Sea Angling for Spearos

[foxfish]

You might have a point Dave but a few years ago we ( the national mullet club) were putting coloured elastic bands on the tail wrist of the mullet we caught & released. At least some of the fish were re-caught & some you could see in the same area until the bands fell off. No idea with the bass though?

 

[atomichaggis]

I can't say I know nearly enough about bass to comment on their behaviour but I know that trout take up residency in the same spots as they spawn in the same waters as do salmon. Its no secret that You can thin out a population of salmonids by taking too many from the same fjord/loch or river.
Bass are probably just as vulnerable in their spawning grounds and its just lucky that its not in the same shallow feeding grounds that everyone fishes for them.

As for the DB carlisle piece I don't think it suggests that spearing wipes out resident bass... following all the old wisdom on fish when you pluck the big guy out of the good spot the next one strolls up and takes his place... The next one being a part of that same resident population of fish.
I think what you are hearing is some anglers with something against spearos twisting some fairly meaningless fish behaviour into a case against spearing... don't expect facts, accepted wisdom or plausible theories to get in the way of a good rant

 

[Pav]

Magpie and Foxfish have come to my (and more to the point Mr X's) rescue, so you should now be able to enjoy the full image.

I will leave it for Mr X to evaluate the collection of lures fully

 

[Mr. X]

Excellent Pav! Not unlike the inside of my tackle box. Would make a great screen saver! I wonder how many quids worth of Rapala's there are in that display, certainly hundreds perhaps thousands. Is it like one of those seafood restaurants where you pick the one you want & they fish it out of the tank for you.

Dave, I don't supposed you have a 70cm Rabitech Apex tucked away down there in Cornwall do you?

 

[atomichaggis]

Victory!!!

 

[Mr. X]

Victory!!!

Excellent news...ahead of next year's general election (cynical ol' me). Watch out for the follow up announcements though, the govt. often put out a good news story ahead of a bad news story they want to bury (e.g. EU bans sea anglingrofl). And there was this:

"Mr. Salter who is the Labour spokesman for angling, said that he remained committed to the principle of a rod licence for all forms of recreational fishing..."

I was in a large Sainsburys today (unusual) and took the opportunity to look over the fish. I got big whole salmon (half price, Norwegian farmed, all fins intact & clear eyes) - lovely fish, like a big fat bass or mullet (suffering withdrawl symptoms). Also got some fresh sardines, herring and a few oysters (50p each). Not long now, a new trigger mech. is on its way.

 

[land shark]

http://www.worldseafishing.com/news/nfsa_19032008.shtml

Victory!!!http://www.worldseafishing.com/news/nfsa_19032008.shtml

http://www.worldseafishing.com/news/nfsa_19032008.shtmlhttp://www.worldseafishing.com/news/nfsa_19032008.shtml

kool guys! its great to see the sportsman telling it like it really is.

 

[ADM]

Went bass fishing again. Unfortunately only one bass bite/run and missed him. I was also (un)fortunate enough to land this slimy little fella whom I was a little upset with for eating my enormous verm bait meant for something tasty.

Bait digging weekend and also time to play with my new toy and stock up on lead. Metal detector has arrived and reacts very well to lead so I'm off down the beach to find all my leads and no doubt a lot of others from the other bass anglers who fish in my areas.

Apparently I am also taking the nipper treasure hunting (that'll be for lead then!! rofl)

 

[atomichaggis]

Excellent news...ahead of next year's general election (cynical ol' me). Watch out for the follow up announcements though, the govt. often put out a good news story ahead of a bad news story they want to bury (e.g. EU bans sea anglingrofl). And there was this:

"Mr. Salter who is the Labour spokesman for angling, said that he remained committed to the principle of a rod licence for all forms of recreational fishing..."

I was in a large Sainsburys today (unusual) and took the opportunity to look over the fish. I got big whole salmon (half price, Norwegian farmed, all fins intact & clear eyes) - lovely fish, like a big fat bass or mullet (suffering withdrawl symptoms). Also got some fresh sardines, herring and a few oysters (50p each). Not long now, a new trigger mech. is on its way.

The idea of a license that promises good sport isn't all bad... but it's a long way up to the standards of Norway or Iceland so I can't see it materialising without a large commercial no take zone for recreational anglers.

