Split-Shotting for ultra light lure fishing

Lure fishing takes many forms within modern day angling. Saltwater and Freshwater the scene is booming and becoming ever more popular, you only have to read the weeklies to see the words L.R.F and Drop-Shot. So this brings me to write about what I’ve been doing recently, ‘Split-Shotting’.

I was introduced to this technique by my Dad, an avid lure enthusiast who often sets goals season to season to catch as many species as he can (Salt+Fresh) on Plastic. Like myself he is also heavily influenced by the anglers in the U.S.A and the techniques and methods they incorporate into their own lure fishing.

Dad with a Perch. Caught on a ‘Split-Shot’ rig and a White Bait Lure.

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So what is Split-Shotting !? Well firstly and most importantly for me it’s not about ‘specimen hunting’, and an attitude I’ve taken from the L.R.F scene is that it’s meant to be fun, simple and a style of fishing anyone can get into without needing bags of money or mountains of gear. The Split-Shotting setup itself is nothing too sophisticated, a braided mainline (6lb will suffice) tied to a small swivel, An inch above the swivel pinch on a Split-Shot, that’s the hard part done. Now depending on how far you want to cast or how quick you want your lure to sink, choose a shot to suit accordingly. As for most of mine and my dads fishing it’s a AAA or an SSG.

Nailed!

As the fish we are targeting are small Rudd, Roach and Perch and the odd bonus species like Sticklebacks and Skimmers then 2-3ft of 3-5lb monofilament will do just fine as a hooklength. Tie this to the swivel and it’s as simple as that. Next, the Hook!

Rudd on ISOME.

Again like in all fishing, matching the hook size to the bait is very important and as we are using tiny plastic lures or pieces of ‘ISOME’ then the hook needs to aid hooking without being masked, so choose the hook size to match appropriately. Hook sizes I wouldn’t be without are sizes 14-18 and we have found through using the ‘CRAZY FISH’ white baits which can be bought from ‘AGM tackle’ (Google it – it’s a superb online shop) nose hooked on a Sz 14 fine wire hook work great and a particular favourite pattern is the ‘Kamazan B525’. Marukyu’s ISOME worms also play a big part in our Split-Shotting, they come in various colours and thickness and can be cut down to any shape or size you wish. Just recently I bought a packet of ‘FLADENS VERMZ’ these are also proving to be very effective!

Basic components for making up a ‘Split-Shot’ Rig.

In addition to the Micro-Lures and ISOME we also use gel scents. By adding a smear for some extra attraction it proves to be really effective. They come in a variety of scents and at an affordable price too! These can also be purchased from AGM.

A little bit goes a long way – the current favourite of ours is the Garlic.

Let me touch on the gear we use. What with so many models of UltraLight rods on the market anything that’s labelled for U.L.-L.R.F is ideal. Rods rated 1-8gr are perfectly matched with a small 1000 size reel and theres plenty of quality rods and reels out there without having to break the bank.

Roach on a Micro Lure.

I’ll finish on an overall rundown of the casting and retrieving techniques we incorporate into this style. Firstly when making casts feather the Shot as this helps keep the long fine hooklength from tangling.

If there are Rudd or Roach present just under the surface retrieve slowly making constant positive twitches with the rod tip. Keeping the rod up will in turn keep the shot higher in the water and in the target zone of the Fish present. Bites can be anything from subtle ‘plinks’ to solid ‘taps’ as fish follow and grab the ISOME or micro lure.

If there are Perch present these will often follow whatever your retrieving, and by alternating the speed and the depth at which you let the shot sink you can pick up these Perch. This is also where the long hooklength comes into play. For example – If a Perch has followed the micro lure or ISOME on the retrieve but has been reluctant to grab it, stop retrieving and allow the shot to sink to the bottom. (the margins of our local ponds allow this as they are shallow and clear) Due to the slight degree of bouyancy in the lure or worm it will flutter down slowly under the weight of the hook/hooklength and sometimes this is just enough movement to spark the Perch to have another go and take it.

Mini Monster!

