Sea Angling for Spearos

Nice fish jonny. What lures did you catch the mullet & bass on it (if its not secret!)?

I was going spearing today but dodgy forecast, aches & pains, tiredness & no positive reports on the Dorset thread, so opted not to. However, it gave me the opportunity to order some gear.

After checking out a few more rods, including the Shakespeare mackeral feather rod -- 2-4oz price stiffer than spinning rods price 10 pounds! -- what a great product for holiday fishing. I think it might have suited my needs quite well, as feathering is likely what the in-laws will do. However I opted to go with the rod that first caught my attention a Shakespeare Tidewater carbon rod. Although concerned that the slightly longer 11.5ft 2-piece bass rod might be hard to pack in a car, I opted for that over the 11ft 3-piece MPV rod after playing with my old 13ft 3-piece coarse rod. It reminded me, as Davy pointed out, that 2 piece rods are better: easier to carry, set up & break down, less hassle, less weak points, etc.. So Shakespeare Tidewater Bass rod it is, 11.5ft, 2-4oz, 2-piece, carbon. Price 21 pounds + p&p from Jims.

I took the opportunity to order some odds and ends. Eddystone eels, mainly larger sizes this time. Various types of "feather" rigs. And mono. Could never understand why some anglers had spools and spools of mono, well, now I is one! I got some Amnesia for making rigs & eel traces (for power balling, etc.) that don't tangle. Some red 40lb shock leader for the new rod. Another holo. blue Shakepeare slim jim (my fav. toby/bar).

Also, I visited the local charity store yesterday and found a filleting knife & a neat little Kitchen Devil sharpener, like 2-mini sharpening irons crossed in a plastic handle - works great. Total cost, 1 pound and helps local charities too.

Now very keen to get to the sea -- unfortunately a week of work first & the tides next week won't be as good as this week. Poo!

BTW my brother mentioned today that some of his colleagues caught 100 cod on a recent rod fishing trip off the Isle of Wight. Apparently some others caught 200 (boat angling with rods). I pointed out that cod are a species under threat but he thought they probably took them home. To be fair, he has told me on many earlier occasions that the same guys have gone and caught nothing at all. I think that puts the negligible impact of spear fishing into perspective. I'm happy with one fish, two fish is a good day, any thing else is beyond expectations. None is not uncommon.

felipe felop said:

KIDS IN A TOYSHOP/LUREFISHERMAN.
HarrisSportsmail.com - Fishing Tackle and UK Largest Lures Supplier. Buy Online. Same Day Shipping. UK, Ireland, Europe Mail Order drool over this gear/ its a great site,they also own there own fishing hotel in belize that you can book,for some of the best unspoilt gamefishing on the planet,THEY ARE HAPPY FOR YOU TO GO SPEARFISHING AS WELL 'COS ITS SUSTAINABLE

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Hardy gear sure is pretty but I can't help feeling that more than half the cost is to ensure exclusivity. Somebody kindly offered to buy me a Hardy trout bag for Christmas but it would be wasted on me. Shakespeare make similar products to those shown of a lower but reasonable quality and at a much lower cost (looking at the waders & wading boots, fly fishing bags, rods and reels). As mentioned above, you can get kitted out with carbon fly rod, reel, line, fly, flybox, tippets for £50. Fly fish in the sea for free, or get the May edition of Field Magazine (a good mag) for tips on finding affordable (even free) fly fishing in the UK. Yes, it's nice to have all the frills, but often you can get the experience for much less.

Now, where is my Stella reel and Antilles rod?! I'm orf to Belize

Re. cod. Not sure of the details as I got the info. second hand. Will try to find out more. I'm sure they would have returned any undersize fish (but included them in the count) as they were likely on a proper chartered fishing boat. Isn't there sometimes an issue with burst swim bladders though?

The new Shakespeare Tidewater Bass rod arrived last night. For some reason I find it hard to get excited about a rod without a cork handle! It looks very good though, although a couple of things struck me: it's pretty darn long - probably not ideal for the beginners that will be using it - & the broken down sections are 6 feet long, which will making packing challenging. Wondering if the 3-section MPV version, which is also a tad shorter might have been a better fit for my needs. BTW I managed to contact a guy at Shakespeare & he said he used a Salt MPS (the model up & 2 section) for all his rock & shore work -- although his response arrived after the order was placed.

