Sea Angling for Spearos

[ADM]

Bass dangling comp weekend so it's bass fishing all the way.

My first session went like this...

Got to mark, fished for 4 hours with £100 worth of plastic, tried some home made specials, live eel. nowt. moved elsewhere towards Ladies Bay way, chucked a crab out and texted a few peeps to see what was going down and felt a tap. Gave it some line and could feel something was playing with the bait, not really biting just playing with it so gave plenty of time and when it moved off hit it hard. The fish came to the surface and started to thrash about in 3ft of water. It fought on the surface all the way, odd run and heavy head shaking. This has to be a qualifier I say to myself then it comes in...

It's another bloney ********* ******* Gilthead.

Gutted. Went 3-5-0 on the digi's. Any other weekend I would be happy with that, but not this weekend. (Sorry phone cam, didn't have the proper camera on me)




After this bass weekend I am switching to the mullet gear and fishing more sociable hours before the missus kills me. I have blanked for 10 trips in a row before this fish and why?? Because I can't catch fish with bait in daylight ('orrid little things like rockies excluded).

BUT, as I said to her this morning, when I got in during the early hours (I told her it was 1am when she stirred ) if she let me fish in the dark more, I would bring her more fish and not blank, simple as!! And, she goes back to sleep better if I wake her at that time coming in as she's in deep sleep so we all win, except me when the nipper is up at 6am and I have to do the weekly shop with him. Knackered.

Got some live greens today so will go with the nipper for high water this evening for a play on the floats with smaller live eel I have and then save the best greens for tomorrow evening high water when I will do the bass thing with live greens at a top secret daytime freelining location!!

[Old Man Dave]

Went in the boat for the first time this year. Got about 30 mackerel between 2 of us and I had nice pollack and a nice john dory.

Dave.

[ADM]

Well I've had 2 mullet trips this year so far and nowt. 1st trip with macca we saw nowt caught nowt. 2nd trip, saw loads, caught nowt as I couldn't work out how to strike mullet bites after so long bass fishing.

3rd trip lucky so they say!!

I had a lot of bites, and a lot of which would have ended up with fish on the end if I was a bit faster. Getting there though!!

The best bite I had the float went down and was still down 1 second later, plenty of time even for me to strke home and fish on!!

It was the first fish on the new mullet rod (Duo-Lite Specialist Float) which measures in at 13ft and designed for freshwater float fishing is seriously light and bendy. What fun!!

The fish however was no match despite any bendy rod.



Didn't have any scales with me but pretty sure it wouldnt make the 2lb minimum weight I need for thick lips.

Why is it that the mullet that takes is ALWAYS the smallest fish in the shirvy????? The one which swam about with it when hooked was at least 3 times the size, double the length and much broader. Maybe he was eyeing mine up for lunch??

Anyway, that was to be the only fish from a now spooked shoal, though I did have a few more bites they were not mullet... And It turns out, may well have been a brtish record if I could have hooked one of the little so and so's.

After a chat with Richard Lord and some good descriptions from me (they were very shallow in crystal clear water right under my nose after all) they were a species of bream which would fill a vacant position on the British record list. I'll be back, with some size 16 (or smaller) hooks if I can work out how to tie a line to something so small. I only had 10's with me and they were a little large for them to take I guess, kept getting lovely little bite shaped holes in the bread but no hook taking.

What were they?? 99.9% they were two banded sea bream (Diplodus vulgaris). Very distinct with the 2 stripes and unlikely to be anything else.

http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.php?id=1754

Definitely not the white sea bream which only has the one black mark, the guys I saw had a very distinct black stripe across the gill plate area as well as the wrist of the tail.

Here's the white bream for comparison: http://www.fishbase.org/summary/Speciessummary.php?id=1753


The bass trip last night was equally as unsuccessful. Had 2 bites all evening on crab. 1 west coast and one when I was chattin to Sausage, East coast which both resulted in naff all.

I may go in the week but I have an order of Mackerel and Beaks for next Sunday for a big BBQ with the boys from the Missus' work so I guess that's what I will be doing next Saturday...

Roll on Autumn!!