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Print versionOut n' About - Plymouth Pollacking and Welsh Bassing
PLYMOUTH POLLACK
It’s been quite a week! I was down in Plymouth starting with a short night session on Mountbatten Breakwater. I tried small scratching rigs tight in amongst the rocks looking for mini species and caught goldsinny wrasse by the score, plus shannies and small pollack. Two-hook rigs cast way out found only pollack and dogs.
There was a young couple fishing there and they were telling me they’d only just taken up fishing and had yet to catch a fish. I sorted out their rigs and switched them on to smaller size 12 hooks, showed them where I’d been catching the wrasse and left them in peace. Just a couple of minutes later a feminine voice excitedly screamed “I’ve caught one” and I turned round to see her landing a decent sized shanny. They’re as keen as mustard now and there’ll be no stopping them. They were already planning their next trip to the breakwater as I left!
Next day I was out with work colleague and friend Rob Wyatt from Pure Fishing on Plymouth based Malc Jones’ boat Sea Angler 2. It was out to the Eddystone Lighthouse first for some bait. Launce sandeel were plentiful, but the anticipated mackerel and herring were not.
We started out on the reef ground after pollack. I was fishing a new Penn prototype 8/12lb class rod matched with an ABU Revo Toro 60HS reel loaded with 15lb Fireline braid for maximum sport. I set up with a Flying Collar rig using a hook length of 19lb Fluorocarbon line and a 4/0 hook.
The idea is to let the eel down to the seabed, then retrieve slowly up through the lower water column. As a fish eats the eel you’ll feel a steady increase in rod tip pressure, then the tip pulls fully over to set the hook and the fish dives back for the seabed.
You get into a rhythm when eel fishing and I quickly relaxed back in to a proper fishing mode. I felt a tap on the eel and the pressure slowly increased on the rod tip, let the hook set and the fish went barmy heading straight back for the seabed. This was a pretty even contest with the pollack working the light tackle to the maximum making several long, progressive and powerful runs back for the seabed. Steady pressure told though, and I knew this was decent fish so I was taking my time, but we saw colour and Malc, waiting with the net, instantly said that’s a big double. So it proved with the boated fish weighing in at 13lb 12ozs, and that’s a very big reef pollack.
We caught loads more pollack with Rob getting a fish of over 10lbs, and local rod Simon Rickarby getting his first ever double figure pollack at 10lbs 6ozs after some 28 attempts. Nice one! Ling to 8lbs also took the launce sandeel when tight to the seabed.
We changed tack and went for conger. We were short of bait, mackerel and herring, so I feathered consistently but couldn’t find any at all. We had to use the mackerel and herring sparingly, but I sent a baited shrimp rig down to the seabed for a pout or poor cod to add to the bait supplies. I caught both, plus several beautifully coloured male cuckoo wrasse, one well over the pound in weight. I fished the pout and poor cod for the conger.
It was the scarce mackerel and herring the eels wanted though and the lads quickly had two eels over 30lbs on the boat. Rob then first lost an eel, then hit in to something bigger. He was using another 8/12lb class prototype rod and small prototype fixed spool reel with 20lb braid on. Light but balanced tackle. He took his time and fought it out with a cracking eel in excess of 40lbs.
A great couple of days! I missed a ling and a conger, but was chuffed with the big pollack, plus I added 9 new species for 2009 taking me to 18 so far.
BACK TO BASSING
Some of you might be surprised to hear that I’ve neglected bass fishing a little over the past decade or so. I did nothing but bass fish through the 80’s, but then my attitude to bass changed and I found species hunting much more fun. Things are going full circle though and I’m getting the itch to bass fish regularly again.
It’s a contentious thing to say, but I do think bass are over rated, both as a fighting fish and from the culinary point of view. Put a 4lb bass and a 4lb pollack side by side and the pollack leaves the bass at the lights every time. Where bass are special though, is that they can be caught in so many varied ways and from such diverse territory.
I always preferred rough ground bass fishing with crab. Its lads fishing, tough, physically demanding, thinking fishing. Fly fishing for bass runs it a close second for the same reasons.
I used to start rough ground bassing in March, but nowadays I wait until the Lilac blooms which is an indicator that air and sea temperature is about right for a major peel of crab. I was driving back from working in the Midlands and noticed that while I’d been away the Lilac in the village had started to bloom. The next day I went crabbing and easily got enough for a good session.
The forecast said the wind would swing to the southwest and lift a little. This was perfect as it would put a decent surf on the beach I had in mind to fish.
The tides fell bad as I would have liked to fish low water, but that was mid afternoon and impossible, but high tide was around 10pm so I could fish the almost as productive two hours to high water.
I was fishing an MTI Bass rod, ABU 6500 reel loaded with 22lb line, and carried just a few rigs and leads, plus my bait.
This is rough, lead snatching ground at its worst, but the bass love it. My first casts were plagued with weed as the average depth is shallow, but I knew this would ease as the depth increased towards high water.
As the tide pushed in I started getting a few small eel bites, which is typical on this mark. Trouble is they are persistent and will rip a bait to pieces quite quickly so I was having to retrieve every 10 minutes and re-bait, where I normally prefer to leave the big crab baits I use at least 15 minutes, if unmolested.
I had to wait until half an hour before high water for the eel bites to disappear and this told me that the bass had arrived. Right on cue a seal also popped his head above water and eyeballed me. So many bass anglers think the seal will kill the fishing. This is totally untrue! A seal’s presence actually vindicates your choice of venue and indicates fish are present as the seal will not waste time in barren water.
Just 5 minutes later the rod tip twitched, shuddered, then pulled over and I sank the hook in to a plump little bass about 1½lbs in weight which I landed and returned. I missed the next bite, then had to wait until 5 minutes before high water when the line fell slack and I wound down like crazy trying to catch up with a bass that came back in towards me. I found her weight and struck. The rod tip hammered down and the fish felt heavy, it stayed that way for maybe 20 seconds thumping down…then the hook pulled out.
I learnt many years ago getting down in the dumps about a lost fish can spoil the rest of the day, so I immediately got a fresh bait on and re-cast. Within a couple of minutes the rod shuddered, I waited, it shuddered again, I still waited, only when the rod tip pulled over did I strike and the fish kicked back in anger. This one went maybe 3lbs and fought well. I finished the session with another near 2lb schoolie. Both fish were returned to fight another day.
The key thing that night was also that the fish were at long range. You read so often that bass are mostly within 40yds of the shore. The fact is is that the bass are where the food is and this early in the year the crabs are concentrated in the mid tide to low tide area. The high tide area is exposed to still cold nights and this can affect the numbers of crabs available here. Hence fishing close in early in the season will cost you fish.
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