Surface Action

within the Next month or so the Surface lure action here in Devon should really start hotting up! iv fished various surface lures since i was at school but two stick out by miles in my books..... the Renoski real Frog and the SwampFox! these lure literally murder the weedy shallow venues here in devon and between me and some of my fishing buddys we have managed to pull some absolute monsters from our water on bot these Surface lures! the SwampFoxs being my personal fav this lure as simple as it is will produce the goods everytime! last season i have large Swampys literally ripped in half while out fishing with Adrian and Martin last season! shocking stuff! heres a Photo taken of me last summer it really catches what i love about surface fishing throughout the summer! keep ya eyes peeled for some serious action this season i seriously cannot wait!!!!!

Couple hours out

Fished sunday with my fishing Buddy Tezo a couple miles of our local canal which is really coming to life at the mo as the water starts to warm up! fish already showing interest in surface lure which is fab in my eyes as this year i have some serious scores to settle!! we started off not far from my house slowely working our way out of town enjoying the mild overcast sunday afternoon! i decided to abuse some of the gear from http://www.basslures.co.uk/ which Nick sent over. i was armed with mostly Slug-gos and Fin-S fish shads as i just know they will do some serious damage this season, iv messed about with rigging them in different ways just to see what i can come up with! the one lure i wanted to abuse the most was the Sebile Magic swimmer softbait! this lure truely is wonderful in my eyes! i wrote about it in previous posts.

I left the house with my super smooth Shimano Conquest GT-ti 51 coupled with a tournament rod from Savage. this kit is spot on for general lure work in the UK and has help me land a fair few big fish in the last 12months! the Sebile Magic swimmer softbait was ideal for the just off clear water conditions with cloud cover it was superb! the action has to be seen to be belived, it would take a bit of getting used to if you havent fished texus styled lures with worm hooks before. the temptation to strike instantly is unreal and it just gets my juices flowing everytime i have to contain myself when i nice fish hits the lure! the key is to fish these lures in water where you can see what is happening! its amazing watching how a pike will nail a lure so hard that it will nearly rip the rod out your hands but then swim off with this softbait gently across its jaws..... you need to feel the strike and let the pike have the lure while you gently keep in contact enough to feel when the pike has taken the lure back. then wind down and STRIKE!!! amazing fishing which does take a while to figure out but once you have got the hang of it you will have no problems getting fish to the bank!

Heres Tezo with the biggest fish of the afternoon Just over 9lb and gave a good little scrap, it took the lure in 2-3inches of water it certainly was explosive action! the pike are coming thick and thin now and 2-3 doubles a session are now a regular lets just hope the surface action is anything like last season! ill be keeping a detailed account on the 2010 surface season on here so lets hope those twentys show the heads again!!

Simple's

Over the years iv used countless amounts of expensive flash new-tech lures and caught on all of them but recently iv been finding myself going back to basics.... when out Bassing last week i found myself once again getting overly excited at the prospects of Garfish!! i love catching Gar specially on light lure Gear. its not a species allot of people have caught so next time your near the coast give them a try. fish a spinner fairly fast just under the surface, wear ya polarised glasses because your see them before you catch one!

i decided to wack on a very simple yet advanced lure, the storm Flutter Stick

This is a Mini Jerk and can be fished very slowly walking the dog between 0-6ft with short twitches of the rod it just comes to life, i fished this for Gar as it was very lifelike in 12inches of water off the headland at Meadfoot once again didnt land a sodding Gar but had lots of chases! still need a bit more sun on the water then they will be out in force, they are one of my top targets for 2010. top tip for gar if your serious about it is buy a loaf of bread and a sardine or mak mash the bread in salt water and mash the fish into the sloppy bread flick this into the tide off the rocks and it will bring in the gar from all across the headland its a deadly trick and will work on just about any fish if you struggling!!

Back to work, but still Fishing

Had a really nice week off last week and was lucky enough to have some pretty Lush weather..... the week wasnt as productive as previous years but was lovely to just chill and get away from the normal everyday work hassle. between me and Tezo we fished numerous venues with no real monsters gracing us with there presence but still fishing is fishing! i ended the week with some spare of the moment bassing! my Brother and his sea fishing crew have been getting a fair few nice bass to bait on the south coast of devon so i made the plans to visit some of my summer secret marks in hope of some bass action!

The morning started off well and with after looking at Henry Gilbey's recent exploits i was ready for action, how anyone can sit there and thrown and say 'fishing is boring!' when you can get up in the morning and enjoy days and views like this!! im Lucky enough to live right in amoungst some of the prettiest parts of the country and absolute jewls for fishing in both fresh and saltwater.....


within the first hour or so i had two tiny schoolys on 5inch Slug-go's fished un-weighted just twitched through the rough ground! great fun, as low tide hit the weed started to rise and for me this is perfect bassing conditions bit of floating weed and broken rocks scattering the water line! at this actuall spot from the photo i could see fish rolling at the weed edge and at first glance thought it was some ok sized mullet but as i clambered along the rocks like some mountain goat i could see it was actually 2-3 nice sized bass!! my heart stopped and a whipped out my ace card the Lunker City Fin-s in 5inch also this is a deadly lure! i got a few follows which was amazing to see in the super clear water and a couple times i managed to get the bass to mouth the lures but they soon lost interest and dropped off into the depths. i then added a belly weight the the Texposer hook to get the lure down more but no such luck!

in the picture above you can see the belly weight sitting inside the lure, this is the ideal way to fish Slug-go's or Fin-S lures if you need to get them deeper! i fished 4-5 inch lures this day as its a nice size lure to flick around and matches the hatch of sooooooo many baitfish around at the mo! these lures have also worked very well for pike in fresh water, iv got Lunker City Fin-S's ranging from 4inch to the massive 9inchers which ill be abusing for wels Cats this summer! all the Lunker City Range is easily got hold of through www.basslures.co.uk Nick Roberts and his crew will sort you out with the right stuff. Nick gave me a massive load of Lunker City gear to test this Summer so ill post up on how it all goes as and when i get to use it!

April Week Off

Well its midway through my April week off and done allot of lure fishing on various venues with all one thing in comman!! crap fishing!! this is the slowest year we'v had in a long time throughout this week! on previous years we'v pulled some right monsters out including two 30+ pike

but so far all we have had is Jacks..... Tezo managed to put a 9lber on the bank yesterday and apart from that yet another day of Jacks, on monday i turned a big double which spooked from seeing me i believe, i was gutted as it was id say around 15-16lb came strate to the bank and turned at my feet! hopefully things will get a bit better as the week roles out

Both me and Terry have been abusing our new rods from Savage-gear, we have been using the new Butch XLNT which have proved to be pretty much spot on.... loaded with Fugi gold label reel seats and Sic guides its as good as it gets for the price in my eyes

We have had them loaded with Shimano Baitcasters, as you can see the Shimano E7 and Core mg. both filled to the brim with power pro. the lures used about are two very rewarding lures which have done me proud over the last couple seasons. the Savage-gear 4play 25cm and the 21cm Butch. both these lure getting toothed up throughtout the week just a shame it hasnt been one of the local Monsters..... there has been a couple big pike caught this week by a local chap one weighing just over 26lb and one just a smidgen over the magic 30!! both fish caught on deadbaits though, well done to Pete

We couldnt have a Week off without finding myself drawn to a Pub at some point!! and its almost tradition on our weeks off to have a sly one or two while the fish are not biting so hard on our Lures! heres a quick snap of tezo and his beloved Holiday Pint at the Turf, it was manic down there being a easter bank hols etc.