It's those farmed Salmon that are responsible for decimating wild Salmon stocks. The farms harbour the lice that eat the wild fish alive

 

[atomichaggis]

kool guys! its great to see the sportsman telling it like it really is.

Gotta enjoy these little victories... usually a sting in the tail tho.

 

[atomichaggis]

Went bass fishing again. Unfortunately only one bass bite/run and missed him. I was also (un)fortunate enough to land this slimy little fella whom I was a little upset with for eating my enormous verm bait meant for something tasty.

Bait digging weekend and also time to play with my new toy and stock up on lead. Metal detector has arrived and reacts very well to lead so I'm off down the beach to find all my leads and no doubt a lot of others from the other bass anglers who fish in my areas.

Apparently I am also taking the nipper treasure hunting (that'll be for lead then!! rofl)

View attachment 18167

That a Rockling ADM?
Treasure hunting for lead... could only be an angler rofl

 

[ADM]

It is a rockling. I'm not an expert on them. Could be a three bearded (up to 3lb odd)but think it's a shore rockling (up to 1lb odd). Hard to ID from the picture.

 

[Mr. X]

The idea of a license that promises good sport isn't all bad... but it's a long way up to the standards of Norway or Iceland so I can't see it materialising without a large commercial no take zone for recreational anglers.

That would be nice but with the emphasis on reducing carbon footprint & high fuel costs & taxes, I would think professional fisherman are going to be increasingly fishing closer to shore . However, I can imagine the govt. pretending to do something like that so they can create a stealth tax license. I'm also VERY concerned about giving up ancient rights like this so lightly.

It's those farmed Salmon that are responsible for decimating wild Salmon stocks. The farms harbour the lice that eat the wild fish alive

Yes, I normally avoid farmed fish for that very reason and because of the destructive harvesting of the feed from the seabed, esp. if it's from the radioactive seabed of the Irish sea). The fish on display were gutted but otherwise intact - and looked in very good condition (unlike the lice infested, fin damaged specimens we often see on TV). All fins intact, good clear eyes, scales, etc. -- perhaps antibiotics in the feed and/or careful selection? I couldn't believe how over-packaged Sainsbury's products were, inc. the fish & prawns - after all the recent green talk & limited garbage collection, I was shocked at the amount of wasteful packaging used for the majority of products throughout the store. When I came to cut up the fish, the bag was very heavy gauge plastic (too good for one use food packaging), a thick corrugated plastic back board (like those real-estate agent signs) and even the soft "tissue" padding at the back turned out to be 2 layers of plastic with plastic foam in between:rcard. None of this would normally be recycled. I'm going to try to find a use for some it.

Foxfish - what is that new gun shown as your Avatar?

 

[foxfish]

Arr yes the "red" gun http://forums.deeperblue.net/diy-homemade/76455-more-mamba-mods.html

 

[Mr. X]

After a delayed start, due to a few hours of heavy snow this morning, managed to visit the Dorset coast today. The journey down was weird. Dry one minute, sleet the next, then heavy rain, then dry, then snow, etc.. We thought about turning back several times - fortunately we didn't. Was surprised that Dennings was open so we managed to buy some worms. Arriving on the low tide we had a look at Portland Bill. The wind was out of the West rather than the north as forecast, so we explored the east side, which was a bit of a scramble & a little unsatisfying. The sea was ripping south and the wind blasting from the west, didn't seem practical to bait fish with our light gear so tried out a few lures. The wind provided super casts getting close the mono backing every time, even with the small ones. I tried out one of my big American poppers a big silver-blue cigar Hurricane lure - identical to a Cotton Codura - it cast an incredible distance...although I was surprised that it sat flat in the water (most poppers are weighted at the back) looking rather stick like, even with the small muppet on the tail hooks.

