So I recently decided to get back into the
lure fishing game. Ive said before that my love for fly fishing probably stems
from many hours lure fishing when I was younger. It’s the constant searching,
working the lure, chosing the right lure.. it all brings the hunter out in you,
and I love it. In the same way that you would match the hatch in fly fishing,
you have to chose lures appropriately to match what the fish are feeding on. It
is by no means easier than fly fishing! Forget the egos, this is wild fishing,
for wild fish, in extreme places. At the end of the day, we all have one common
goal, to catch fish and to have fun doing it, so why does it matter if you use
a bait, lure or fly rod?
I’ve had a lot of uni work on (yeah, sometimes
us students have to put down the bottles and turn the music off, eat something
other than a ready meal, grind at a desk staring at a screen and become a
normal human for a bit) so apologies for the lack of posts. If there’s one
thing students are good at, its procrastinating, and my new interest in LRF
(light Rock Fishing) and my rekindled love for lures saw me spending many hours
watching youtube videos and standing around in my local tackle shop chatting.
As soon as I finished my work, out I went, new lure rod in hand, a box of soft
plastics and visions of monster sea creatures.
I bought a 7-28gram lure rod, not quite LRF
standards as I wanted to do some heavier lure fishing with the possibility of
some bait fishing as well. The rod? A HTO Rockfish ML from Tronix, an absolute
cracker for the grand total of £35. I stuck my Okuma Trio Red Core on it with
some Shimano SPRO Braid that I had from my lure fishing days. Now all I needed,
was lures.
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| When messing around with lures, you don't need pro stuff The HTO Rockfish ML - A steal at £35. |
Having worked in a tackle shop before, the
million pound question is “What are they taking at the moment?” and I was well
aware of not asking this, but the folks at The Art of Fishing in Falmouth were
oh so helpful, and sent me on my way with some soft plastics. This is a cracking little tackle shop - check them out: http://www.artoffishing.co.uk . One lure
particularly caught my eye, the Black Minnow. What a lure! Incredible action,
and the first soft plastic that I’ve ever seen that’s mounted on an articulated
jig head!
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| Articulation between the hook and jig head makes for an impressive action! |
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| The pack contains one mounted body on the articulated jig head and one spare body. |
I scoured the rocky shore for hours. The
Fal Estuary was buzzing today, crashing swell, gusty winds, lots of interesting
boats (we all have a little nerdy side) and to my delight, a pod of
Bottle-nosed Dolphins swimming by! I found a small reef structure that I could
see from my rocky vantage point, aided by the superior polarization of my Costa
CatCay 580G sunglasses. I had a lot of follows, Mackerel, Garfish and some very
large (I mean monstrous!) Bass, but my reward finally came when I cranked the
Black Minnow hard and fast over the reef… WHACK! A Bass came outta nowhere and
inhaled my lure! My first Seabass to a lure rod, and jeez it put so much heat
on! So much fun, incredible. After a less than graceful landing (I nearly took
a dip, twice!) I was gazing at my prize, a beauty. I returned her safely
(that’s right, just because it came out of the sea doesn’t mean you have to kill
it) and after a little patience she swam away, flaring her gills in a little
goodbye – I’m sure it would be less polite if Bass could talk!
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| What a fantastic creature, and a hungry one at that! |
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| Electric blue fins. |
Sufficiently charged on adrenaline, I
headed home. What a great morning! It just goes to show that you can catch fish
anywhere, even when at uni! My other moral to end on, is that if you really do
love fishing, you’ll do anything to get on the water, even if that means
dropping your ego and doing something different, because if I remained a fly
angler and refused to even cast a different kind of rod, I’d never have
experienced that day. I’ve always hated the egos and social boundaries in
angling – what’s the point?! We all have the same interests and share the same
resource, so why act like we are all so different? Hope you enjoyed this one,
and I also hope that you’ll take my opinions (no rant intended) with you, because it really is refreshing to try something
new!
Time for lectures now (or shall I just go fishing?).
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