Innehållsförteckning för June 2024 från Sea Angler

When I was young, I was first introduced to paternoster tackle when I was part of an interclub junior quiz team. I was told that it got its name – literally (in Latin) ‘Our Father’ from the Oratio Dominica (the Lord’s Prayer) – from Cistercian monks who used to breed carp in stew ponds for eating. The monks were forbidden meat on a Friday so the carp in their stew ponds became the next best thing on the menu. Supposedly, they used an early form of the paternoster rig to catch them usually, and this made me chuckle, with wooden poles to which horsehair fibres were attached. Being young, I went along with this – it seemed logical after all and I had no reason to question it – though…

SHORE SOLE Sole, a muscular and tasty flatfish, have become a cult fish for anglers over recent years. They are also a species you need to specifically target as lucky captures are not that common. TIDE TALK Targeting sole in our larger muddy estuaries where the tide flow is fast indicates the smaller tides from the 12th to the 19th are good. The rising tides from the 16th to the 19th being the ideal ones to fish. Off deeper beaches, again the tides falling between the 12th and 19th look perfect. There’s always a chance of a sole on bigger spring tides, but generally, the small to middle sized tides produce the most fish. Dusk and dawn are always good times for sole bites, especially if this coincides with low…

In association with £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…

ASK THE EXPERTS When sending your question, please remember to include your name and address CHRIS KENNEDY Chris is a specimen hunting specialist based on Sark and answers shore fishing questions. DAVID MITCHELL David is Sea Angler’s editor and is an expert on sea angling policy and conservation . BEN BASSETT The Plymouth angler and blogger will provide answers on the sport of light rock fishing (LRF), the go-anywhere tactic. DAVE LEWIS Based in Newport, South Wales, our contributing editor Dave answers boat fishing questions. HENRY GILBEY Angler, blogger and photojournalist Henry, based in Cornwall, is our lure expert. BRIAN PASK Brian is a qualified sea angling coach and casting tutor who works with young people and experienced anglers to improve their fishing skills. SHORE ANGLING Q I live in…

It was the great American outdoor writer Henry Thoreau who once wrote: ‘Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after’. And that may well be the case, but there is no doubt that my first trips to Ireland were exclusively about catching fish. To be more precise, catching as many fish in the time available as possible! Unlike Thoreau, rather than immerse myself in the simple delight of just being there and enjoying the wonderful place, the people and the whole experience of fishing in a different country, I was blinkered by the opportunity of catching the sort of numbers of fish that then and now are rarely, if ever seen at home. Over the years, thankfully, this single-minded attitude…

Most bass anglers are going to have a bit of a thing for long-casting and very shallow swimming hard lures, especially with the sort of ground so many of us fish. I also believe that less is often more in bass fishing; a degree of subtlety when a lure is on the retrieve can often be a good thing. The newish Savage Gear Gravity Shallow hard lures come in two sizes – 10cm/14g and 11.5cm/20g – and are my ideal ultra-shallow diving lures for fishing over shallow and rough ground. There are subtly different ways to design hard lures which fit into this category and the guy behind these lures came at them from his ingenious Gravity Pencil: a small, dense, hard lure designed mainly for fishing in warmer waters,…

On a crisp day in April, Lymington Yacht Haven played host to the Sea Angling Classic Qualifier. The event offered the winning anglers the opportunity to secure free entry into the prestigious competition taking place in June. The atmosphere was electric as anglers arrived by boat in Lymington on Friday evening, brimming with excitement for the days ahead. Among them was Team Squidward who embarked on a special mission for this event. Luke and Caz teamed up with Gemma from Ship Happens and Izzy from Crewsaver to fish aboard the brand-new Parker Pilot House 700, Pink Panther. ALL FEMALE TEAM The Pink Panther holds a special significance as it symbolises the beginning of an all-female team dedicated to raising awareness for breast cancer while competing in the Sea Angling Classic.…

Ance renowned flounder fishery, Pennington Sea Wall, nestling along the western end of the Hampshire coastline, is now just a distant memory of its former glory. However, in recent years there has been something of a silver lining to the collapse of the flounder fishing. With the rise in water temperature due to global warming gilthead bream are now showing in reasonable numbers during the summer months, along with a host of other species including smoothhound, stingray, black bream and bass. Generally, I would recommend fishing the last three hours of the flood when there will be a slight right to left tidal pull, and then the first two hours of the ebb, when the tidal pull will be from left to right, with intermediate tides favoured for most species.…

