Home | Blogs and Opinion | Mike's Diary Archive 2004 | Buying fishing tackle in bulk and reef cod fishing tactics

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Buying fishing tackle in bulk and reef cod fishing tactics

Mike Thrussell 06 January, 2004 03:25:00

CASHING IN
You can save quite a wedge of your hard earned cash buying your tackle in bulk.

If you check through the mail order adverts you'll see "Buy 10 packets of hooks and get two free", a useful saving. It's always cheaper in the long run to buy swivels by the hundred than buy single packets as you need them. Rig beads are often advertised for £1 per hundred, but buy a thousand and the price is often just £6. You can save money on just about every accessory item by buying this way, and most good tackle shops also do deals if you bulk buy.

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Saving money by buying in bulk
I buy my line in bulk spools too. Depending on which brand of line usually in 1000 or 3000-metre spools. It's a massive cash saving long term compared to buying 250 to 300-metre filler spools of line. Just make sure you store bulk spools in a cool and very dark place to avoid ultra violet light deterioration and the line will last two or three years at least.

Shop around for reels and rods. Some shops dramatically reduce the price of popular reels and rods using them as loss leaders to bring customers in. Buying a rod and reel together should also see a reduction in the overall cost, but you may need to ask to get it.

If you chat to your tackle shop and arrange to buy 20 packs or more of black lug for freezing down, then they will knock you money off. The same applies to packs of mackerel and sandeel. Squid can be bought in large 5lb commercial boxes and this works out much cheaper than buying in packs or the small one-pound boxes. You can then use a saw to cut the frozen squid in to smaller blocks for single session bait packs. Some tackle shops do these big blocks, or try your local fishmonger.

Always try and do a deal though, with your local tackle shop first. The small guy struggles against the big mail order boys and he needs our support. Whatever, buying in bulk should see you make dramatic long-term savings and make your fishing budget go further.

TIPS AND TRICKS
There are always days when you get lots of bites but consistently fail to connect with any fish. The culprits are usually small flatfish that are overawed by the size of the bait and just nibbling around the edges.

Drop down a couple of hook sizes, say to a size 4 or 6 Aberdeen, and bait with minimal bait keeping the bait almost covering the hook point, but not fully so. If this fails to get you a fish reduce the breaking strain of the hook snoods down to say 15lb line or less. Also switch to a clear coloured line if you're using coloured. It may be, in clear water that the fish are being put off by the line.

Use a short section of plastic water hose slipped over the outside finger of the U shape to extend the length and deepen it enough so that the rod will not "bounce" out of the rest after a cod bite. You'll need about 6-inches to be safe. Now tightly wind rubber waterproof sleeving over the whole lot and down in to the centre of the U. This has excellent gripping properties and stops the rod from slipping.

REEF COD TACTICS

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Reef cod tactics
About mid January the cod leave our beaches and head offshore. The mature cod start to think about spawning and begin to head far off, but the smaller codling stay close inshore just off the beaches and take up residency over reef ground. Small boat and charter anglers get the chance to bag up.

Reef codling will be concentrated in areas where the reef is roughest with mangled boulders and rocky pinnacles the hot spots. Also look for kelp weed beds and areas of mixed ground. The best reefs tend to be shallowish, say between 20ft and 50ft deep.

The technique is to fish on the drift and cover as many of these selected areas as possible. Cod will move from mark to mark as the tide changes choosing areas where they can feed on the edge of the tide run as it flows over the rough ground.

Most anglers would choose a 20lb or 30lb class boat rod and reel for this type of fishing, but on the drift you won't need huge amounts of weight to keep the lures near the bottom, so a typical 6 to 8oz uptide rod and a reel holding say 300-metres of 25lb line has advantages. The uptiders extra length gives a greater uplift of the lures for the same arm effort compared to the shorter boat rods and improves the catch rate. The uptide rods action is also more fun for catching codling, which generally average between 2 and 5lbs.

Luminous 4/0 Hokkeye type lures are by far the best and catch well on their own but you can increase their effectiveness by baiting them with black lug or mussel. Work the lures by repeatedly tapping the lead on the seabed and lifting the rod tip a few feet. Cod will hug the bottom and the baits need to stay close to the seabed to be most effective.