Catch Fish with
Mike Ladle

Information Page

SEA FISHING

06 August 2004

Flies matters!

Every fishing trip should be a learning experience. It certainly is for me at any rate. this week was a good example. I am often asked which is the 'best colour' of plug, spoon, fly etc.' for bass and I usually say that I don't think it makes much difference. Usually I add a little rider that it seems logical to copy the colour and appearance of the natural food at the time.

Early in the week I had an early morning fly fishing session, I was a bit late getting up and fished from 04.40 to 06.00 hr. As it turned out I was quite successful. In addition to eight small pollack I landed four bass and after switching to a spoon, a single mackerel. I rang my pal Brian and the following morning he and his son Jamie joined me to try and repeat the exercise. We started half-an-hour earlier and fished until about 06.30. there was a bit less swell than the previous day and this time the mackerel turned up in force. I was using a little Redgill and found the mackerel very difficult to tempt. The fish were feeding on small sprats (I call them brit) so I changed flies to a bit of silver Mylar and promptly landed five fish in five casts - the Mylar obviously looked more like the baitfish. Altogether we landed about twenty mackerel - good fun!

A couple of days later I went down again, on my own, but never cast a line because of the dangerously large swell. However, undaunted, as soon as the swell went down I tried again. This time I fished alone from 04.30 t0 06.30. As I started the pollack were feeding and I had already landed four when the first mackerel struck. Before I finished I had landed (and returned) a further forty-nine mackerel and three bass up to over three pounds. All took a Mylar fly that I had 'tied' (too kind a word for my constructions) the previous evening.

The final episode was a session with Nigel and his son Joe - conditions were identical but this time the catch consisted almost entirely of pollack with only half-a-dozen mackerel. Both little rubber eels and Mylar flies seemed equally good - amazing! Anyway, the silvery 'brit-fly' has now joined the maggot fly, woodlouse fly and the little rubber eel in my box.

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

It's on!.

Joe's pollack on a Delta eel.

Mackerel.

Bass.

Sprats or brit.