Innehållsförteckning för July 2023 från Sea Angler

Welcome to the July issue; summer has arrived and for many of us that involves dusting down our lure rods and oiling our spinning reels which have been sitting, unloved, at the back of the shed over the winter (or is that just me?). This year may be the perfect opportunity to experiment with something new: lures, techniques, species or venues. This month our resident lure fishing expert, Henry Gilbey, explores the world of ‘creature baits’. For those unfamiliar with the term these are the soft plastics moulded to look like crabs, crayfish and a whole range of other marine critters that our fish love to feast on. Working these lures requires a change of approach – and mindset – which Henry explores in detail starting on page 16. If…

TIDE TALK SHORE GARFISH Throughout July, garfish are caught from breakwaters, piers, harbour walls, rock ledges and off the open beaches. Though present on the east coast, they are predominately a south and west coast species found throughout the English Channel and up the west coast as far as Oban in Scotland. They are also found throughout Ireland, but again the south and lower to mid-west coast are the prime spots. Generally, they average around 12oz but with fish to 2lb often caught. TIDE TALK When fishing manmade structure into deeper water, gars will feed most tides, but the best fishing is on the middle-sized tides and these fall between the 7th and the 11th, and again from the 14th to the 24th. The gars move around more on these…

YOUR FISHING CATCHES FOR ALL YOUR OTHER MISSION ACCOMPLISHED ENTRIES CHECK OUT THE SA FACEBOOK PAGE HOW TO ENTER Email only to sa.ed@kelsey.co.uk Please supply these details: angler’s name, age, address, telephone number, email, type of FISH, weight of FISH, where caught, DATE caught, BAIT/rig, whether caught from shore or boat, if from charter boat, give name of boat, port and skipper. Please state if the FISH was retained or returned. Send us your entries and win some great prizes ■ SHORE LURE OPTION: Solaris 4000 or 5000 reel, RRP: £60, Epixor 15-50g rod RRP: £80■ SHORE LURE OPTION: Solaris 4000 or 5000 reel, RRP: £60, Epixor 15-50g rod RRP: £80■ BOAT: Classic CLX, RRP: £60 Cortez Boat Rod, RRP: £90■ SHORE BAIT OPTION: DSA reel RRP: £60, Wave Power…

There is a wreck a long way off, deep into the Western Approaches which has been my nemesis for over half a century. It shows up as a monster on the echo sounder and where, over the years, some wrecks eventually disappear, rusting away until all that is left is some tackle snatching scrimmage showing as little humps and bumps on the bottom. This wreck has not disappeared, remaining as a hulking lump on the bottom! It has altered over the years, but remains a solid monster, showing up like a block of 1950s flats, and truth be told, it has puzzled me for years. One day, a few years ago, a pal of mine took a party of “gas” divers out to it and the mystery was a mystery…

ASK THE EXPERTS When sending your question, please remember to include your name and address HOW TO ASK US A QUESTION Email: sa.ed@kelsey. co.uk or online: facebook.com/seaanglermag By asking a question you are giving us permission to use your name and where you live in all versions and platforms of this magazine. Q Any advice on how to prevent weed getting stuck on my leader knot and then clogging up the tip ring when I’m reeling in? I’ve tried different knots but it doesn’t seem to make any difference and has caused me to lose fish. DARREN ANDREWS, ESSEX IB says: Weed can be a real problem at times, particularly if you’re fishing the estuaries in summer or from the shore during a gale, even sometimes…

There’s a sweet spot where practical fishing gear meets comfortable general leisurewear or ‘street’ wear. I’m not one for wearing branded fishing gear for social occasions outside the fishing world (or even in, if I’m honest); however, I couldn’t help feeling both stylish and comfortable in the new VASS Culture T-shirt I’d been wearing. So much so that, before I even realised it, I found myself wearing it in the pub after a recent fishing session. VASS is a brand that’s synonymous amongst sea anglers with waders and waterproofs. The Culture range of T-shirts is ideal for the summer. Available in black or khaki, these VASS branded T-shirts are well-made and breathable making them a great base layer under your waterproofs. The Culture range includes the VASS hoodies in the…

