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After a day of rest came the next session which was at ravens point. Inspired by Gareth's species session a few days prior, I set off with the intention of getting a dragonette. I made a few 2 up 1 down rigs with a luminous bead above a size 6 hook and baby ragworm as bait. I arrived to find 2 other blokes fishing so after a quic chat to see how they were getting on, I set up my rod and cast out. For 2 hours the only interesting catches were a spider crab and a tiny octopus, with the usual hordes of dogfish and dabs getting to the baits before anything else had a chance. After a couple of hours the other blokes decided they'd had enough of the dogfish and went home leaving me the mark to myself. Time to experiment! I chucked out my scratching rig at range and then set up a set of sabikis on my plugging rod. After a few fruitless casts I finally
felt a little nibble. Not the mackerel I wanted for breakfast, but my first new species for the day, a launce (species 30). I went on to catch 5 of them with this one on the left being the largest at nearly 28cm. The feathering died off for a while as did the scratching so my attentions turned to fishing the margins. I opted for a one up rig with a rotten bottom link. The hook length was 12lb fuorocarbon and attached to the end was a size 4 hook and rag.
The bites came thick and fast with plenty of
corkwings and small ballans falling victim to these deadly tactics. In the mix though was the odd tompot blenny and a few micro-pollock. Every so often though I'd get a tiny rattle and wasn't able to hook up. New tactics were needed. Same rig only this time with a size 12 hook. Again the ballans and corkwings came out in steady numbers but eventually after wading through them came that little rattling bite I had kept missing. With the size 12's on though I had no such problem and up came this little fella (left), a rock-cook wrasse (species 31) It was now getting late and after a few more chucks for the mackerl I called it quits. On arrival at the car though I was approached by an elderly chap who was part of the community watch. Apparently I looked suspicous even though I was wearing a bright blue billabong hoody, shorts and had a fair amount of fishing gear on me. On a serious note though, the reason he was checking up on me was due to a number of burglaries in the area by individuals posing as fisherman. After a nice chat though he realised I wasn't a yob and rather nicely said I seemed an intelligent young man (good job I make a good first impression), though he had said it was officially trespassing on private land and therefore strongly discouraged me and anyone else from venturing there. Just a warning for anyone thinking about a session there soon.
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So the last few days has seen me reach the half way point on my species hunt which is pleasing and leaves me with just shy of 8 months to round up 29 more. This is when it starts getting tough though. If anyone has any suggestions on where to target the rarer species I'd appreciate any info possible. Thanks!
Cheers for reading,
Tight Lines,
Ross
Nice blog report Ross. Really enjoyed the day Im used to blanking lol. See you this afternoon hopefully one of us will do well.
ReplyDeleteonly to happy to be of assistance,And thank you for spending your time showing me afew more new marks to try out much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteI also would like to thank you for letting me join you on one of your sessions which allow i blanked thoughly enjoyed which was only made better when you landed that plaice which i no you so badly wanted,congratulations & tight lines - camo col