Weighing fish, shore coalfish tactics

WEIGHING IT UP!
Weighing fish needs to be done carefully so as not to damage the fish, but at the same time record their weight accurately.

Small fish, such as flatties, should be either placed in a damp carrier bag or a bucket with the scales being zeroed in to the weight of the bag or bucket prior to adding the fish. I also use carrier bags for sensitive fish like whiting and wrasse up to 4lbs that can suffer if handled too much as you can open up the bag with the fish in the water to release them keeping hand contact to a minimum. Sharp fins on wrasse and bass can rip the bags and I use two bags one in side the other to give extra support and strength and to protect the fish for returning to the water.

Weigh your catch correctly

For tope and rays, always a problem because of the teeth on tope and the rays thorny spines, then we revert to a large industrial plastic woven bag with straps on. These are used for carrying stone from quarries, but are tough and best able to handle a brassed off predator intent on doing you damage while you're weighing it weighing. The advantage with these bags is that they also support the body of the fish protecting it fully from any potential damage to internal vital organs.

Lifting the scales and fish up directly in front of you is not the best way with the bigger fish like tope. Its far better to have the scales supported on a rod rest tripod and lift the fish up in the sling placing the sling handles on to the weigh scales hooks. It minimises the chance of teeth making contact with the handler. If you wait until the fish is still and not squirming about you'll get a very accurate reading.

TIPS AND TRICKS
The John Roberts Big Bore ledger Beads used by carp anglers makes great sliding ledger link for tope, rays, cod and huss rigs off the boats, and for bass, smoothound and flounder running ledger rigs off the shore. You need only add a Mustad 2/0 or 3/0 oval split ring to the beads connector eye to take your lead weight.

Because the bead shape has a fraction of the surface contact compared to normal slider patterns fish can run line through the bead and feel minimal drag. This can be important when tope are edgy during high pressure and when bass are suspicious of baits in shallow water.

SHORE COALFISH TACTICS
Late winter is always the best time to target shore coalfish. Coalies come close in to our western surf beaches and also show off the rocky shores along the northeast coast. The weigh from about half a pound up to 3 or even 4lbs in some areas and pound for pound fight much harder than codling or bass of the same size.

They are happy in shallow rough seas, often being caught just a few yards out in the breaking surf tables, but are equally at home amongst deeper rocky gullies. They favour marks where the beaches are close to rough ground or reefs. In shallow water there numbers are best during the spring tides, but plenty of fish are caught during the neaps too. Flood tides at night fish the best, but in well-coloured water coalies can be caught by day.

The knack with beach coalies is not to cast to far. Often coalies will be caught just 20ft out with your leader knot still just visible out of the water. Anglers can often be unaware of the numbers of coalfish available on certain marks because they are continually casting over them.

Coalies take lugworm baits, but prefer mussel or frozen crab. In fact frozen crab often works better than fresh. They also take razorfish well if numbers of razors have been washed from the sand and broken on the beach after storms.

The best rig is a two-hook rig with 12-inch snoods, and use 2/0 hooks as coalies have big mouths. A coalies mouth is quite hard too, so keep hooks sharp at all times. A big coalie will run parallel along the surf tables and occasionally shoots inshore creating slack line. I've even seen coalies semi leap out of the water when in the last few inches of surf.