Couple of Early Morning Starts

During the last few days Derek and I have been out early morning fishing leh gutter, but the sight of longliners laying line after line.

Yesterday the weather was more overcast and a bit more breeze than today seemed to make it easier to catch fish on the surface. We took a number up to 3.5lbs I think we had 7 at lehg  before moving back to EC where we had a further 6 fish.

Today was a different matter with only 1 fish coming from LEHG, as the area was surrounded by longliners we made our way back to EC. This time I tried a Sakura Magic Eeel that Tom from Monster Tackle had given me to try.

Immediately I was taking fish compared to Derek who was trying the shimmer eels. I took fish fish before Derek took another.. We had a total of 9 fish this morning. This will be my last post until Mid September

Bad Day Good Day

Sorry if this post is a bit long but probably my last for a few weeks whilst I take a well deserved holiday from fishing. Out with Derek today no that is not the bad day but having seen a diver out and about whom we know he took great pleasure in coming up to our boat to show us a double figure bass that he had shoot in the head and was now in his cool box. Well done Mike Shearer as we said at the time it is alway great to see a dead bass laying in the bottom of the boat.

Clearly he realised our disgust and left us to get on with our fishing

The day started as per normal with most fish coming on surface lures

.
A couple of good fish attempted to take the surface lures but missed, I took a smaller fish on a plastic prawn once again,(sorry Tom no photo as it spat the lure when it was netted.

Just after low tide with about 12 fish  having been caught I went back to my shimmer eel, fished again slowly I took a couple of smaller fish up to 2lbs. I then had a gentle pluck as I let the eel fall then the fish that was on decided it was going to swim in a different direction. The drag on the van staal was as smooth as ever, and it is times like this you appreciate the quality of the reel. The fish went off on a number of good runs in the 8ft of water.

The first glimpse of the fish and Derek said it was about 4-5lbs what does he know any way. Eventually netted it weighed in a 9lbs on the BASS tape.


The fish being returned hopefully not for a diver to shoot through the head.

More Surface Caught bass

Another day of drizzle which got us pretty wet as we heade for the south east corner of Jersey. We started at the usual spot and picked up 4 bass around the 2lb Mark, I had my own a surface fished Nanjo that Andy Kendrick sent me over to try out. Thanks Andy I am always willing to try new stuff out.

The fish became difficult to find compared to yesterday and clearly favoured surface lures to anything else we offered them

Derek had a nice fish of about 3.5llbs on a surface lure followed by another around the 4.5lb mark

Later we saw a lot of terns diving and the sea was alive with sandeels. It sounded like rain on the surface, but not a fish amongst them. We had a total of 13 fish today.Out by myself tomorrow in a different area so less fish expected

drizzle and wind

The forecast was not good as we prepared for another day fishing , the wind blowing just under a force 4 westerley and a heavy drizzle was begining to descend. A lovely August day,

I rigged my rods up whilst waiting for Derek my HPR rod with keitech sexy impact the other one at this stage with a small Sakura eel both of which Monster tackle had given me to try. I have to say that the Keitech stuff is really working at the moment, I would not have tried them at this stage but probably remained using our shimmer eels.



We arrived at a mark where we knew that fish remained for a short time, and this remained the story for most of the day moving from reef to reef knowing from the knowledge that we have built up when fish were likely to be there. Derek was quickly into a bass of around 2lb on his surface lure whilst I took a fish on my Keitech sexy impact fished on a worm hook with a small bullet lead. Both of us picked another fish each this way.



Derek netting a small fish

The fish were all up to around the 3lb Mark and I think we had 7 in a fairly short period of time. The strange thing was that at one reef they would only take surface lures, whilst the next only sub surface and then a mixture so it was difficult to decide what to use. I tried my patchinko out and this produced a few more fish but a lot of misses including a couple of decent fish.Derek had put on a sidewinder tail on a jig head and was immediately into fish.


As the tide turned we noticed a lot of terns diving etc in the distance and I put on another Keitech lure a shad impact and immediately hooked into a fish.


The fish continued to bite for a short while then disappeared, then 5 minutes later the terns would show you where there were again.

I even had a tail bitten off the shad impact



Total for the day was 25 Bass up to 3lbs a couple of larger fish lost and some mackerel and Pollack.

Thanks Century

Just a quick post to thank Century rods for sending me those free gifts through the post. It is much appreciated and will be used. If any other people want to send me tackle to try out and to give it a fair and honest appraisal let me know

Century HPR Rods

Having had the chance to test these rods during their design phase, thanks to Keith White, I thought I give my honest opinions on this rod.

I am not one for saying things are good if they are not and was some what sceptical about the hype surrounding the rods, I am new to the style of fishing that these rods are designed for but they can cope with a wide range of lure fishing methods.

I had the chance last week to try the finished product thanks to Tom at Monster Tackle who dropped off a 7'3 equal butt size rod to me.The first thing I said to Tom was is the rod in the bag as it seemed so light. The next day was the first time I had used the finished product, since I had relunctantly given up the prototype a few months earlier.

I set the rod up with my Van staal vs 100 I am not a great fan of quoting line pe and flouro strength etc as I know what I can use without getting into trouble with knots etc. I was using a variety of soft lures using my favourite method of a worm hook and 2 split shot further up.

Casting light soft plastics is easy with rod and bite detection is also superb, feeling every little knock. The weight system makes the rod feel weightless in your hands. This is great if like me you are fishing every day, whilst almost everyday.

I know people have been critical of people behind the design of this rod but this should not influence whether people should buy this rod or not. You cannot knock the quality of the product I believe Century have a winner in this product. I could go on about build quality and the type of resin etc but all I am interested in is if the rod does the job and does the job well. Well this rod does

Early bird catches the Bass

early start at 0545 this morning just on low tide overcast drizzle, we made our way to lhg where numerous fish up to 2lbs were caught on surface lures, before moving further up where Derek took a nice fish of 5lbs whilst I took one of around 3.5.

As the tide came in we tried near Rhino and I picked a fish of around 3lbs on a keitech lure from Monster tackle

A total of 26 fish came to the boat a good day out.

Prawns are working

Having been given some plastic prawns to try out bt Monster Tackle I decidec to give them a try, second cast resulted in a small fish taking a natural coloured lure at the crossover between gig and lhg we had a few more on surface and also a couple of nice pollack on flourescent red prawns

A great week

Well it has been a fairly good week for fish and we have numerous fish up to 4.5lbs,I have been out with Derek, Paul Butel and visiting angler Stewart Gowland.

Fishing with Derek we have found that the surface lures seem to be working well at the moment and fish have been caught at the lagoon and the point

Fishing with Paul Butel resulted in a swift 4 fish at the cut through between GIG and LHG we then proceeded to take 13 Bass around the IT area. Plus a 4lb pollack at twin heads.

Stuart was slightly unlucky as the weather was hot and flat calm but 4 fish came to the boat most in LHG at the turn of the tide.

I am getting a new century rod from http://www.monstertackle.co.uk/ Tom from the company could not be more helpful, I have ordered other bits and bobs from this company and the service have been excellent