CAN YOU CUT IT?
As anglers we give  little thought to the type of knife we buy. Most go for the typical thin blade  commercial filleting knife design, but this is far from ideal for general  fishing tasks.

For cutting bait,  either fillets off the bone or chunks cut diagonally through the body of a fish  you need a knife with a strong wide blade that will not bend or flex when  downward pressure is applied. The blade needs to be almost straight in side  profile with only the very end tapering quickly towards the point. If you look  at the top flat edge of this blade it should be at least 2mm thick. A blade of  this type has the strength to apply real downward pressure to cut relatively  easily through hard back bone. This is also the knife to use when cutting long  strips from fish fillets, strips of squid and for making flapper baits with.  It’s your workhorse knife!

Look for a knife with  a grip finish to the handle. Don’t buy a knife with a smooth plastic finish as  when these get covered in fish blood and slime, your hand can slide down the  handle towards the blade. Such a blade needs to be about 6-inches in length to  be fully effective.

When it comes to  preparing any catch for the table, then you cannot beat the proper commercial  filleting pattern. These blades are slimmer in side profile rapidly tapering  towards the point, and have a much reduced overall blade thickness. They are  designed to bend and flex to allow the blade to follow the contours of the fish  body to cleanly remove the fillet from the bone.

Go for a good make  such as Normark, though my preference by experience would always be a knife  from Marttini. These have a top quality stainless steel blade that runs through  the full length of the handle for maximum strength, but also has a soft rubber  like material handle that limits any chance of the hand slipping towards the  blade when you’re covered in fish slime. For average fish a blade length of  6-inches is again adequate, but for filleting big fish like double figure cod  and pollack, then a 9-inch blade is far easier to use and limits the overall  work load.

I carry both these  knives with me at all times, but also a plastic bodied craft type knife with  replaceable blades. I use this for cutting very slim and ultimately neat small  fish strips to tip off  worm and other baits  with, or for pairing down long thin fillets from the white belly of a mackerel  when targeting turbot and brill while drift fishing. The precise and very sharp  cut these small craft knives gives allows a degree of bait presentation normal  bait knives cannot.    

The best way to  sharpen a knife is with a proper butcher’s steel. Hold the steel vertically  point against the floor and on a non-slip material. Simply slide the knife edge  down the length of the steel on each side half a dozen times to get a really sharp edge.

TIPS AND TRICKS/COCKTAIL CORNER
Flatfish are attracted to puffs of sand  stirred up on the seabed. Just pulling the lead back towards you can work if  you use leads like an unwired Gemini Flatback, but even these don’t always move  enough sand to get the flatties interested. Here’s a trick I find very  effective.

Cut the bait clip part off a Breakaway  Impact Shield and drill out the Shield to allow a long tail lead wire to pass  through the shield and position the shield on the tail wire. You’ll need to  open the eye of the wire with pliers to pass the shield over, then close it firmly  afterwards. Lock the Shield in place with a small cable tie tightened over the  Shield leg and the long tail wire.

To create the puffs of sand, drop your rod  tip to water level, wind in the line until you feel the weight, then sweep the  rod tip backwards a couple of feet. The Shield digs deep in the sand and kicks  up clouds of sand that attract flounders and plaice lying nearby. The beauty of  using the Shield is that it still allows the lead weight to roll when required.

BOAT POUTING TACTICS
Competition anglers looking for points need  to know how to target pout, and some freelance anglers also like the odd pouting  for making fish cakes from.

Pout like reef or rocky seabed’s and hang  around the bases of rocky pinnacles or adjacent to kelp weed beds. They can  also be caught around wrecks, especially wrecks that have broken up and  scattered lots of wreckage over a wide area with sandy patches in-between.

They like a bait that moves. A rig with  luminous shrimps on that have small slivers of mackerel or squid added to the  hooks are especially effective simply jigged on the bottom. Baited mackerel  feathers work just as well, as will Hokkeye’s in the smaller size. A good rig  to use for drift fishing is a simple two-hook rig. Add some luminous yellow  tubing just above the hook or luminous beads and bait again with mackerel or  squid.  Hooks, even for big pout, need be  no more than size 1/0.

When jigging the pout tend to hook  themselves, but when drifting with the two-hook rig you’ll feel a series of  taps. Release a little line to give some slack and to leave the baits static on  the seabed for a few seconds. This brief pause gives the pouting time to take  the bait in to their mouths before being hooked as the line comes tight.

Pout still take baits well during slack  water periods, but the bites can be very shy. Try lengthening the hook trace to  15-inches or more. This again gives the pout time to take the bait in without  instantly feeling the drag of the rig.