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Sea Angling for Spearos

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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great thread guys....
I personally thought that the lure you made Mr.X from the spoons' head can be doubled as a flasher .... and we can also use bright colored lures in flashers ..Extracting the hooks.
and here is a site that is really helpful on how to make your homemade lures:
Looking Fishing Homemade Lures And Fishing Trip Secrets?
those were just my 0.05 cents
correct me if I am wrong please!
 
Reactions: Mr. X
Thanks for all the interesting insights. I don't get to fish that often (and I have other interests) so a really fancy rod would be wasted on me. I will take a look at the Shakespeare catalogue - they usually have some interesting rods at reasonable prices. Just took a quick look at Jims, they carry several reasonably priced rods (as well as more expensive ones):
Shakespeare Tidewater Bass rod (2oz-4oz)
Shakespeare Salt MPV Rod (2oz-4oz)
Shakespeare Salt Bass Rod (2oz-4oz)
Leeda Northstar Bass Rod (2oz-4oz)
The Shakespeare IN2 Estuary Rod at (1oz-3oz) for £11.19 seems like quite a bargain. They also carry the Shakespeare MTI Bass Rod (3oz-4oz) for more than 10x the price at £119.99
Pity they don't yet fit coaster reel fittings on cheaper rods, I like the idea of positioning the reel for balance myself. Other than that, it is hard to see what the high-end rods offer over the middle of the range carbon rods, which usually have Fuji reel seats, lined Fuji rings & quite often spigot joints these days.

I notice all the bass rods have black foam handles. My previous rods all had cork handles, which I quite like.

Sounds like just the ticket ADM, although not sure yet about Guernsey. We're considering leaving the car at home & relying on the buses/Shanks' pony/taxi - is that practical? Maybe finding somewhere to stay close to beach/fishing/spearing is key.
 
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Reactions: Pastor
Mr.X,
I'd give the vast majority of cheap shakeys a miss. The real bargains are the odessa and predecessor and a couple of their old spinners... prolly more i never heard about (flylines are good too) but you gotta do your research. Ugly Stik range does what it says on the tin too... got an old faithful 20lb boat rod from the range.
Don't ever buy a shakey reel tho!!!!
 
Reactions: Mr. X
Mr X, I (& I am sure Andy & tom) have enough tackle for you to use if you ever make it over here. In fact I think we have enough to start a shop!
Buses are 60p a ride any where, but again we would be here to help.
The only problem is the f....g great trawlers fishing our stocks to oblivion!
 
I have been searching through my old photos, I found this one taken on new years day 1996!
 

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Reactions: Mr. X
Are we into one of those guess the mark again Foxfish??

Anyway, as Foxfish said Mr X and anyone else, if you are over here and want to do some dangling due to weather or something, just ask if you want to borrow a rod or whatever, much easier than trying to get your own here without a car. I have plenty... and Magpie has even more!!
 
Sod guess the mark, I'm still trying to guess the bloke! Doesn't look like a foxen?

Yeh, got one or two I suppose
 
Man, i keep seeing about those shakespeare selections you have on the other continent and i feel kind of bad. Those are considered low end here in the states. Maybe there is a brand quality difference from here to there.

Hey, i got an idea. Black market exchange: We acquire you some st. criox setups and you switch for mamba setups.We all win
 
octpora said:
Man, i keep seeing about those shakespeare selections you have on the other continent and i feel kind of bad. Those are considered low end here in the states. Maybe there is a brand quality difference from here to there.
Click to expand...

They are considered low end here too lol, I've often wondered why we get all the crap, they aren't doing themselves any favours.
The american shakey catalogue is painful to look through... need to get me one of their two handed baitcast sticks.
 
octpora said:
Man, i keep seeing about those shakespeare selections you have on the other continent and i feel kind of bad. Those are considered low end here in the states. Maybe there is a brand quality difference from here to there.
...
Click to expand...
I agree. The reels look cheesey. I never saw Shakespeare stuff in the states but you can pick up decent Shimano/Bassmaster/etc. gear in the USA very easily pretty much anyware (K-mart, Costco, Sportsmart, the big mail order warehouses,...). For the price you guys get premium brands in the USA, we get the dregs over here. Not only that but most angling stores I have visited here don't even carry Shimano gear - which seems crazy to me (and the prices charged on line/mail order are often staggering). [Although forum member Podge can provide gear at reasonable prices BTW].

