Catch Fish with
Mike Ladle

Information Page

Freshwater 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).

More mullet.

The warm, sunny weather has continued and I keep seeing mullet in the river so I felt obliged to give them another go. The fish will follow almost any lure with a bit of flash and vibration but they rarely take an unbaited version. It doesn't need much to make them bite and even a centimetre or so of worm is enough to induce takes. If I stick to unbaited lures the catch is almost always trout, seatrout, salmon, pike or perch and to some extent I can select which of these I catch by the size of lure, speed of retrieve and particularly the places I fish - Pike and perch in the slow flowing or still deep spots, salmon in medium depth glides, trout in riffles and seatrout close to the bank in a decent flow. The mullet on the other hand can be almost anywhere but the favourite is in the smooth flowing tails of pools immediately upstream of an area of rapids. Simply casting across and holding the lure steady as it swings across the flow will usually induce follows and bites. It can be quite exciting to see the bow waves gather behind the spinning lure as fish jostle to get at it.

Anyway, I had an hour or two the other afternoon and started off with a J9 Rapala in hopes of a seatrout. It wasn't long before I had a pluck and saw a big trout turn away from the lure. "Rabbits!!!" I muttered. It followed again but wouldn't take. A little later I had another follow from a slightly smaller fish then, a bit further on I managed to hook a trout - needless to say it was the smallest of the three I'd seen.

I switched to mullet fishing and straight away I was in. In the next half-hour or so I landed four fish and all of them fought very well. In fact they battled so hard that a salmon angler, the far bank, watching me catch one was convinced I'd landed a decent grilse. All the fish were neatly hooked in the lip and I took a few pictures before returning them. For the last ten minutes I switched to a Canadian Wiggler lure to try and tempt a seatrout or salmon from a deep glide but, to my surprise, the only bite just produced another mullet.

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

Nice trout.

Mullet.

Beaten.

Good one.

The lure.

Wiggled.