September was a really fun month and the summer’s good weather has just kept on rolling making for lots of opportunities to get out on the water. This time last yer I held a recreational catch and release license for Blue Fin Tuna. It was incredibly exciting and the fishing was an unbelievable experience. This year I wasn’t lucky in the draw and so no license. This time last, year the Tuna season moved towards its peak the wind blew and blew making it really difficult to get out on the water, or at least really hard to get offshore safely to where the tuna were feeding. This year it’s been really calm so the day’s could have increased significantly but you know what, I really haven’t missed it. Not having the tuna obsession has meant I’ve stayed inshore, I’ve fished for species much closer to home, I’ve not been steaming over the horizon and I’ve been having so much fun. AND, I can take the occasional fish home for tea!
The Bass fishing this year has been really good to me. I’ve explored some new marks and enjoyed some really fruitful sessions. I’ve kept things really simple and spent a lot of my time simply towing lures behind the boat. Initially towing lures was to try and find a few fish, a bit of protecting if you like. You can cover a lot of coastline fairly quickly and whilst it would be wrong to dismiss any stretch of water, where you do find fish, you can concentrate your efforts there. Having done a lot of spear fishing in my life, I’ve just just how localised shoals of bass can be. They will favour a spot that ticks all their boxes and often they won’t stray very far from this unless they are disturbed. These honey holes can look a lot like a spot nearby but for whatever reason, they stay put over a particular mark and they can be found there time and time again. This of course is the downfall for a lot of fish. These spots don’t just exist inshore they can be found offshore too, within the reaches of trawlers and with the accuracy of modern fishing equipment, they can be targeted over and over again until the fish are gone. Anyone seen an mackerel lately..? I digress.
Having located some Bass by simply towing lures behind the boat I then stopped the boat and moved to a traditional drift and started casting lures. Could I catch one!? Nope! But when I went back to towing gear back over the very same spots, the bites came again. Clearly the fish were there, but I was getting my presentation wrong. I’ve been a few times and still struggle to catch them by casting but by towing gear the fishing has been excellent. It does make the fishing a little less involved in the boat I’m just taking a rod out of a holder and winding the fish in when it bites but it is still up to me to get the tow position and speed right so I do have some influence.
My kids have been able to join me in the calm weather and their sea legs have really developed. They enjoying the lure fishing and some bait fishing when we move on to the reefs. These are covered in Comber which given they used to be a rarity is quite incredible. They are the new pouting! I wonder how long into the year they will stay. We’ve also caught, well, the boys have also caught some Red Mullet on recent trips which is another new species for the boat. The new species we’d love to catch up with is the Bonito that have been showing up. The bigger fish seem to be further west but they are small ones closer to home. It looks like brilliant fishing and I look forward to having a proper search for them in the future.
I vowed that I would do some Carp fishing this autumn having done pretty much none this year and very little in recent years save for a few days surface fishing here and there. It’s been years since I cast out baits on the bottom and set the rods on alarms so the first trip out was definitely a bit rusty… However, it started to come back to me and having stripped all the unnecessary kit from the bulging carp tackle box, it all started to click. Carp fishing these days is associated with long sessions, over nights and civvies and even weekends away from the family. No matter what the species, I’m still trying to make it work in a couple of hours by there water after work or early in the mornings. I’ve been fortunate to catch a couple and it’s been really enjoyable. The last time I’d put any time into Carp fishing I’d started to get drawn into making rigs overly complicated. Before getting going this year I looked at what had worked for me over the years, had a look at what was available to me now (there’s everything you can think of and more!) and came up with a plan. If I’d made things overly complicated I could always adjust what I was doing but I wanted to go for the easy option first. It’s kind no surprise that a rig that was completely stripped of all the clutter has been brilliant. With modern razor sharp hooks so much of the carp work has been done for us so that alongside a decent bait cast quietly into the right place has worked, like it always did and always well.