My reason for writing about this style of fishing is purely because it’s fun and simple and for those that haven’t tried it maybe you might give it a go. If your not bothered about catching big fish then it’s perfect, and for someone like myself who likes a days float fishing with maggots for anything that comes along and also enjoys lure fishing then this style is the best of both worlds. Remember just because the fish are small doesn’t make them a push over, like any style of fishing on its day it can be easy to get it all so wrong.

So, a style of fishing that’s great if you’ve got a few hours spare inbetween of work and homelife, you don’t need mountains of gear and you can keep it really simple. If you fish ponds already that have a good head of SilverFish and Perch then hopefully your in for some fun Split-Shotting.

Tight lines and Thanks for reading, Jamie.

Simple and Fun!

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from hook to plate

Since being little I have had a love of smoked fish, mainly Haddock and Cod. Mam used to poach it in milk, and we would have it with loads of bread to dip in the juice. So since we have a regular supply of prime North Sea Cod, I still found myself having to buy my smoked Cod from the super market.

After researching smoking my own fish it all seemed a bit over my head and technical, till a good friend mentioned he’d cold smoked some fish at home, so strait on-line I went and 2 days later I received my Pro Q Cold Smoke Generator from Hot Smoked.

pro Q cold smoker

I have kept the whole process as simple as possible for my own benefit and by no means am I stating that this is the correct way, and with the help of photos I am sharing my journey of fishing line to plate, it was a journey with all the family having a part in and I hope you enjoy it.

Tuesday night seen the winds drop off allowing Peter, Becky, a couple of friends and myself launch off Blyth heading for the rough ground behind Blyth Pier, the intention was finding some fish for the smoker and a few Mackerel I need for bait. Pretty much strait away I was into fish seeing firstly a 2 Lb Codling the a much larger 4 Lb followed, Becky was picking up good numbers of fish but sadly all a bit to small so they went back for another time. Moving onto the ledge of a large reef that runs the full length of the back of the pier which is thick kelp on rough ground I found 2 Kelpies, 1 a good size and the other I sent back home to its mammy, there was numerous fish here, you could feel them nibbling at your gear but just not taking almost teasing, but once we seen the black clouds we called it a night, tally for me was 5 cod, 3 for the smoker and 2 traded for some Mackerel off Mark.

one for the smoker

good start

Once home the fish were filleted and placed in the fridge to firm up a bit leaving the skin on. Next morning I relised  that I hadn’t anything to use as a smoker, looking on-line all you really need is a large box, this could be a tall wooden cabinet affair down to a cardboard box as long as the fish was allowed to hang or had a mesh shelf to lie on above the burner..so a quick phone call to Peter and he located a disused electric/fuse cabinet so always one to recycle it came home to be used as my home smoker. I used a length of broom shank screwed in to place with small screws along it to enable me to hang the fish, it already had 2 small holes to allow air to feed the burner.

ready for salting

Back to the fish, next step is to salt the fish, this pulls excess water out and also firms the flesh, so it was placed on a large tray and using normal table salt I covered each fillet with a good layer of salt covered and left it for about an hour, smaller fillets wont take as long. After the hour was up as you can see the amount of water that comes out it resemble cheap bacon in the frying pan…all water. Once I rinsed the salt off I dried each fillet with kitchen roll as much as possible, I left them face side down for a bit on the roll, looking at the fish It’s gone slightly opaque in colour and very firm.

salted

after salting

So now the fish were ready for the smoker, just needed to find something to hang them with, then remembering I had some little clips i had bought from IKEA years ago to hang curtains in Becky’s room and after pulling the house to bits I found them,, absolutely spot on, just the job, Once the burner was lit and the fish were hung time to wait …and wait….and yes more waiting…well an hour then I couldn’t help myself I had to have a peek.

ready for smoking

here we go

the smoker

it,s smoking

all done

I used maple wood dust, but with the burner I also got beech and oak, and I was advised to leave for 10 hours,which we did, then I took a small fish tail bit popped it in pan added milk, butter and pepper, once it came to the simmer off the heat and we tried it….whoop….lovely, keep your shop bought stuff now No looking back, home smoked all the way from now on. at this point I skinned and boned the fillets and back into the fridge for tea tomorrow.

