RING THE CHANGES
During a recent wreck pollack and cod trip  the action wasn’t hectic, so I was occasionally watching the other anglers  around the boat. We were all using lures, mainly artificial eels of one sort or  another, with a couple on jellyworms. Most caught a fish or two fairly early  on, but then bites became hard to come by.

I’ve seen this so many times before. What I  figure happens is that the pollack get used to seeing the same lures going continuously  through and over them and eventually refuse to be fooled. The obvious thing to  do is change the colour of the lure for a contrast to rekindle the predatory  spirit in the fish. I changed over to a Firetail worm and bagged a cod first  drop. Another angler behind me changed over to an orange twin tail worm at the  same time and he hooked a couple more pollack in quick succession.

Out of six lads on board, three had the  same eel on all the time until they lost it on the wreck, or chose to stop  fishing artificial eels and try a different method. Eventually the eels stopped  working all together, but by switching to weighted Storm shads and fishing  these much deeper on shorter traces and with a slower retrieve three of us  again found the fish and continued to get bites. Just like a good shore angler  swaps rigs to find some bites, so too must the boat angler, be he fishing lures  or using baited rigs.

I’ve seen the same scenario with bass when  trolling plugs. One plug is the hot colour, but if you’re working the same patch  of ground constantly, then take notice and you’ll see the bass slowly shy off  that colour and the pattern of lures indicating you need to change. Ideally you  need to anticipate this change in the fish’s mood and switch colours and maybe  also adjust the distances the lures are trolled behind the boat to out guess  the fish.

It’s not just the colour that sometimes  needs changing. It also pays to select a lure with a different swimming action  and body shape, say swapping a slim line Jellyworm for a fat bodied shad with  more suggestive tail movement. Another one to try is changing both the length  and colour of the lure. Often fish like pollack and coalfish can become  preoccupied with smaller sprat that sometimes locate themselves over wrecks and  they will leave the bigger launce eels alone preferring the easy pickings of  the small bait fish shoals.

The moral of this story is that having  spent more than a few quid on your boat trip, then you owe it to yourself to  put a bit of effort in and get a few fish coming aboard. It’s not rocket science,  just having the presence of mind to up your work rate and try something  different. It’s no surprise that often the anglers moaning about a poor trip at  the end of the day are the ones who put the least effort in.

TOP TIP
  Inevitably I’ve taken a few unintentional  dips in the briny in the past, both when surf fishing, and when wading too deep  and losing my footing when working lures for bass over reefy ground.
The last thing you think about though, even  when it’s an obvious thing to do, is to protect your car keys and remote  central locking unit and keep them dry. In the past its cost me two new remote  locking units, which are bloomin’ expensive. The same has happened to friends  as well.

Nowadays, when locking the car to go  fishing, I put my car keys first in a self-sealing plastic zip bag, and then  just to be sure put that bag continuing the keys inside another self-sealing  bag. This keeps my keys and remote totally dry when the rest of me gets sopping  wet. I also do this with my wallet too.

INSHORE BOAT TURBOT TACTICS
Turbot are one of our most sort after  flatfish and March through to June is an especially good time for inshore  fishing. To catch turbot though, you need to specifically target them. The best  chance comes drifting close to shore across clean sandy ground, though they  also live over shingle banks and on patches of sand between rough ground and  alongside the edges of inshore reef ground.

They are best targeted using a tube boom  free to slide on the main line. The hook trace off the boom needs to be between  6 and 12-feet long made from 25lb Amnesia. Although turbot will take plain fish  baits it pays to add either a flashing chrome spoon about 9-inches above the  hook, with some red and green beads on the hook trace, or silver sequins,  between the spoon and the hook. Hooks need to be Mustad Aberdeen 3261 in size 1  to 2/0. Ideal rods for inshore turbot are 12 to 20lb class with 7000 sized  reels.

Good baits are thin strips of mackerel  about 4-inches long by one-inch wide and tapering at each end. Cut these from  the white belly of the mackerel to simulate sandeels swimming. Strips of squid,  or sandeels cut flapper style with the backbone removed are also good.

The skipper will use the tide and the wind  direction to set a drift that takes the boat preferably parallel with the shore  or at an angle away from it. As the drift starts begin releasing line from the  reel leaving the baits static on the bottom. When the boat has drifted a good  30-yds or more engage the reel and let the baits drag across the seabed. Turbot  tap on the rod tip, then hit the bait hard aiming to stun and engulf what they  think is live prey. As soon as you feel the taps release a few feet of line  then tighten up to the fish and strike.