REVIEW I got a call from the editor asking me to go down to Trafalgar Wharf at Portchester, the site of the big dry stack, to have a look at a new boat on the market. We like to cover all bases when it comes to boats – from 25ft £100k super boats down to the smaller, more affordable boats available to anglers. This time the boat in question is in the latter category. The Mini Fisher 430 is certainly a lovely little boat. It’s compact and easily trailerable; at 4.3m it’s certainly one of the smaller boats I’ve tested but despite its size it packs a decent punch. Manufactured to order in Poland, it’s distributed in the UK by the Mini Fisher team. It is a new venture so…

Another two well-known and relatively safe spots for the less experienced or new angler are these marks just north of Arbroath town. These are both widely known as winter cod marks but are pretty prolific through spring and summer too. As with most east coast winter fishing, darkness and the correct conditions (a decent coloured sea and a swell running from the east) will always be most productive. AUCHMITHIE Auchmithie is a former fishing village (and the place where the Arbroath smokie was first fashioned) with the remains of a harbour in the bay. It’s an easy mark to fish and a picturesque location even if you’re not getting bites. The beach and harbour were used in the filming of the movie Under The Skin, which starred Scarlett Johansen; although…

TALES FROM THE TIDELINE The worn-out, favourite pair of slippers you can’t quite bring yourself to throw away; the dog-eared, well-thumbed copy of a go-to book for those quiet evenings; the armchair with its divots and depressions and its soft, creaking leather that always seems ready to welcome you and able to simply mould itself around your body every time you sit down at the weary end of a long day. We all love the comfortable and the familiar, gathering and stacking the symbols of foible and habit around us in a reassuringly assorted hotchpotch of objects. There inevitably comes a time, however, when we are, for whatever reason, pushed out of our comfort zone and on toward the new, whether it be through the fact that one of those…

When I started fishing offshore reefs for pollack and the various other species, other than strings of feathers, anglers drifting over these fish-rich environments would invariably use some form of artificial sandeel, such as the famous Eddystone Eel. These they would present on a rig called a Flying Collar, the original version of which incorporated a wire French boom. These days the majority of anglers fishing reefs and wrecks use various soft plastic worms and shads which have an incredibly lifelike and irresistible action. Some soft plastic lures are sold pre-rigged with a hook and internal weight, others are not. The easiest to use are those that do include a hook, as this will be perfectly mounted to ensure the lure swims correctly. If the lure you intend to use…

One hundred and twenty-three years ago Navy guns taking part in an exercise sent the former battleship the Empress of India to the bottom of Lyme Bay to a depth of 150ft. Almost 500ft in length and 15,000 tons in weight she is the biggest hulk in the vast area of the bay stretching from Portland Bill in Dorset to Devon’s Start Point. It played a significant role in the wreck fishing revolution of the 1960s when commercial trawler skippers based at Brixham realised there was a lot more money to be made taking out anglers eager to catch a big conger than trawling. The trigger for this dramatic change was the emergence of the British Conger Club which had immediately gripped the interest of boat anglers. The Decca navigator…

Being somewhat agricultural in design and operation, using an old fixed spool reel meant battling a heavy, clumsy tool instead of enjoying the creamy precision of a revolving CT spool. Today’s fixed spools are lighter and more compact, better balanced and nicely controllable. They’re quite capable of holding their own for distance casting and beaching hefty fish. No multiplier can touch them for retrieve speed, and that can be a telling factor. And yet, the age-old threats of tangles and sudden crack-offs still do their best to catch us out. Line twist is the culprit. The bottom line is that all fixed spools twist line; always have, always will. The quest then becomes not elimination but learning to live with it. Spool shape also has a major bearing on smooth…

