Last week I was up in Mostyn, North Wales looking to do a little plaice fishing. Fishing buddy Clive and I tried there a couple off weeks previously, but the numbers of small codling to a pound or so pouncing on the baits as soon as they hit the bottom, gave little chance for any resident plaice to get a look in and we dipped out.

This time we’d be fishing a couple of hours either side of low water and I chose to fish a one-hook long and low rig on one rod, with a simple three-hook flapper on the other. The one-hook rig I’d fish to a tight line watching the rod tip for bites, but on the three-hook rig I’d fish a slack line and watch for line lift bites to ensure all the baits were hard on the seabed. The three-hook rig would put maximum scent down and give any nearby fish a strong scent lane to follow up.

First cast Clive picked up a decent dab. I missed a bite on the one-hook rig, but then picked up a full house of two whiting and a dab on the flapper. We’d both tried different baits, fresh mussel, crab, frozen black lug and rag, but all bar the black lug was ignored. All species were selective!

In the couple of hours down to low water we bagged more small whiting, but also a fair few good dabs, much better in both numbers and size than I’ve seen here in this time period previously and you’d think these fish were almost a spring run. I have witnessed this before with the heads of small estuaries often carrying big dabs right through April in to early May just as the crabs start to peel which isn’t a coincidence.

But back to the plaice! These have a habit of sitting close to rocks and Mostyn follows a similar pattern, the fish often being tight to where the steep stone sides meet the sand of the deep channel. I’d kept my baits here deliberately targeting the plaice risking a little kit loss and it paid off just over low water.

I saw the slack line lift up and drop back a few times, carried on watching and saw it fall fully slack as the grip lead was pulled out. I wound down on the fish and struck. The fish bounced the rod tip over and used its width to keep tight to the seabed before lifting. The fish also tried head dives half way up. I was chuffed with a plaice that looked close to 1.5lbs.

Lifting the fish from the water I instantly noticed it was the normal colour on the back, but fawny yellow on the belly with no hint of white. I’ve heard of these two-tone plaice, but I’d never caught one before. I still checked for the series of bony knobs on the head to confirm it was 100% a plaice. We took photos then I released the fish even though it looked in good condition and was fat for the time of year.

We were hitting fish constantly now, me more whiting and a lot of dabs, Clive bagging three more plaice but none over a half pound as hard as he tried, plus some good dabs.

The interesting thing was that the one-hook rigs with the long hook snood to give the bait more freedom to move on the seabed produced very few fish. The three-hook rig was better but still not quite right. This got me thinking, currently the water temperature is still very low and I opted to shorten the hook snoods down to just 10-inches and added a small split shot just behind the hook, this, in conjunction with fishing a slack line, designed to keep the bait anchored to the seabed and only covering a small area to give a more static target. My thinking was that the fish, in the cold water, would be less likely to move far and be less willing to chase moving baits. This worked and my catch rate doubled and caught me the biggest plaice. Little changes can make a big difference!

It’s also amazing what difference a couple of weeks can make too. During the session Joe Roberts, a WSF member and Mostyn local, happened along for a chat and also mentioned the numbers of codling that had been showing on the mark recently. Nice to meet you, Joe! In nearly five hours fishing neither Clive nor I had a single codling, in total contrast to our previous trip.