Fishing Report: 13th September 08 – Bateman’s Tower, Brightlingsea

Although I hadn’t originally planned to go fishing again this weekend last night was one of those beautifully mild, calm evenings that I just can’t resist at this time of the year. As a young lad, myself and the gang of friends I fished with would eagerly await the first run of Whiting in the river and to us (in our early teens) there was no greater adventure than to be allowed to fish a night tide on our own down the Tower. Perhaps its those childhood memories that make me a fan of the Whiting or perhaps its because they are so obliging; I don’t know but I am definitely a fan of what I think is a very underrated fish. When the Whiting are in the river (and they most certainly are at the moment) this weather gets them shoaling up tight to chase the local Brown Shrimps and some really good catches can be had. Life is also made that bit easier, so far as Whiting are concerned, because Mackerel strip is the number one bait when they have just arrived and so a couple of quids worth of fish from the Tesco fish counter will often provide for a good nights fishing without the major expense or hassle of getting a supply of fresh worm. I arrived at the Tower at about 10pm to fish the midnight(ish) tide and had my two rods set up within about fifteen minutes; one rod to fish Ragworm out in the tide in the hope of an autumn Bass and the other, the Whiting rod, sporting a clipped-down three hook paternoster baited with Mackerel. The general idea with the three-hook rig is that it allows you to fish at a variety of distances so you can experiment to find the fish, though to be honest when the Whiting are hungry and about in good numbers you will get them whatever. The flood tide started off very slow with not a single fish, maybe due to the Seal that put in an appearance, but on the turn of the tide the Whiting appeared in force and it was pretty much a bite a chuck on both rods, which on a couple of occasions led to a treble-shot of Whiting on the three-hook rig. The rod fished at range with large Ragworm baits didn’t fare quite so well and Bass were definitely not on the menu on this occasion. I have no doubt that the Bass were there but to be honest on a night like that they just won’t be able to get to the bait because of the Whiting which are quite partial to a large King Ragworm, though really catching Whiting from range is just making things hard work for yourself; why bother when there are loads of them 40 yards out? A very pleasant nights fishing ended at about 2am when I ran out of bait just as the water was starting to get too low to fish because of the wooden breakwater in front of the Tower. I hadn’t managed any Bass on the long-range rod but total for the night was nineteen Whiting, with the bulk of the fish probably between 6 – 10 oz, pretty much the average size for the Colne and I was more than happy with that. A lot of anglers knock the Whiting and turn their nose up at them but to me they are a very welcome, easy to catch fish that signal the change of the seasons and set you up for the rest of the winter.

Posted on September 14, 2008 Filed Under Fish, Fishing, Sea Fishing, Sea Holidays | Leave a Comment

Fishing Report: 11th September 08 – St Osyth, Essex

After a reasonably enjoyable night at Brightlingsea the previous night I decided to take a hike to a favourite spot up towards the Bird Reserve at St Osyth. Although there was a fairly stiff south westerly breeze the weather wasn’t cold, though I did take my brolly (a fairly serious decision given the extra weight this involves and the distance this spot is from the car) just in case the light showers forecast by the weatherman turned into something more serious. With high tide at about 10:20pm and a neap tide I wasn’t expecting a record-breaking catch but was hoping, if nothing else, that there would be a few Whiting around. After the long walk to the spot I was sorted and fishing with my two rods by 7pm; one rod fished at range with large Ragworm baits and the other fished at long and short range alternatively with two hooks, one baited with Ragworm the other with frozen Black Lugworm. As usual things were slow to start but about half an hour after the absolutely amazing sunset the beach started to live up to its reputation for switching on at night and I reeled in the first fish, a Whiting of about 10oz which fell to a large Ragworm bait fished at range. From that point on the bites came fairly steadily throughout the tide particularly to the Ragworm, though as I was fishing larger baits in the hope of an autumn Bass I missed a great deal of them. Its most likely, given this spot’s past performance, that a great deal of the bites were from Whiting and had I fished accordingly with a three hook rig baited with Mackerel strip I could have had a good haul of them but to be quite frank they are still a bit thin and in any case what I really wanted was a Bass. By the top of the tide I’d been kept busy with a slow but steady stream of fish. The first Whiting had been joined by three others as well as a Codling just 2cm below the minimum size and I had at least managed one Bass, although at about 20cm long it was a lot smaller than I really wanted. As things quietened down over the top of the tide I took the opportunity to have a drink and eat my grub and then just as the tide started ebb the fish started again and I set to work to attempt to land a few more fairly quickly as I had to leave at 11:30pm. By 11pm I was wondering if my hooks had gone blunt as I hadn’t managed another fish but a classic slack-line bite (which I was expecting to be a much better fish) saw the twin of the earlier Codling coming up the beach. I returned the Codling, which swam off strongly, and mindful of the long walk back decided to call it a night, reeling in the second rod to find another two Whiting of about 8 to 10oz hanging on it. As usual the walk back to Hutley’s car park seemed about twice the distance of the walk there , not helped by the added weight of the brolly. Overall not a bad night, though only the Whiting were really sizable and then I kept only two fish (because they had been deep-hooked and it seems a complete waste to throw back dead fish) as at this time of the year they are definitely a bit thin and not in their peak. Hopefully as the autumn progresses the Whiting will fatten up on the local shrimps and some better Codling will appear, particularly as there have been so many small ones around over the last couple of years.