FISHING NEWS The motivation for many sea anglers to go fishing is to be out and about with nature and enjoying the health and wellbeing benefits that we all know come from engaging with the natural world. Sometimes being on the sea or at the coast allows you to have an interaction with an animal that will leave a memory that will stay with you forever: porpoises riding the bow wave of your boat, or the sheer size and beauty of seeing a basking shark for the first time. The government and wildlife organisations want to ensure that, as visitor numbers to our coastlines increase, marine wildlife remains as undisturbed as possible. As a result, England’s first-ever national Marine and Coastal Wildlife Code was launched by the government last month…

MATCH FISHING The 2023 European Federation of Sea Anglers English Boat Championship was, this year, held in Eastbourne. It was organised by John Little, skipper of local boat Manx Belle. He got together three other boats to run the event: Deep Blue, skippered by Simon Logan, Odyssey skippered by John Goldsmith and Excalibur skippered by Lance Brown. EFSA kindly invited us on to one of the boats to report on the championship. Eastbourne is an ideal venue for this kind of event – effectively a massive species hunt where anglers are awarded points for each fish species up to a total of 10 per species. This means the skippers have to make a judgement about the best marks to fish to maximise the number of species they can catch. Eastbourne…

You’ll find the village of Wick located on the Vale of Glamorgan coastline, between Witches Point and Monknash Beach. The intertidal coastline adjacent to Wick consists of a series of shallow undulating ledges and deeper gullies along with countless rock pools which are occasionally separated by pockets of clean sand. Stand on the high cliffs that flank this stretch of coastline when the tide is out and you will very quickly see that the entire area screams fish and why Wick is widely regarded as being one of the most productive shore venues in South Wales. The most productive ledges at Wick are only accessible for a couple of hours either side of low water on the largest spring tides. You can fish here on smaller tides, and the fishing…

YOUR FISHING CATCHES £25 TACKLE VOUCHER WINNERS Fishingmegastore.com awards a £25 voucher prize to each of two winners - the youngster with the best shore fish and another with the top boat catch. The winners can use the voucher to select tackle from Fishingmegastore.com which is based in Glasgow and Edinburgh. ■ Send your Young Rods entries by email to sa.ed@kelsey.co.uk…

WHERE T0 BOAT FISH Why’s it called the Shambles then, skipper?” I asked. “I did find out once,” said Colin, skipper of Flamer IV, the Weymouth-based charter boat we were fishing aboard. “Because of the number of ships that have been wrecked by hitting it – it must be a mess – a total shambles down there.” Subsequent research using Chat GTP told me “the Shambles sandbank off the coast of Weymouth in Dorset is believed to have derived its name from the Old English word “sceamel,” which means a ledge or shelf. The sandbank resembles a shallow shelf or ledge, hence the name “Shambles”. Either way, that’s where we were with the ‘rips’ in the water visible as the tide pushed the water up and over the vast banks…

We’re very fortunate that we have so much competition in the lure fishing market. Brands are constantly trying to innovate and outdo each other. The French lure manufacturer, Fiiish, is well-known for its exceptional soft plastic lures in the ‘Black Minnow’ ranges. They are irresistible to predatory fish. I was excited when I heard that Fiiish were releasing a range of metal jigs, as that’s one of my favourite ways to catch mackerel, scad, Couch’s and black bream. The new Hypno Cast metal jigs come in 10, 20, 30 and 40g weights and also in four very eye-catching colours; Silver Morning, Sardine, Khaki and Pink Sardine. The exciting part of the design is that the single hook is mounted halfway down the jig instead of at the end, which you’ll…

The figure of 8 fluorocarbon lure knot is a very simple and efficient way to connect a fluorocarbon leader to lures and terminal tackle. It works best with real fluorocarbon 0.75 - 1.00mm (60 - 80lb). Step-by-step 1. Tie a figure of eight knot to the eye of your lure using your fluorocarbon leader and tighten by pulling hard on both ends. 2. Trim the tag end off leaving enough to soften the end of the fluorocarbon using the flame of a lighter. 3. Flatten the end of the melted line, as shown, and pull on the line until the now hardened and flattened end butts up against the knot creating a secure connection. Check out the step-by-step video at: youtu.be/3DV7cV-UJB4…