In recent times, much has rightly been made of the importance of looking after our mental health. Once disregarded as something we simply need to master, dismissed with a wave of the hand, a trivialising call for the need to display ‘a stiff upper lip’ and the call to ‘make the best of things’, now we, as a society, are much more open to dialogue about good mental health and how best to work toward achieving it. In short, we have become far more aware not just about the way we feel, but also about how we actually feel these things, especially on those days when our thoughts become a little wayward. To do this, the emphasis is very much upon using all those mental tools at our disposal, steering…

I have a boat, “Lucky Git” (don’t ask!), which I share with two other anglers, including Jim Whippy, an angler like me with well over 25 years' experience in boat angling. We hadn’t had a chance to go out for months and were careful over the winter to keep a check on the boat, keeping it clean and tidy with regular check-ups so we’d be ready in case, at short notice, we decided to go out when the weather improved. We’ve also serviced the engine regularly and because it's kept in a marina the boat is less exposed to the elements. When the weather did improve in early May we decided to get out and have a go for some bass as reports had been coming in of aggregations shoaling…

Much of my coaching in the past few months has been around improving people’s casting. I ran a one- to-one session for Warren who wanted to learn the pendulum cast. We spent some time working on the swing before unleashing several casts in the general direction of the French coast. Warren certainly had his Zziplex M4 bending more than he has ever had it before and, after an hour, was tired but very happy. Warren’s M4 is a cracking rod and it is something he can bend to get good distance. The old adage, “bend it to send it” is true; however, some rods bend too easily in some anglers’ hands and other anglers struggle to bend their rods properly! When looking for a new rod, whenever possible, try it…

WHERE, WHEN & HOW OFTEN While the stockingfoot wader option is most popular for freshwater wading, most sea anglers choose bootfoot waders. This style prevents the sand from clogging up your boots, as well as generally being easier to maintain and quicker to dry. Firstly, think about when you’ll be using your waders, where you’ll be using them and how often. If you’re mostly fishing during the summer months or will be moving around and walking in them a fair amount, it may make sense to go for the lighter more breathable options. You won’t overheat in them and it’s easier to move about in them. The downside to this style, however, is they are not as hard-wearing and sharp rocks and barnacles can damage the fabric more easily –…

Productive fishing on piers is akin to flicking a switch. Following three hours of fruitless fishing on a flooding neap tide in late July, my fresh ragworm bait mounted on a single hook at the end of a flowing 20-inch snood remained untouched. I had ensured that the bait was laid alongside one of the mussel-clustered pier stanchions in the hope of enticing my quarry for the day – the obscure, mystical, grey triggerfish. Just as frustration started to set in, something suddenly hammered my bait; whatever it was went off like a rocket, rapidly zigzagging all over the place causing the ratchet on my multiplier to scream as it stripped off yards of line. Although many fish species such as bass, smoothhound, wrasse and mullet can induce highly characteristic,…

Located on the Vale of Glamorgan coastline between Aberthaw and Stout Point, Boverton is a very productive venue. In terms of both the numbers and the quality of fish caught, this stretch of the Welsh coastline experiences some of the finest smoothhound fishing you’ll find anywhere in the UK. The hounds are abundant from May until September when multiple catches averaging around 10lb apiece is the norm rather than the exception. Further, unlike many other venues in the area that can get very crowded when the smoothhounds are running, it’s unusual to meet another angler at Boverton. Whenever you are specifically targeting smoothhounds peeler crab is the key bait, including common green crabs, red edibles and the highly sought-after velvet swimming crab – regarded by many as being the ultimate…

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 surf rod, RRP: £80 YOUR TARGETS... Catch a FISH on this list at…

On the 15th May 1973 my father and John Rawle set off for an evening’s bass fishing at the mouth of the river Crouch in Essex. On his way out of the door he gave my mum the phone number of the nearest farm; she was nine months pregnant. That evening dad caught a 7lb 6oz bass; the next day I was born weighing 7lb 8oz, or was it 7lb 6oz? He can’t remember. Almost a year to the day before I was born a young journalist stumbled across a method of angling that would revolutionise sea fishing here in the UK. This journalist was my father, Bob Cox, an enthusiastic photographer and keen angler. On the evening of 2nd May 1972, he was on board Arthur Wietzle’s charter boat…