The Tidewater rod has a nice grey carbon finish & the rings look v. similar to those fitted to my Royalty spin rod, albeit larger (they're lined and seem to work fine with mono & braid). The black rubber handles are a little better than I expect & the no-name reel fitting works nicely. Over all, the finish was good, better than I expect except that the spigot joint has about 2" or more of inner joint showing after assembly -- is that normal?! Do I need to force it in more?? I can do force but I tend to break things. I think the cheaper slide over joint on my Royalty looks better; spigot joints are/were optional and extra cost on the Royalty. BTW the Royalty has now become the Royalty Trion, although the price has gone up a little, the only difference I can spot is that it no longer uses a name-brand, Fuji, reel seat -- so less for more? Perhaps they are using a new blank.

The rod is quite stiff, I guess it has to be to handle 2-4oz. It feels heavier than expected yet the rod is light. After some experimentation I found this is because the rod is balanced when the top section is not fitted, once you add the top section it becomes very tip heavy - making the rod feel heavy. My old coarse rod had the old sliding rings - so I always set it up to be balanced, so these fancy new fixed reel fittings seem to give an inferior result to me - but perhaps rods are not supposed to feel balanced in the hand?

Question: I fitted the Leeda 60 surfcaster reel & added 40lb fluoro red shock leader to the existing line (can't recall what line it has loaded, probably clear 12-14lb mono) - to handle 2-4oz weights. It's a bit of a pain, being really thick & stiff, it won't stay under the spool's line clip. Not sure what, goes on beyond that. I reckon the brothers-in-law will do some mackeral feathering - should I attach the feathers directly to the shock leader or should I fit some mono in between? Seems like the latter would make life easier but the dangling end length longer and/or add more knots to go through the rings.

[BTW I used a trick out of sea angler magazine to attaching the shock leader, bulbing the ends with a lighter & tying the thinner mono around that.]

Brilliant responses. Thankyou. Getting expert advice like this is - incredible.

Relieved to hear about the spigot. re. transport, you're probably right. I currently fold down a seat in either car and the rodbag touches the front seat and back door, it should be possible to arrange something. No, you wouldn't mistake the larger car for a Smart car (or, as the one I passed today said on the back, "Smart @rse"). I once saw Mike Ladle packed his 11ft rod into his tiny car, without breaking it down. Afterwards it struck me as impossible -- still haven't figured that one out. How on earth do you get 10ft sections into a Ka??? The problem is, I might have a full car this Summer as some of the in-laws will join us. Also, we normally pack the car pretty full with bedding, clothes, spearing gear, kayak gear, fishing tackle, lobster pots, food, etc. AND put the double kayak and 2 sets on paddles on the top. I'm thinking the roof rack might be the way to go. Gulp!

Re. the blob, interesting. I superglued it too but I take your point about it weakening the line. Now you mention it, I have seen the knot Magpie described, like a thumb knot in the thick line & the main knot in the thin line. Had forgotten about that. Was thinking the blob (as shown regularly in Sea Angler) would be the lowest profile join and so less likely to catch in the rings - perhaps the larger weights make that a non-issue.

Yes, I already use a rubber band on the spool although the shock leader seems to have a life of its own.

Re. the reel seat. Funny you say that, because comparing the Salt & Tidewater rods, the main difference in spec. is Fuji name-brand parts in the Salt - both rods looked ugly to me (no cork handle!) in the pictures although the Tidewater looks better "in the flesh". It did occur to me that it might be better to get non-name parts than bottom of the range name-brand parts. The reel seat does seem to be better than average, very positive, crisp action, not loose - at least on a par with the Fuji reel seat on my Royalty spin rod.

That just leaves the balance issue. The news is not so good on this one. I tested balance with the reel in place. I normally hold the rod around the base of reel, incase the reel clamp fails (force of habit, not wanting to loose my Abu reel as a child, after my brother bounced his into the canal). So the reel is at the pivot fulcrum -- or where I would like the pivot point to be. However the centre of gravity is way forward of the reel. I reckon Magpie's suggestion about sticking a 2oz weight in the back end would fix it - ever practical. The weight savings of carbon fibre will be lost but it will probably feel lighter. Perhaps balance is one of the less obvious details lost in cheaper rods. Surprised they don't just mount the handle a foot or so higher though. Perhaps I'm missing something:hmm As AtomicHaggis said, dangling a 2oz weight from the tip will obviously increase tip weight further.

foxfish said:

Interesting point about spigot joints - I can see the logic of the joint having a cap to allow for wear but I have never used a rod long enough to see the joint close up!
In the good old days of fiberglass 484s they had a s/s screw down spigot!!