looking so good

The way I cook my fish pie, potatoes cooked and mashed, boil eggs 1 each, fish place in pan cover with milk, knob of butter, pepper, and a bay leaf, on the heat till it just starts to come to the simmer then off the heat, don’t worry its getting hot sauce on to finish its cooking. Lift fish into warm dish, strain milk to make the bechamel sauce which gets poured over the fish after you’ve halved the eggs and placed on top of the fish, then mash spooned on and topped with some cheese then 20 minutes in the oven we always have it with garden greens so that was broccoli and pak choi, all that was ready from allotment. Not Rick Stein but we love it.

smoked fish pie

So there you have it, not as I have always thought it to be ‘rocket science’, it can be simple and you can still get fantastic results, the sense of achievement of catching your fish, bringing them home to smoke rather than buying from the shop and not really knowing how old it is and what process its gone through. My other thought is yes it was a bit of a faff  to start with but now the smoker is up and working, its been cleaned out and tidied up my next lot of fish will be so much faster and easier, my intention is to smoke and freeze a good amount ready for winter meals of Cullen Skink and Kedgeree.

Thanks for reading.

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A tough weekend

Another weekend of fairly strong SW winds made fishing Chesil uncomfortable at best. There was a few fish that came from there, mostly Smoothounds and a few Mackerel. Most anglers opted to fish some of the more sheltered marks. Ollie Mears decided to fish West Bay harbour and landed several Flounder and a specimen Thin Lipped Mullet.

One mark that I continually comment on as being highly underrated, has once again proved that it should not be ignored. Preston Beach at the far end of Weymouth Bay is so often overlooked by anglers focusing on Chesil. It is a safe beach that offers plenty of shelter in strong South Westerly gales. Danny Hardwick took his young lads fishing on Preston yesterday. They went in search of some tiddlers to keep the kids amused. They had a steady run of Wrasse all day, then as darkness fell the Smoothounds and Schoolie Bass turned up.

It is great to see huge smiles on youngsters faces, when they catch fish.

I want to say a huge thanks to everyone that has subscribed to our YouTube Channel over the past few days. We are just 42 short of the 1000 subscribers goal we have set ourselves. We are hoping to run our first live fishing show on YouTube on Thursday evening at 8pm. We just need to sort out a couple of technical issues, but we will let everyone know when it will happen.

Chesil Beach: Rough with waves exceeding 2m with lightly coloured water

Portland: 2m Swell with lightly coloured water.

Portland harbour: calm and clear water

Weymouth Bay: Calm with clear water

Chesil Beach forecast: I don’t see too many people getting out and fishing Chesil today. However the wind looks pretty good up until Friday, so there should be plenty of opportunity to get out for some Mackerel and Smoothound.

With the water carrying a bit of colour it may well produce a Ray or two. Use fish baits for the best chance of getting one.

Portland: The swell needs to drop off a bit before the Wrasse will happily feed again. Once they do they do, the fishing will be hectic. Expect bites within seconds, especially if you are using Ragworm.

We may see some Pollock, but they really prefer more settled and clear conditions.I would opt for Church Ope Cove as one of the top marks on the Island this week. You can often pick up Garfish in the bay as well as the odd Bass.

Portland Harbour: Still no sign of any Gilthead Bream and the Bass fishing has gone a bit quite within the harbour. I spoke to a diver over the weekend and he tells me that he has seen large numbers of Flounder and even a couple of Thornback Ray around Hamme Beach, all within casting distance.

Weymouth Bay: As I mentioned earlier, Preston is not a mark to overlook if you fancy a session with a good chance of a mixed bag of species. It can produce all sorts of Rays, Bream, Gurnard, Smoothound and Bass, as well as Wrasse and Mackerel.

Don’t forget the piers. If there are Flounder in Portland Harbour, you can bet there are some in Weymouth harbour. You have the added advantage of targeting Wrasse, Pollock, Garfish and Mackerel from the piers during the day.

Preston should produce some Gurnard, Dab and Flounder during the day, with the chance of Rays and Smoothound at night.