The corkwing wrasse, Symphodus melops, is found in the eastern Atlantic ranging from Norway to Morocco, and west as far as the Azores. They are also found in the Mediterranean. Corkwing wrasse can be found in areas of rock or eel grass at depths varying from as little as one metre down to 30m. In the UK corkwing wrasse are widely distributed around much of the coast, especially the rockier areas of the South West and the Channel Islands. The British record is held with a fish that weighed 360g, fractionally over three quarters of a pound, and was caught off Portland in Dorset in 2005. IDENTIFICATION Corkwings are a popular target species with both species and LRF anglers and are occasionally misidentified as being one of the other species…

DECOY DS 13 SWITCH HEAD The Decoy DS-13 Switch Head is a football type sinker that allows you to create a joint rig by setting your favourite offset hook. The delta-shaped head can be used either front or rear by removing the sliding pin and reversing it. Due to the characteristics of each shape, it is possible to switch the Decoy DS-13 Switch Head between snag-less mode, which has excellent slip-through, and stack mode, which reduces travel distance. The design covers a variety of situations and allows you to tweak your presentation in the quest for extra takes. It is very effective when combined with a buoyant soft bait and then bounced across the seabed. This works well for bass in estuaries and wrasse in rockier areas. The Switch Heads…

This title may be controversial: there are lots of options on the market today in this very popular sector of UK lure fishing. French lure makers Fiiish were ahead of the curve in many respects and because of their tremendous success many others are desperately trying to emulate their original Black Minnow designs and ride that wave of popularity with anglers. As many of you reading know, France has some fantastic lure fishing grounds on its vast coastline, and it makes perfect sense to me that one of the best lure soft-plastic designs ever should come from a people with a tradition of being fanatical about their bass fishing. I have been using the Fiiish Black Minnows in their various guises for years now; they are my trusted go-to soft…

MATCH FISHING Fishing on a blustery Weybourne Beach on the county’s picturesque north coast, the big final was a showdown for 50 of the country’s top shore anglers who had been invited to go head-to-head after a year of point scoring matches. Winner Saul, from Deal, Kent, picked up £2,000 of Penn prizes after finishing with 123 points for the year, leading a strong chasing pack including Grimsby’s George Smith in second on 90 points and Old Colwyn’s Shane Russell in third place with 79. Open to all, over 18,000 anglers took part in Penn point scoring matches in 2023, and on the shore on the Saturday were a host of international anglers and sea angling superstars all vying for the title. With the league table wrapped up in December,…

JUNE ● 2: Gwent SAC Open Cardiff Foreshore. Contact Ivor Smith: 07854 829590. ● 2: Yorkshire Summer League 2024, teams of 5 qualifiers, East Halton, 1pm- 5pm. Meet 12:00; no Maddies (all other baits allowed); measure to weight conversion; no minimum hook sizes; 40 pegs; pre book only. Contact Brett: 07834 559265. ● 6: Fishon Tackle, round 6, Kicker/ Stokes Bay, 8-12pm. Signing in 6-7pm from Gilkicker car park, Military Road; pegged measure and release anything over 18cm; no bait restrictions; £10 member, £12.50 non-members; back up venue for all matches is Eastney. Contact Ashley Dowdeswell: 02394 007684 or 07807 639872. ● 7-8: Channel Anglers SAC 2023, Minehead Festival, Friday 7th June. Fishing 5.30-9.30pm; Saturday 8th June, fishing 6-10pm – two hours either side of high water each day; 90…

HOW IT WORKS ■ With £10,000 in tackle prizes the points, based on entries, are awarded to the top three plus section winners and captors of the largest fish caught in each designated Penn match. Penn also awards a prize of a Spinfisher fixed-spool reel to the angler scoring the most points in matches shown in each issue. If there is a tie, the winner will be the angler whose total is from the greatest number of results and is then chosen on merit by the Angling Trust. An angler can win only one reel during the year. To win a prize you must be registered with the Penn Sea League – supply your name, address, phone and email. Send fixtures, results and league registration by email to Ian Bowell:…