It Ate My Lure

It was my last day of Med fishing this week and I wanted to do something different so turned down the strength of the tackle – to what would be pretty light for UK Bass fishing – but still managed loads of the small 2kg BFT & Little Tuna that are around right now.

Couldn´t find anything big and unfortunately didn´t see the busting Tuna that were around on Monday.

Pulling lures saw multiple hook ups of all species…

Small Tuna are still everywhere and my recently made up lure combos are still working really well…

Brought approximnately 20 to the boat this morning – all released -also caught them on single lures, like the one below, and on small casting jigs.

Although it would be a real effort to blank right now the big fish proved elusive and there were no big surface frenzies like we saw on Monday

Try again in the morning…

I was about 7 years old when I caught my “most ever fish in a day”. I still recall it quite clearly – it was when Dad took me to The Isle, we fished off the jetty, it was a sunny day and Dad was super happy because he caught his first ever 10lb carp. I beat him pretty comprehensively though with 159 Carp and 9 gudgeon – the fact that my biggest was around 4oz didn´t matter as a kid back then…

History almost repeated itself today and if I´d stayed fishing any longer – and could count with the same mental clarity – I could proubably have beaten my old 168 fish record.

On this mornings trip the sea was packed with small 2-3kg Tuna. Everywhere.

Little Tuna came first, a mile or so from the harbour…

Small Bluefins were next, starting from 3NM onwards,..

I was trolling 4 rods all the time but found lures being hit faster than I could wind the fish in then get them back out again and had double, treble and even quadruple hookups.

I cast small metal lures for then but best of all fished small, walk the dog type surface lures on my Bass tackle and watched hoards of fish smash them on the surface.

Amongst the fish I landed was our first ever Skipjack Tuna – see those horizontal dark bars, quite different than Bonito, Bluefin, Little Tuna etc…

I lost count of the fish tally quite early in the morning and with sore arms wandered back to port at lunchtime feeling pretty happy.

On the way back I pulled a large 8″ lure, 2 medium 6″ lures and a small pink lure – similar to the orange and green one in the pics above. Only a couple of miles from port the smallest one was hit by something much bigger than all those fish above and came back with the hook bent/straightened. I don´t want to think what it was, even though I do have my suspicions… it´s just one of the reasons I´ll head out to the horizon again soon…

Back to one of our favourite places and the previous home of the boat, Shell Island.

With no boat this time the fishing would have to be different so I started with a before-sunrise, early morning wander to the harbour as the low tide turned and water started to feed into the lagoon.

I used my favourite Bass lure, a Lucky Craft Gunfish, casted behind the breaking waves, much like the one you see in the picture above and started the week with this small Schoolie…

Later in the week Brad and myself took a trip on the charter boat running from the harbour, Western Flyer. Although it is primarily catering for holidy makers catching Mackerel & Bream I avoided the lure of plenty of fish on feathers, briefly transitioned to the dark side and contrary to all the ethics of this blog… I used bait…:(

Freelining a live mackerel onto the reef – which is almost lure fishing – I had this nice Bass which later starred as lunch on the BBQ…

My favourite fishing though was undoubtedly on the sandy beach that runs from Shell Island right through to Barmouth, a mark we never really used to put much effort into.

After some rough weather early in the week Friday turned out to be the best day weather wise – sunny skies and no wind – so an almost flat, calm and clear sea. Bass were just offshore and pushing tiny whitebait into the shallows – all given away by small gulls and Terns plunging into the water to feed on them.

Wading waist deep into the light surf, maybe just 20-30 yards out, I launched this small metal lure into and around some emerging bait balls and managed several more Bass, similar in size to the one caught on the boat. Was also a pretty exhilerating way of catching them…

As regards the Bass fishing it all ended up as… Lures 3:1 Bait

All in all, a great week and very likely to see a repeat visit next year

As is now obligatory I took the first week of April as one of my annual breaks from work. Purely for fishing.

A couple of friends came down from the UK who helped massively – spotting the fish, positioning the boat, unhooking the fish, taking some pictures etc – is all so much easier when done as a joint effort than it is on your own.

No secrets to how I fished this week… casting big poppers at the passing Blue Fin Tuna.

What a week it was…! Across the four days we fished I had multiple strikes, hooked up and pulled the hook on three of them, watch fish hit the popper so hard they simply launched it airborne, got so close we almost run over them, had one on the first cast of the morning, another on the second cast and in the end brought four to the boat, all but one released boat-side.

A little collated go-pro footage tells a better story than I might ever write…

And some pictures…

Here´s one chasing down the popper, a heart stopping moment…

And some more boatside pics of what must be the greatest fish in the sea. Black, Gold & Silver…

Took Brad down to the shore in Portsmouth harbour this morning for some “walk the dog” lure fishing lessons …

Was definately an away from home 0-3 win for Spain with three of these…

Lesson 2 tomorrow….

Had one last try before what looks like a stormy weekend followed by going back to work next week. Found them slow today, with little interest in poppers so switched to a Duo Rough Trail Malice 130 lure. Had one take it but miss the single hook on the back but then hooked up a short while later. Popped it off at the side so not the best of pictures…

Sadly, maybe my last opportunity for a while… its been a fun Easter break.

That’s now 5 this Easter… if Carling did breaks from work…

Set out nice and early this morning, at a time most normal people are finishing off their nights dreams, but was faced a nightmare of a horrendous, lumpy sea ahead of me which kept speeds down to 6 knots & below. At one point I honestly thought of turning around, jumpimg in the car and driving South for a day on the Ebro…

Kept going but with a sea literally alive with waves found it hard to see fish like I had over the past week. White caps & seagulls looked all the same – just white markers on a sea of blue – but I kept looking.