Guiding: The new guiding season is underway once again. Although we can’t keep any Bass at the moment, we can certainly catch them. I am hoping that the winter fishing ban and the new commercial quotas, combined with an increase in the minimum landing size, will make for some great Bass fishing. I specialize in lure fishing and I am offering Fly fishing this year as well. I am still more than happy to go after the multitude of species in this area with bait, whether that is big Wrasse, explosive Smoothound fishing or targeting the tastier fish such as Plaice and Bream. If you want to book a session or find out more information drop me an email at [email protected]

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Gurnard, the fish of the summer

I always associate the first regular catches of Gurnard with the start of the summer fishing season. The Gurnard are normally closely followed by another of my favourite eating species the Black Bream. This week has seen a number of nice Gurnard landed and it comes as no surprise that my friend, Roger Morgan had one the other evening.  He always beats me too it every year. I think you will agree with me that this is a lovely looking Gurnard.

Adam Goldie contacted me earlier in the week, asking for some advice on a mark for Bream. He may have been a bit disappointed on not catching any Bream,  but he was delighted with a 10lb 12oz Undulate Ray instead.

I just want to give another little plug for our live fishing show. Thanks for those that have subscribed to our YouTube Channel already. Myself and Gavin Parsons have been busy working on what we hope will be a very exciting project. We are going to attempt to run a live fishing show on YouTube. The show will be presented by myself and we hope in time to have a number of guests from all disciplines of fishing. We believe that the best part is you will be able to interact with us live. You can ask us questions, which we hope we can answer there and then. We also want to feature your content. Have a look at this short trailer to see the sort of fishing action we will be showing. It would really help if you could subscribe to our YouTube Channel. We need to get 1000 subscribers to allow us to unlock a number of YouTube features that will benefit future videos so if you want to help us out click the Fishing Tails YouTube Subscribe link 

Thanks for the response to the poll that we set. It looks like 8pm is the most popular time to broadcast it.

Today’s report and forecast is a bit short on February details today as we are currently on Chesil in search of some Smoothound and Rays. We will be running a live Facebook broadcast from there at around midday today. It will stream on Live Sea fishing UK Facebook page and my own page.

Chesil Beach: Medium swell up to 1m with clear water

Portland: Swell with clearl water.

Portland harbour: calm and clear water

Weymouth Bay: Calm with clear water

Chesil Beach forecast: the weather looks a bit rough over the weekend, but today looks good for Mackerel, Bream and Smoothound .

Portland: Water clarity is good for Pollock and Wrasse.

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Portland Harbour: The big tides should be good for Bass in the harbour, as well as Pollock and Wrasse. Once again the Bass are in close, so keep your casts to 30 yds and you are more likely to pick up a fish, rather than at 100yds. I am hoping that we will see some Gilthead Bream showing soon.

Weymouth Bay: The inner harbour is much clearer now. I spotted a good number of Mullet cruising around. Use a small Mepps spinner with a bit of Ragworm attached to a single hook, to tempt the fish. Have a quick look at this Thin Lipped Mullet article for more details.

Preston should produce some Gurnard, Dab and Flounder during the day, with the chance of Rays and Smoothound at night.

Guiding: The new guiding season is underway once again. Although we can’t keep any Bass at the moment, we can certainly catch them. I am hoping that the winter fishing ban and the new commercial quotas, combined with an increase in the minimum landing size, will make for some great Bass fishing. I specialize in lure fishing and I am offering Fly fishing this year as well. I am still more than happy to go after the multitude of species in this area with bait, whether that is big Wrasse, explosive Smoothound fishing or targeting the tastier fish such as Plaice and Bream. If you want to book a session or find out more information drop me an email at [email protected]

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The Perils of Dating Film Stars in Public

Allegedly the best way of keeping something secret is to have it in the open for everyone to see. This has definitely been the case with my alien hot-spot, the duck pond. Every man & his dog walks past, not to mention the mums with pushchairs, kids on bikes, foreign tourists on a post dinner stroll… you get the idea. “No fish in there mate!” they cheerfully exclaim. Followed, more often than not, by “Feckin’ eejit” muttered under their breath. Little do they know; I conduct my illicit affair with Ellen Ripley under the public gaze, and none of them suspects a thing…

Except maybe the coach load of Germans who wandered past just as I hooked into a 38” monster which erupted from the surface of the pond in a blur of slashing teeth, gleaming green & gold flanks and flaring gills. Aye, that was something for them to point their cameras at sure enough.