That said, my Shakespeare Royalty carbon spinning rod has been good value. I find the tip a bit flimsey (but its probably intended to make it better for lighter lures/spinners) & the location of the reel seat seems unbalanced to me but it is super light, strong, has a decent Fuji reel seat & fuji lined rings. If I took the labels off, I doubt if most people could tell the difference between it and a Shimano rod. A good piece of equipment. I have other hobbies & interests (spearing for example), so part of the challenge for me is to do this inexpensively without compromising the experience. It should be possible to fish inexpensively (and simply -- although that comes with experience).

In the US, it seemed to be mostly short spinning rods 5.5ft-7ft, those are cheaper here (although still typically twice the USA price & with far fewer products on offer). There has always been something of an obsession with long rods in the UK, so 7ft-14ft is more normal here. It might be partially because it is far more common to fish from a boat in the US (in the UK we'd rather pay excessively high taxes than buy boats - we have a strong puritanical/self loathing/masocistic streak*). Although I think it is an obsessive thing too, as 11/12/13/14 foot match rods were standard equipment on the local canal (maybe 20 feet wide) growing up -- a 5.5ft spinning rod (or Ronco Pocket Fisherman) would have been sufficient!

Saw a small piece in the Sunday Telegraph this week. The govt. are planning to bring in some kind of sea fishing licence. Just when you thought the govt. couldn't get any worse ... it gets worse. (BTW Anybody else getting the feeling the country was grinding to a halt today, with several train lines & the M3 closed, M4 & other motorways backed up:head). Still, at least there is something good to watch on TV this Saturday evening:
Television puts Tony Blair on trial - Telegraph
First review: The Trial of Tony Blair | Media | MediaGuardian ... includes video clips
Despite what they say about George W. Bush, he did finally force peace on N. Ireland. I suppose that is what we got out of Iraq. [Asbestos suit on - flame awayrofl].
 
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Sorry mate but a 5ft rod would not be sufficient!

We use longer rods over here because the fishing is different. The short baitcaster rods in the US are used for flipping lures into weed beds after large mouth bass and the like, there is very little fishing like that in the UK, the closest being pike and perch spinning, for which many use similar tackle.

The match rods you have seen on the canals are that long for many reasons, line control, fish control, casting distance and control and many others. I'd love to see you trying to cast a 2bb waggler with a 5ft baitcasting rod...The tackle used is that which is best suited to the fishing being done.

Yes, you can catch fish on one of those short bright pink tourist specials, but you'll catch more and do so more efficiently and comfortably with the proper kit. (Example, you discovered your Leeda reel was too big for comfortable spinning eh)

PS. Bet I could tell the difference with one waggle :t
 
St. Croix Fishing Rods - Spinning, Casting, Saltwater, Fly Yes, they are pricey, but they bag the fish and hurl the lead. We tend to keep them for a decade at least before they wear out. Sorry, but the only dealers i see for over there are fly inclined.

Actually, we have got a thing for big rods here on the east coast- Especially around Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. There are a few spearos who know where that is i'd bet. If you ever come over for a competition or just to sit by the ocean where we use mullet for bait (i just heard a groan) there is an excellent selection of rods to be had in every shape and action, and even price range. For around 80 usd you can take back a sweet spinner rod. Shoot, thats about what we pay to have a good euro gun shipped to us if we know someone so kind. rofl One other brand comes to mind- tica-INDEX but it looks like only those in oz and usa have dealers. Good product and just a tad more costly than shakespeare.

Maybe i missed it earlier in the thread, but does anyone over there ever use the soft plastics geared toward the american bass fishing market? (sluggos or bass asassins) If you rig them with an ounce of lead shot about .6 meters up the line and a worm hook they are hard to get snagged and the action is a killer. I have always done best with that setup going after flounder and redfish. Cheap too!
 
Reactions: Mr. X
Mr.X,
Let me preach...
The short rods in the US are designed for casting stickbaits, spoons, weighted shads and other medium/heavy lures. They are used in the UK but they are not the sort of thing to float a maggot or spin with (too short and usually too stiff). They are perfect for pike and all saltwater predators tho (worthwhile fishing).
I use baitcasters between 5.5 and 7 ft paired with a daiwa viento for all my lure fishing here, I even do my light baitfishing with one too... The yanks are on to something.
I fish spoons as small as 10 gram for seatrout and lead stickbaits to 60 gram for cod and pollack effectively on one of my rods and with a 20-30 gram spoon, nothing casts further nor more accurately (consistently shames 11ft spinning rod).
Baitcasters are on a par with flyrods for pure enjoyment.
 