Boat fuel is expensive and boats aren´t exactly the most frugal of vehicles so in the interests of maximising my fish/litre ratio have always hung a lure out the back whilst mooching around like this, trolling, looking for life & fish activity. Today, a tiny, little Bertox Natural Sardine…

Thought very little of it & expected exactly the same from it and as I saw gulls ahead of me started to gradually reel it in. Thats when I hooked up first, something seeing it far more interesting than me and snatching it just metres from the boat..!

Wasn´t a big fish, perhaps just 18-20kg but was a handful on quite light gear like this, a Saltiga 8000 with 50lb braid & 40lb leader. With just a single hook there was no need to bring onboard so I released it boatside.

Immediately after, and with Tuna Gods obviously looking down on me, could see dancing gulls no more than 100yds away so slowly approached, this time with the “big rod” ready.

Launched a popper close by the shoal which led to 4-5 big Tuna visibly pursuing it. First one lunged at it clearing the water completely but missed it whilst the second totally nailed it. On again after only 5 mins – luck of the gods…!

Put some serious heat on this one and it was in the boat in 20-25mins…

And todays hero of the day, again a Tackle House Feed 135mm, this time in total white, a colour I really like as it´s pretending to be nothing special…

Two in one day… 🙂

If its blowing…

Left the harbour very early again yesterday, as dawn broke.

Was fortunate to have a really calm sea ahead of me and quickly stumbled on a shoal of fish maybe 4nm out from Sitges, splashes in the water and Seagulls dancing above them the obvious markers of what lay below.

Crept up slowly so as not to spook them then the second cast was all it took to connect but this was immediately tougher than last weeks fish. Looking back at the Go-Pro we connected at 08:09…

Finally, at 09:46….

All on the same lucky lure as I used last week – Tackle House Feed 135mm Popper – this one now retired from active duty..!

Some collated Go-Pro footage, from the hook-up to just before the Go-Pro battery ran out, not that we were anywhere finished by then…

It is no coincidence that the last two Tuna I hooked up came at 07:30 and 08.09 – I think these fish are like many others and after a night of darkness feed heavily as dawn breaks.

They may also be less sensitive to our lines at this time which show more as the sun rises because I later made many other casts, right into similar breaking shoals, all without interest.

Once my arms recover I can test that theory again…

They actually started to arrive 2/3 weeks ago.

I tried for them from the off but no matter what lures I first flung at them, starting with small lures like these Bertox Natural Sardine soft plastic lures, Jackfin Pelagus & various metals, then moving up to Dual Adagios & Duo Pressbaits they just weren´t interested…

I had a go at sneaking out early in the morning, trying to catch them before breakfast – theirs and mine – but that didn´t work either…

I had pretty high hopes yesterday though as the sea was like glass, Tuna were breaking the surface everywhere but big lures, small lures, every design you could ever think off, all launched right into the feeding melee… again, damn, simply no interest…

Tried again this morning but it wasn´t ideal conditions. Far from it actually with a cold 20 knot wind pushing down from the North, but as Capt. Ralph once said, “if its blowing, we´re going”

Left Sitges at sunrise and was upon a shoal at just 2nm from the harbour but same as… simply no interest in anything I cast at them.

Mooched out a little bit further and after a few casts to several other busts, yet again without interest, spotted a flock of gulls moving North. Quick. Undoubtedly there were Tuna beneath then but these weren´t shoaling and pushing up small baitfish, they were behaving differently, they were moving.

I raced to catch up with them, eventually drawing parallel then launched a popper -Tackle House Feed 135 – just ahead of what I anticipated to be the head of the shoal.

It had barely touched the water when it was smashed by a Tuna going airbourne, taking it completely out of the water. We´re on..!

Adrenaline immediately kicks in when you connect and initially there´s a million and one things going on in your mind… am I still tight to the fish, is my drag set right, wheres the Go-Pro, wheres the camera, I must get a picture, I still need to wind in the other rod I stupidly left trolling, it´s going under the boat, the engine is still on, how long will this last, my line is near the propellors, I need to physically hang on somewhere because it´s rough and I´m either falling down or over-board. Unnecessary mental badness slowly proliferates too, shit – the Go-Pro won´t turn on, where´s the landing net, damn – a tackle box fell off the bait well and now there´s lures all over the floor, I´m gonna lose it…

Beyond the chaos and excitement you eventually find yourself in this zone where nothing matters – only that fish on the end of your line. Your line too… right now thats maybe 100m out, stretched out so tight you´ll hear it whistling in the wind, only fractions of a millimetre thick and all thats standing between glory & devastating disappoinment. If there´s ever a time to doubt the integrity of your knots and your tackle it´s here and now.

Furthermore, the simple aspect of Time works very differently when you are hooked up to fish like this – 5 minutes might seem like an hour, an hour might seem like 5 minutes… I couldn´t hazard a guess as to how long the fight/agony/wonder/hope lasted…

And so, eventually… When it came to the boat it was the similar class size of fish we usually see, 60-70lbs. I couldn´t lift it onboard – it´s size and the waves not helping – so released it boatside. I really wish it well and would like to think that some day, sometime in the future – when it´s bigger, and I´m wiser – we´ll dance again once more…

#roughseas, #nobait, #luresonly, #onyourown