Or maybe the poor young lady (also foreign, incidentally) I accosted, late on another evening, dripping with water and weed, to help me photograph the fish of a lifetime; a 46” leviathan that must surely have accounted for entire broods of ducklings over the years. She took a pretty good photo, too!

But all good things come to an end as they say and the writing is definitely on the wall for this particular avenue of pleasure. I suppose it’s only to be expected that if you stand in the middle of your local duck pond waving a stick (to paraphrase a well-known fishing writer) often enough, sooner or later another angler’s going to catch you in the act; metaphorically in flagrante with your unseen muse. And so it proved to be.

“Was that you I saw in the middle of the duck pond with the fly-rod the other night, Dave?”

“Hmm, maybe….”

“Tuesday night, I think it was?”

“Possibly Monday….” (attempting to muddy the waters a bit)

“Anything in there? I thought it might be a good spot for pike”

“Couple of little jacks, more just a bit of fun of an evening, that’s all” (somewhat unconvincingly)

“Oh yeah?” (interest really piqued now, and definitely not in the least bit bamboozled)

“Apparently there were some golden orfe in there a few years ago, so I thought I’d have a look” (a frantic attempt at distraction)

“I would have thought it was perfect for a good pike or two. Nice reed beds, not too much disturbance, all those ducklings to feed on……”

Damn. Rumbled.

(Note: Pike are referred to colloquially as “aliens” by some fishermen, especially in Scotland; hence the Ellen Ripley connection)

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A great year for Smoothound

Smoothound are one of my favourite species of fish from the shore. They fight like demons and even on fairly heavy beachcasters, they put up a great show. So you can imagine how happy I am that we are seeing so many Smoothound on chesil this year. I managed to get hold of some Crab and fished Chesil with my friend Gavin yesterday. The water was pretty coloured after the couple of days of wind that we had, but that didn’t put the fish off. I managed a nice Smoothound on my first cast, which Gavin seemed to forget to photograph. Luckily for him, I did get some pictures of his fish, even if it was only a baby Hound.

We got all the Smoothound on live Peeler Crab and Pulley rigs or our favourite Up and Over rig, which is becoming our go to rig for all our large species fishing.

Whilst we were on the beach we did see a lot of bird activity close in. It looked like the Bass were herding up the baitfish and hitting them hard. We did witness a couple of Bass being caught.

Ben Stockley was fishing a mile or so further down the beach and had a great session. He managed 5 hounds between 4-5 lbs, 2 Small Eyed’s both around 3lb apiece, 3 dogs and a Plaice which took the top hook on a pennel with a 4lb hound for company underneath.

Myself and Gavin Parsons have been busy working on what we hope will be a very exciting project. We are going to attempt to run a live fishing show on YouTube. The show will be presented by myself and we hope in time to have a number of guests from all disciplines of fishing. We believe that the best part is you will be able to interact with us live. You can ask us questions, which we hope we can answer there and then. We also want to feature your content. Have a look at this short trailer to see the sort of fishing action we will be showing. It would really help if you could subscribe to our YouTube Channel. We need to get 1000 subscribers to allow us to unlock a number of YouTube features that will benefit future videos so if you want to help us out click the Fishing Tails YouTube Subscribe link 

So when would be the best to stream that show? The show will be recorded, so you can watch it at anytime but if you want to ask questions and interact with us, you will have to watch it live. We believe that a Thursday evening is the best night, but which time. We have set up a poll of when we think will be the best time for a ½ hour show. Let us know what you think.

Chesil Beach: Medium swell up to 2m with lightly coloured  water

Portland: Swell with lightly coloured water.