Weymouth Panorama - Portland Bill - Pulpit Rock

After coffee & cake, visit COC. Quite pleasant & the water was fairly clear & the sky blue. A better location for us, although still no sign of fish. Tried several lures out including a bright American fluoro, big lipped diver - which was the poorest casting lure of the day. The modern lures like the Marias & Daiwa TD pencil cast much better even though smaller. Lost my fav. lure when briefly distracted by "goings on" on the beach - snagged on the far side a boulder . Then it started raining. So headed back to Portland Harbour/Sandsfoot Castle for quick look around. Decided to try drowning a few worms, as the sand showed lots of worm casts, using AtomHaggis-style flattie rigs. The rigs work very well, not snagging and allowing the bait to float just above the floor/rocks/weed - but still no sign of fish. Was a little disappointed as the location looked promising, the tide was right, the bait & rig was right & the light was starting to change. Couldn't stay long though, left around 6pm - probably too early? There were kids larking around in the sea at around 5pm wearing trunks/bikinis - crazy - just before it started to rain again - time to leave.

Good to be out fishing, after two days of pottering around (had hoped to fish yesterday). I made up a 3-snood paternoster rig yesterday (hoping to increase bite probability -- and no doubt tangles) but didn't have the opportunity to try it & forgot to try the Heddon Saltwater Spook.

 

[atomichaggis]

Plenty of fish here last week or so, nothing of great size tho. had some good Seatrout fishing some days and loads of small cod, whiting and dabs and plenty of crap snowglobe style weather... except yesterday which was warm(above freezing) and sunny.

Been trying out paternoster rigs with 8" jelly worms as the attractors in place of tubing and beads etc... results have been good so far, got hit on a retrieve a number of times too.
Tied some more tonight with short doubled snoods so the worm hangs up in the water a bit as opposed to on the ground like the long flowing ones I tried earlier , I've got a feeling the fish gonna like them.

 

[ADM]

No fishy reports as yet, that will be tonight but to continue from somethign above re the metal detector, I used it today and stocked up on some lead. Someones been using massive great things casting off the sea wall where I was!!... Also found some weird looking scrap, one of them looks like a peg and maybe the longer thinner one is a fire poker?? Maybe?? Also found some very large very rusty bits of metal and some old chain as well.

 

[foxfish]

Interesting catch Andy - & more giltheads being caught I here!

 

[Mr. X]

Nice collection of leads ADM. You'll never need to buy another by the look of it

...Been trying out paternoster rigs with 8" jelly worms as the attractors in place of tubing and beads etc... results have been good so far, got hit on a retrieve a number of times too.
Tied some more tonight with short doubled snoods so the worm hangs up in the water a bit as opposed to on the ground like the long flowing ones I tried earlier , I've got a feeling the fish gonna like them.

I have some jelly worms, mainly black with red tails. What do reckon will take them, pollock/flatties? Are you also using bait for scent? I wasn't sure what sort of hooks to use for jelly worms. I've used lead-heads before (I thought it was mad but recently saw this high a a list of the top 50 lures in the USA!). In the US they have special hooks with a kink near the eye for jelly worms -- saw a video on you tube about how to use them. I was thinking maybe a biggish Aberdeen or circle (only because I have quite a lot of them) but I think rubber eels, which are similar, usually have pretty large, strong hooks (O'Shaunessy?).

 

[ADM]

Well I went out west armed with verm and big hooks.

Seems the hooks weren't big enough...

1st cast, tap tap thump, fish on, not fighting much but fighting, in it comes with no hassle, bass, little one of 41cm about a lb and a half.



Cast again and again, same thing tapping away, strike, this feels heavier but not really fighting. Turns out to be another bass almost identical size but foul hooked through the gill plate and bleeding very badly. Decided to keep this one as just about legal and not likely to survive.



Cast again and yet again tap tap... I've found me a good spot here he thinks, lets hope for a larger one... Alas no, no fight at all and on the retreive I can hear it skimming the surface. I did think it necessary to weigh this one but nope, he was a few ounces short...



4th cast... theme here but this bite was different. Big whacking take, no mucking about, strike fish on and then stuck fast. *&*%$^ I said... Could feel the fish for a moment as the lead must have been stuck, the moments it took to break the lead off and the fish was gone. Bum.

5th cast was another smaller rockling and I gave up soon after.

All caught on verm and all on 8/0 pennel rigs. As you can see bass don't care about hook size!!

Best think about bed soon but hay fever has taken over this weekend so not feeling great.

Work tomorrow and no qualifier for the pairs weekend