Posted on September 13, 2008 Filed Under bass fishing, Fish, Fishing, Sea Fishing, Sea Holidays | Leave a Comment

Fishing Report: 10th September 08 – Bateman’s Tower, Brightlingsea

Apart from a couple of (very) short and unproductive spinning sessions the latter part of my summer has passed by all too quickly. As is so often the case, even amongst the keenest of us, other factors in life take over and fishing reluctantly has to take a back seat. I had been toying with the idea of starting up an online business for some time and finally decided to bite the bullet and go for it; just as I was starting my mother fell ill and died shortly after and that was effectively the end of my fishing this summer to all intents and purposes! By the beginning of last week I had finally got on top of things and was itching to fish the big tides on the Colne(a favourite time for Bass) but ended up giving it a miss due to crap weather and the amount of rain that had fallen which was no doubt going to mess up the fishing. But with the tides fast coming round to mid-evening and a good southerly blow to liven up the fishing I could resist no more and so I headed to the Tower tonight, bucket loaded with some freshly dug King Ragworm, in order to get my long awaited fix. I started fishing at about 7:30pm with a single rod and as it was a neap tide put my two large R agworm baits out as far as I could in an attempt to find as much flow of water as possible and hopefully a nice early autumn Bass. Things were very quiet until just after the top of the 9:20pm high tide but then as the ebb started to flow I began to get the occasional bite, probably from small stuff, which needless to say didn’t connect to the 3/0 hooks I was using. An hour later and a missed bite resulted in a well- slimed and tangled rig but it was not until the last hour of the session that I finally connected to a bite, not the small Bass I had expected to see but a sizable Whiting (already!) and actually not a bad sized one for the river at that. While the Whiting wasn’t really what I had come for, after so long away from the beach I was glad to see anything, particularly anything sizable and so I fished on a little longer in the hope of catching more and, in the back of my mind, still hoping for a Bass. By 11pm I had seen very little else in the way of bites although I had managed to retrieve a lost rig. As the water was disappearing fast and the current hardly running I decided enough was enough for one night and that it was time to head for home but as I was just about to pick up the rod to reel in the tip hit round and the line went slack. It took a few seconds to make contact with the fish and although I knew it was no monster I was sure that the fish on the end was no Whiting; after a quick tussle I was proved right and swung a sizable Bass over the railings of the Tower. At around 40cm the Bass wasn’t going to be breaking any records but was a pleasant end to the night and was at least some consolation for the summer I missed: as if I needed a bonus, there was also another sizable Whiting on the trace!

Posted on September 11, 2008 Filed Under bass fishing, Fish, Fishing, Sea Holidays | Leave a Comment

FlyFishers Web site -LIVE !

After nearly 2 months our new site is up and running , as you will notice it is still in progress, but at least we are on the web , again. Cheers Ricko ” Murray is currently fishing Costa Rica for TARPON , they are having a ball , plenty and big fish. I will be off to Mount Arthur next week, will keep u in the loop”

Posted on September 8, 2008 Filed Under Fish, Fishing, Lake Fishing, SaltWater Fishing, Sea Holidays | Leave a Comment

How not to launch your boat

Boat launching can be a slightly stressful situation at times. Often you are faced with impatient anglers who feel that you holding them up is going to cost them a fish of a lifetime. If you have to share the ramp with other water users, such as jet skis, this situation can become even more stressful. I am a proponent of making sure that you are ready to launch when you pull up to the ramp. I can’t stand people who drive up to the top of the ramp and begin to get the boat ready – that is what the preparation area is for! I have seen many anglers load the boat up for longer than ten minutes while others wait behind them and it never ends well. Fortunately I am a patient person, but others aren’t always this way. Enough of the serious talk though. While trolling around youtube I came across this slightly disturbing video of a failed launch of a jet ski. It would have been nice to see more people come to the rescue, but I guess there isn’t much that can be done – I hope that wasn’t salt water!