Portland harbour: calm and clear water

Weymouth Bay: Calm with clear water

Chesil Beach forecast: Once again we will struggle to catch Mackerel until the water clears a bit, which it should within a day. As you seen from my report earlier you can expect to catch some good Smoothound, especially if you have live Peeler Crab. If you don’t have Peeler, then frozen Hermits work and a Squid and Ragworm cocktail can often tempt a hungry hound. You don’t have to cast for miles to get the Smoothound’s, they will oten come within 60yds of the shore.

With some colour still in the water you will get Dogfish during the day, as well as at night. There is a reasonable chance of a Bass close in, but the Gurnards don’t seem to be showing.

Portland: Despite a bit of colour in the water the rock marks will clear quickly and the Wrasse will be on the feed. Pollock are a good possibility if you are prepared to fish at dawn or dusk.

Portland Harbour: The big tides should be good for Bass in the harbour, as well as Pollock and Wrasse. Once again the Bass are in close, so keep your casts to 30 yds and you are more likely to pick up a fish, rather than at 100yds. I am hoping that we will see some Gilthead Bream showing soon.

Weymouth Bay: The inner harbour is much clearer now. I spotted a good number of Mullet cruising around. Use a small Mepps spinner with a bit of Ragworm attached to a single hook, to tempt the fish. Have a quick look at this Thin Lipped Mullet article for more details.

Preston should produce some Gurnard, Dab and Flounder during the day, with the chance of Rays and Smoothound at night.

Guiding: The new guiding season is underway once again. Although we can’t keep any Bass at the moment, we can certainly catch them. I am hoping that the winter fishing ban and the new commercial quotas, combined with an increase in the minimum landing size, will make for some great Bass fishing. I specialize in lure fishing and I am offering Fly fishing this year as well. I am still more than happy to go after the multitude of species in this area with bait, whether that is big Wrasse, explosive Smoothound fishing or targeting the tastier fish such as Plaice and Bream. If you want to book a session or find out more information drop me an email at [email protected]

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If you want to find out more info about sea fishing reels, check out www.myseareels.com

More Bass bans to come but why?

The good news is that from today, we are allowed to keep one Bass per angler, as long as it is 42cm or larger.

The bad news is that a scientific report released yesterday from ICES (International Council for the Exploration of the Sea), recommends a complete ban on Bass fishing for the year 2017. This includes commercial fishing and recreational sea angling. Since the fallout of the recent Brexit campaign and subsequent political picture of lies and deceit from all sides  has come to light, I have become very sceptical of so called expert reports. Subsequently I spent many hours studying this recent report from ICES, which I have included, should others wish to do the same. If you do this link will take you to the ICES Document

My initial reaction on reading the document for the first time was “oh no, this is really bad news”. Don’t get me wrong, it is bad news, but not necessarily for the reasons you might think. The report like many others before it, is so full of assumption and lack of hard facts that it is farcical. After going through this report in detail, many times, I conclude that the bad news is that we now have another report claiming doom and gloom for the Bass stocks and a call for an unnecessary ban.

Looking at some of the more important aspects of this report, such as this paragraph I have lifted from the document show how incomplete the facts are:

The two survey data series for the eastern English Channel, which is only a small part of the total stock area, provide good estimation of recruitment. However, a change in vessel and survey design in the Channel Ground Fish Survey led to the 2015 ICES Advice on fishing opportunities, catch, and effort Published 30 June 2016 ICES Advice 2016, Book 5 3 value not being included in this assessment. The very weak recruitment from 2008 to 2012 estimated in the assessment is confirmed by the surveys and by reduced catches of young fish by the UK and French fisheries. All the input data to the assessment and additional information (catch per unit effort in the French fishery) are indicative of a declining trend of biomass. Stock identity remains poorly understood and tagging studies are ongoing. Survival rates of sea bass discarded from commercial vessels or released by anglers are poorly known.

Putting this into simple terms I can make some conclusions from this. Firstly the number of small Bass being caught, would be expected to be reduced. The ban on fishing in nursery areas and an increase in mesh size will result in more undersized fish escaping the net. I for one have seen a large increase in the number of school Bass I have seen captured in nursery areas and areas such as Chesil Beach, a mark not renowned for producing small Bass. Why leave out a large piece of data, such as the 2015 survey? Simply to allow figures to be manipulated.

