FISH A FLYER
There’s a trick you can use through the  summer that can add extra fish and probably different species to what you’d  normally have caught fishing just a standard ledger rig. It’s called a “Flyer”.

Set up your beach casting gear as normal  with the leader hanging through the rod rings ready to take your typical  two-hook rig. Before attaching the normal rig, slide on a small bead followed  by an Avis or similar type plastic boom, then tie the rig on.

The sliding boom can be rigged with a plain  hook trace and hook to take bait as normal, and will cast close to medium range  fairly well. When everything settles in the water the inward travelling waves  slide the boom back up the leader until it comes to a rest against the leader  knot. With your average leader being 20-feet long, plus the average 36-inch  main rig length, this allows you to fish a third bait much closer in between  the rig baits and the rod tip.

By adjusting the length of the hook trace  it can be made to hang in mid water or closer to the surface to take fish  working well up off the seabed. Alternatively rig it over depth with, if  needed, just a couple of split shot above the bait to make the bait wash around  over the seabed to give a really natural presentation that will take flounders,  golden grey mullet and bass better than a static bait. In winter this same  tactic works well for shore hugging coalfish too.

Also bear in mind that you can alter the  presentation and depth of this third flyer hook in an instant by fishing a grip  lead and either slackening your line off to sag in a deep belly over the water  to deepen the flyer’s fishing depth, or raise the height of the bait off the  seabed by tightening the line, and or raising the rod tip, to lift the bait higher.

When fishing a steep-to beach or off a pier  with deep water very close in, by casting close you can also rig the boom to  fish a float to suspend a bait for garfish and mackerel.

The Flyer tends to be used by matchmen  looking to maximise their chances though few freelance anglers are seen to use  it, but bear it in mind for those inevitable dog days of summer when bites are  tough, or when you can see surface working fish between you and your baits and  you only have ledger gear with you.

COCKTAIL CORNER
A good summer time bait combination for  plaice, pout, bass, dogfish and a host of other species is crab tipped with  squid, or you can use strips of squid to give the crab some protection if live  crab in the water are stripping baits off the hooks quickly.

For plaice and smaller fish, use small  sections of crab on size 2 Aberdeen  hooks forming a short thin sausage shaped bait, then simply cut a thin strip of  squid about 1-inch long and ¼-inch wide placing one end over the hook to add  movement to the bait.

To protect a crab bait, use a strip of  squid wide enough to fully wrap around the crab bait underneath, but not long  enough to fully hide the ends of the crab, and bind it with bait elastic. The  crab ends left poking out of the squid binding release the crab juices inside  helped along nicely by the crabs feeding on the exposed flesh. This still gives  a effective bait for fish to find, but the squid hides the main bulk of the  bait slowing down the time it takes for the hungry crab hordes to eat your hooks  bare.

NIGHT TIME ESTUARY TACTICS
The big mistake fishing estuaries after the  sun goes down is to cast way too far out. Food items like sandeels, crabs,  shrimps and little fish are all hugging the sand line and will lure bigger  predators in. Also a factor is that as the cover of darkness falls, it gives  bigger fish like bass and flounder the confidence to feed in very shallow  water. Unless ground feature suggests otherwise casts of just 10 to 20-yards  are usually enough.

The flounder will hold station facing in to  the tide but semi buried over this sandy ground, especially when the tide is  flooding in fast. Small crab baits, lugworm and ragworm will take these, as  well greedy eels and school bass. Keep your hook traces short, around 9-inches.  This gives instant bite detection and keeps you informed so to avoid deep  hooking flounder, plus limits the tangles hooked eels can get themselves in to,  and signals immediately the grab and dash tactic of school bass.

Big bass on the other hand are moving fish,  intent on pushing further up the estuary to richer pickings. Their ground  feature preference includes patches of rougher ground around the mouths of  estuaries, or weed banks along the edges of the estuary that will hold crab,  butterfish and small eels. Top bait is peeler or soft crab ledgered on a  24-inch flowing trace. This longer trace gives the bass freedom to pick up and  move to signal a good bite, as in calm conditions very tight inshore, they can  be a tad finicky, even as night draws in.

The small eels, which are very active as  dusk arrives and found living under this stone and weed will keep pecking at  your baits giving tentative bites on the rod tip. Don’t be confused by these,  wait for a definite hard pull. Also use big baits for these bass otherwise the  eels will reduce the baits to nothing very quickly. Size wise they should fully  fill a 4/0 hook.