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Funny, I had a yellow hollow fibre glass float rod at one time. I had forgotten all about it, I think it must have broken as it is not around anymore. It had spigot joints but I'm pretty sure they fit flush. Perhaps they'd been cut down or maybe fibre glass didn't wear much?


Yes, I remember stainless steel (and other strange metal) spigots. I picked up a very old childs fibre glass rod at the local charity shop for a pound a few weeks ago. Made in England. The tip ring fell off in my hand as I walked out of the shop! Its tiny, I was thinking I could use it for spinning from the yak but it is too flimsey. A half pound fish would bend it in half. Also, I think the reel seat is intended for one of those tiny old centre pin reels. Ok for minnow bashing at the cut I suppose. I've glued the tip & will give it back to the charity shop to sell again. As children, we used to have solid fibre glass spinning rods about 6 or 7 feet which we used for float fishing. I don't think I every caught anything with mine (don't even recall fishing with it) but they were quite good and would likely have handled most canal fish. Didn't try spinning until I got a float rod!

I'm convinced, I will switch to the shock leader knot described. BTW I have never seen an Allbright knot recommended for this purpose, which is what I use to join braid to thicker, stiffer mono. I would have thought the Allbright knot would give a slimmer, smoother profile.

Impressed by the Ka feat. Not quite on a par with the guy who lost his licence this week for driving with 12 people in this Volvo saloon (see what happens when you try to reduce your carbon footprint!).

While looking for a good link for the Shockleader knot, I came across these Angling discussions on shock leader knots in a similar vein:
* [ame=http://www.worldseafishing.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4766]Shock Leader Knots - World Sea Fishing Forums[/ame]
* best knot for tying a shock leader - have been advised but still not convinced what is the best way tyiny the shock leader to the main line all help would be most welcome (mrix is not MrX)
A similar knot to that suggested by Magpie, but different I think: Surfcasting Fishing Tackle
Another variant:
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F7toxq8884&NR=1]YouTube - shock-leader[/ame]
Another variant, "the Slim Beauty", looks robust:[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i-enG7tK7Y]YouTube - Adventure Bound - Gear Guide Slim Beauty Shock Leader Knot[/ame]
[There is another video of the Slim Beauty on you tube which is slightly different and described as an excellent replacement for the Bimini Twist when flyfishing for Tarpon!]

The variety of knots used for fishing, and all variants is mind boggling. The opposite of climbing where you can get away with one knot (double figure-8 or bowline) and 4 knots is enough for a lifetime of varied climbing (clove hitch, Italian Hitch, a prussik knot). If you tie your own gear, add the tape loop & double fishermans. Even the most fashionable "state of the art" joining knot for rappel/abseil is just the simplest thumb knot, tied in the doubled rope ends.

I tend to stick to the Palomar for hooks & swivels and the Allbright for joining. For small hook loops Palomar isn't practical, so I go back the simple old fishermans knot (I've seen it given at least 3 different names), although I now usually hook the end back under the final, main-loop in the modern manner - it's the easiest knot for me to tie in poor lighting, esp. as my near sight deteriated suddenly over the last year or so (age). I did use a Uni-knot for the "blob connections" described previously. I thought I'd used the Grinner before but browsing knots today, I find I had only half tied it. Seemed to work well enough, think I'll call that the half-Grinner!

I learnt the bimini twist yesterday! I thought that was the most complex of knots, and that I never would tie it but after watching 3 youtube videos, I got it. The best one is SA Reefman, who shows a slightly simpler and stronger improved version). Big game fishing here I come!
Similar, version but line drawings: How To Fish: The Bimini Twist
Seems like a lot of work to make a fixed loop though, I'd normally use the surgeons loop (thumb knot with an extra turn, tied in doubled line) - quick & simple enough to tie in the dark.