. There was a big bed of Canadian pond weed between me and th fish so I had to try and muscle it over the surface. Half way across the fish decided to dive and although it could not burrow down far its head was tucked into the weed bed with the huge orange tail flapping above the water. I decided to haul it up to try and raise the head but - you've guessed - the hook hold gave. No more bites but good fun and hopefully better luck next time. The dog biscuits are already soaking.

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

Carping.

The float.

A rare picture!!