One of the largest aspects that the report relies on, is the very inaccurate information supplied by a number of angler surveys, in the UK and northern europe. once again I quote from the document in the section regarding landings by recreational sea anglers: Known to be substantial but cannot be fully quantified (surveys indicate total annual removals by France, UK (England), Netherlands, and Belgium to the order of 1500 tonnes in 2012) 

That figure is around 40% of the total catch rate for all of northern Europe, including commercial landings. This is a ridiculous figure at best. I know from personal experience, that when asked to complete these surveys, there was pressure exerted in the form of inferring that exaggerating your catch reports and amount spent on angling, would help the greater cause of recreational anglers. I put the blame for these ridiculous claims squarely at the feet of B.A.S.S and the Angling Trust. It is time that those organisations stood up and admitted that they have at best manipulated the figures, in a failed attempt to improve the deal for recreational sea anglers. Failure to do so will result in another Bass ban aimed at the wrong group

In my opinion and I do stress that this is from my own observations, Bass stocks are in a far better condition than is being claimed in this report. The current ban on trawling for bass during their breeding period and maintaining monitored catch quotas on all commercial boats is working. I know this may not be the kind of news you wish to hear, but many of the commercial Bass boats have hit their 1.3 tonne quota within a few days of the start of each month. They have then either been tied up, or have switched to other species, if they have an allowable quota for them. This in itself is proof that the Bass stocks are increasing.

I have had enough of lies and disinformation from politicians and so called experts this week. It is time to start asking serious questions, of those supposed to be looking after our interests in angling, Those same groups that are unelected or appointed by the majority of anglers in this country.

Thankfully my whole week has not been spoiled by football and politics, I did manage to get out a few times this week and I had the good fortune to guide a couple of very experienced fly fishermen, who were in search of Bass, Wrasse and Pollock on fly and lures. The wind made conditions difficult during the afternoon, but it was great to get out around portland and Weymouth and show off some of the great fishing that is possible on fly in this area.

I am sure many of you read the great Wrasse article the Ben Basset wrote. I created a short video for it on how to rig a Texas Rig. For those of you new to lure fishing, or jut have not yet tried fishing with soft plastics, you may find this video useful. The Texas Rig allows you to fish some really rough and weedy marks.

Chesil Beach: Medium swell up to 2m with lightly coloured  water

Portland: Swell with lightly coloured water.

Portland harbour: calm and clear water

Weymouth Bay: Calm with clear water

Chesil Beach forecast: It is pretty windy on Chesil today, but the forecast for the weekend, especially Sunday is looking good. We can finally head to the beach with a good chance of catching some Mackerel this weekend. We could also see more Black Bream and Gurnard showing. There is a very good chance of a Bass this afternoon and into early evening. Once darkness falls, the Rays may move in.

Portland: Tides for the weekend look good for Pollock off the Bill, especially towards the end of the weekend, when dawn will coincide with high water. Always one of the best times to fish. Once the wind settles the Wrasse fishing will be good, with a chance of a hard fighting fish on bait and lure.

Portland Harbour: Quite a few Thin Lipped Mullet showing in the shallow water around Castletown and Sandsfoot Castle. There was a few small Bass amongst them, but as the tides build the numbers and size should increase.

Weymouth Bay: plenty of small fish showing from the pier, but the recent rain, has made the harbour murky. The Mullet are still there, they are just difficultt o target.

Preston should produce some Gurnard, Dab and Flounder during the day, with the chance of Rays and Smoothound at night.

Guiding: The new guiding season is underway once again. Although we can’t keep any Bass at the moment, we can certainly catch them. I am hoping that the winter fishing ban and the new commercial quotas, combined with an increase in the minimum landing size, will make for some great Bass fishing. I specialize in lure fishing and I am offering Fly fishing this year as well. I am still more than happy to go after the multitude of species in this area with bait, whether that is big Wrasse, explosive Smoothound fishing or targeting the tastier fish such as Plaice and Bream. If you want to book a session or find out more information drop me an email at [email protected]

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