New Grounds

Well me and Jimbo hit our first session since the states where he was chasing poons and i was looking forward to this trip as we had decided on hitting ground we had checked out earlier in the year, Jim had walked these sections a few time taking some pics of possible gulleys and points to fish they all looked mint! so with this in mind we packed our softplastics gear and headed down the cliffs in search of Wrasse and silver snufflers....

I wasnt quite prepared for what i was about to see.... some of the most beautiful ground iv fished around this part of south devon! this was wrasse and bass heaven, mental deep gulleys and reefs breaking within casting distance, fingers of reef criss crossing in front of us silver sand coves creating almost tropical looking blue bays it was stunning!! every nook and cranny screamed fish i was like a child in a sweet shop didnt know where to look! it wasnt long before the fish showed up with Jim nailing the first wrasse in this gulley from right under our feet, FISH ON! 

  

Jim nailed this wrasse on Megabass Xlayer and Gamakatsu texas rigged combo after a short spirited scrap the fish was landed! i love these fish there so much fun on balanced gear Jim was literally getting hit on every cast i could see his rod banging over the whole time it was in the water! i fished right next to him and even had the wrasse swimming right up to the surface chasing our lures it was awesome seeing them bolt up behind the lure and actually see them looking for the lures when they hit the surface in the weed

Heres another fish from the same gulley again taken on the Xlayer this type of fishing is addictive and pushes all my buttons and i cant get enough of it! we fished numerous gulleys all of which had wrasse climbing the walls, after a short walk along the sheep tracks we stumbled across possibly the fishiest set of rocks and huge gulleys iv seen! both me and Jim sat on the rocks totally blown away by the ground we had found! this just screamed bass on the rocks breaking in the distance but i couldnt help myself so i flicked my Wave Worm into this pit of a gulley and instantly got smashed up! after three or four smash and grabs i was in!

this fish took a Wave worm Baby Tiki stick, black with red glitter with a red tipped tail. these are 4" long and a bit slimmer than the standard Tiki Sticks this makes them awesome for fishing really snaggy ground as you can fish them with the hook completely inside the worm rather that nipped in texposed. the softer rubber allows you to strike the hook home when you get a bite but also drag the lure through fairly thick touch weed without it hanging the hook up and snagging! the only issue is this method tends to tear the lure up allot which can suck ass sometimes. after 3 wrasse from this pool while Jim plugged for bass we moved to the other side of this pit/gulley where we were greeted by more mouth watering water to fish!!

Jim was straight into this near 4lber while actually fishing a 6" Slug-go for the bass ripping the lure across allot more "bass like" but these Pigs kept smashing the lures well off the bottom it was awesome seeing Jims rod lumped over fishing a method completely different to me crawing senko type lures along the bottom. but he kept getting hits on every other cast!

things were hotting up now as the tide started to push back up and the wrasse started to get more and more aggressive with most casts getting hit or fish following the lures up the ledges! in the next set of gulleys it was allot more bassy...... it was half hour or so into the in coming tide and the water was gin clear, with the 4-5ft deep pools with sand on the bottom it looked like something from your holiday snaps from the med! i scrambled down the ridge onto pretty much virgin rocks when all of a sudden i hear Jimbo shout out he could see a chunky bass swimming towards me further up the gulley behind me! i had a few casts but no luck when from right under my feet i saw a Bass swim right past me! i tied on one of my Fiiish black minnow's with my 5g head but nothing..... i caught out the corner of my two faily chunky Ballans literally under my feet on this small patch of kelp. i flicked my Black Minnow into the gulley and dragged it through the weed next to them when WHAM

This was one of the coolest catches iv had in a long long time!! it was like stalking chub on our local river i saw this fish tucked up against the weed and watched it follow up and look around for the lure before jumping on my lure it was awesome! we do sooooo much of our wrassing in deep gulleys in 10-15ft of water where you cant see whats going on, being able to see this fish come up from 5ft of water and taking a lure in water with only 3-4" of water above it was epic and such a buzz! 

we then moved to some ledges around the corner which we had fished on the high tide mark earlier in the day, so wanted to see what it was like at low water..... it didnt let us down with fish instantly! with Jim getting his Slug-go ripped down the hook and my Salt stick senko getting whammed straight away by this chunky low 3lber sport was thick and fast with two smaller wrasse in as many casts after i released this fish! i kept getting good hits in the deeper part of the pit when again i was whammed and stripped of line into the snags

all the fish seemed to be stacked in this tight hole it was almost a fish a cast and was epic fun! these greedy ballans are a ball to target this way, does it get any more simpler than twitching senkos anlong the reefs.... NO its soooo much fun! Jim had another wrasse and called it a day as the weather was sneaking in behind us with the colder winds making it rather chilly but i was on a roll while Jimbo sat on the rocks chilling i fished on with good results the very next fish was this beauty

being my biggest of the session at nearly 4lb and a good scrap to boot dive bombing into the kelp and running me through the rocks, i checked my leader after and how i didnt get cut off is a joke i was lucky on this one!! time for a few more casts before we head back for a well earned cup of coffee im getting my lure back out there and after a few casts im in again....... all from the same spot this was mental!! and couldnt of ended such a good fun day any better! 19 wrasse landed and twice as many hooked and lost we both walked back up smiling and already talking of the next session!!

tightlines