Reactions: Mr. X

We use plenty of plastics this side of the pond... jelly worms, grubs, shads etc.
Most common would probably be the shad, either internally weighted or to be attached to a leadhead. We cast the smaller weighted ones around 25 gram for pollack, bass etc and rig the big ones to leadheads around 350 gram to a kilo to jig for big codfish or troll for halibut. they are pretty popular with pike fishermen nowadays too.
I've got loads of jellies in my bag meself but I prefer spoons or bait in most situations.
 
The way i like to rig it, with the lead further up the line, longer plastics, or jellies, have a completely different, almost freaky action. The lead shot causes some commotion in the bottom if it gets to touch, but then the sluggo is out there waving at mr fishy. Mr fishy attacks. The effect is closer to bait than a leaded hook or jighead. I also like it because it gives more good lip hookups than swallows, like bait gives if you set the hook too late.




>========------------------------------ooo
 
Reactions: Mr. X
roflI'm sure you're right. I can hook the far side with my smallest, lightest lures & spinners using a 6.5ft spinning rod (the trick is not to!). The float gear is lighter though.
 
$80 sounds a lot to me, until I do the conversion - at current exchange rates that's about £40 (the low end of mid-range). For that money I have seen new Daiwa Whisker carbon 10/11 ft. spinning rods for sale on eBay.co.uk - they got snapped up pretty fast.

Interesting about the bass assassins - I've only seen them on eBay. I have had good luck trolling blue & white Eddystone eels (2 bass + 1 pollock), although I recently read white is good for bass, red for pollock, hi-viz orange for cod & black at dusk for pollock & bass. I have a couple of packets of different holographically-coloured weighted shads -- I reckon they should work but I've only tried one once. It did occur to me that they might worth trying for flatties after reading an article on "trolling marks" that atomichaggis posted a link to. Being heavy & relatively low snag (single hook, point up) it should be possible to drag them along a sandy sea-bed without too much risk of snagging (I mainly use poppers & sub-surface floating lures to reduce the risk of snags when bassing). I was toying with the idea of setting up one at the end a trolling mark (per the article) for the kayak -- but usually I kayak around rocks looking for bass - so would need to make a conscious effort to stop doing that!

So what do you look for in a good rod? How can you tell that you are getting something better than the cheaper ones? Many inexpensive carbon rods available now are so much better than the glass fibre rods we used to use - they include standard features that used to be the hallmark of higher end rods (screw-up Fuji reel seats, full cork handles, ceramic lined 1/2/3 legged Fuji rings, carbon blank). I'm wondering if the difference is shrinking/getting more subtle. For most equipment there is a law of diminishing returns -- after a certain point small improvements start to cost much more (for racing bikes it is interesting to cost out how much it costs to save weight in different ways -- $20-$200 per 50g is not uncommon). For you guys that live near the sea, it probably makes sense to get the best, you get so much use out of them -- but I fish with a rod perhaps 10 times a year & then only for an hour or so each time (and that split between spinning &, now, bait fishing).
 
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Interesting. I have long wondered if part of the reason the Americans have so many rods in the 5.5ft-7ft range might be something to do with the rhythm that tends to produce when reeling in -- perhaps it produces a particularly realistic lure movement?

Yes, I haven't noticed any gain in casting distance between the 6.5 foot Shimano & the 10ft Shakespeare. With a 20-28g lure, they seem to cast about the same distance as far as I can tell. I guess the 10 fter would more comfortably handle a 40g/50g/60g lure -- its rate 10-60g rather than 10-30g -- which probably would cast farther. A longer rod does help you reach over washed up weed & rocks -- which is a common problem here. It might also help landing bigger fish (I hope to find out one day ) or a string of mackeral.

The small rods are fun though & so easy to carry around. I wonder if a travel rod or telescopic might also prove useful. I've found in the past that I am far more inclined to carry small/light gear, consequently it gets used a lot more use (camera, phone, spearing float, etc.).
 
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