Posted on September 7, 2008 Filed Under Fish, Fishing, Sea Fishing | Leave a Comment

Carp Rigs – The Line Aligner

A few months ago I joined a north west carp syndicate, one of the rules of the syndicate was that no long shank hooks were allowed. No long shank hooks was a pretty vague statement so I read the rules closely and it was recommended that a hooks shank should be no longer than that of a drennan super specialist hook. I knew straight away that this meant my beloved Kamasan b175′s were on the banned list of carp hooks I could use for the syndicate and it sort of left me with a bit of a problem. I’d been using the kamasan b175’s in conjunction with a knotless knot since 1995 and my confidence in this hooking arrangement is extremely high, its probably the most efficient carp rig I’ve ever used!. Prior to my usual carp rig, I’d actually used drennan super specialist hooks and as they were on the approved list for the syndicate it seemed logical to go back to them and fish with the rig that Jim Gibbinson made famous in the early 90’s, the line aligner. The line aligner and the knotless knot/ b175 setup are very similar and they both work the same way, in fact I only switched to using the knotless knot because it was so easy to tie, both rigs are extremely efficient hookers of carp so it was no great hardship to use the line aligner again. Tying the line aligner is reasonably straight forward, I actually start by tying a knotless knot the same way I would if using the b175’s. With a b175 the rig would be finished at this point but unlike the b175, the drennan super specialist hooks don’t have the 45 degree down turn on the eye that gives the rig the ability to flip over. This ability to flip comes from adding a piece of 1mm soft rig tubing which both extends the shank and adds the flip effect. Knotless knot ready for the 1mm soft rig tubing that forms the line aligner With the knotless knot tied I take a needle and thread the other end of my silkworm hooklink through the eye. At this stage I thread the needle through the tubing and bring the needle out through the wall of the soft tubing as can be seen in the picture below, pull the needle out so that hooklength runs through the tubing and exits through the tubing wall. Threading kryston silkworm through the tubing wall At this point the tubing can be slid down over the hook shank and manipulated so that where the silkworm hooklink exit’s the tubing wall is on the ‘inside’ of the hook eye the same as the knotless knot . The tubing positioned so the silkworm exits on the inside of the hooks eye Once this is done the rig is completed by cutting a 45 degree angle in the end of the soft rig tubing , the angle of cut is vital and the best way to describe this cut is to refer you to the picture below. As you can see the line comes out of the tubing on the inside of the hooks eye and the 45 degree cut in the rig tubing is on the opposite side going away from the hook. Cut the tubing at a 45 degree angle and the rig is complete Once the line aligner rig has been tied you can try the finger test on it. Pull the silkworm hooklength over your finger and try to manipulate the hook point so that its always away from your finger and won’t catch hold. The hook point will always stay away until you hit the 45 degree cut in the rig tubing, at this point the rig will always turn and dig into your finger and you’ll never actually manage to pull it over your finger without it flipping and catching hold. Try the finger test, the rig will always turn and dig into your finger. I believe the line aligner works on the basis of the carp not actually knowing it’s picked up a hookbait, hooking occurs when the rig actually tightens to the lead. The knotless knot works the same way, the 45 degree down turned eye on a kamasan b175 hook has pretty much the same effect as the 45 degree cut in the rig tubing on the line aligner. Both rigs are extremely efficient hookers of carp and having switched back to the line aligner for syndicate use I’ve remembered just how happy I was with this rig for catching carp. Tight Lines Mark.

Posted on September 7, 2008 Filed Under Fish, Fishing Report | Leave a Comment

Boating Knots: Zeppelin Bend

Have you ever been out on the water and needed a rope of a certain length of rope only to have 2 short lengths of rope in the boat. I know that I have been in this situation and have obviously needed to join the ropes to make the required distance. I am no rope knot expert, in fact I am known for tying fairly poor knots, but even I use this knot! One of the best knots for this task is the Zeppelin Bend, which can be used to attach two lengths of rope with similar diameters. It is easy to tie and quick to learn – the following video shows the process of tying the Zeppelin Bend very well.

Posted on September 4, 2008 Filed Under Fish, Fishing, Sea Fishing | Leave a Comment

Best fishing songs

Fishing is a subject that much has been written about over the years, but there have also been some fantastic fishing songs written as well. My personal favorites would have to be take me to the river (not technically fishing I guess) and fishin’ blues, but there are many great ones out there. Do you have a favorite fishing song or do you have a tune you like to listen to when you are fishing. Please leave a comment.

Posted on September 2, 2008 Filed Under Fish, Fishing, Sea Fishing | Leave a Comment

How to prepare a crab for the table

Despite the fact that most people just love eating crab many people don’t really know the first place to start when cleaning one! The process can be made as simple or as complex as you like and many people I know simply boil the crab and break it apart to eat it. Others use a machete to cut the crab in half and remove all the innards before cooking as they believe it makes the crabs even tastier. This short video will show you one of the best ways to clean a crab and with careful attention you can easily learn this method!

Posted on September 1, 2008 Filed Under Fish, Fishing | Leave a Comment

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