Tech Talk

I see on numerous Forums newbe's and sometime more skilled anglers asking the heated dreaded "what Reel to use"....... so i thought id take the time to go through my main Baitcasters ( Multipliers ) which is use the most through out the season, from ultra-light perchin to the heavy weight 11-12inch swimbaits i use Baitcasters for 99% of my luring with sea luring being the only time id switch to the fixed spool reel.

Starting from left to right:- The Old worrior being my trusty Shimano Culcutta 101d, this old dog is my "MegaBait" reel.... loaded with 60lb PowerPro this reel is pretty much used soaly for Massive swimbaits and Jerks with a steady 5-0.1 retrieve and awesome drag even still after years of use, i actually used this reel when i caught my PB pike of 31lb 14oz and it dealt with the Pike great :-) Then its the Shimano Curado E7, this reel is my general purpose medium weight Baitcaster. its loaded with 30lb PowerPro and is used for general lure fishing with Medium swimbaits, Shads, spinnerbaits, general plugs etc also used allot while out Night surface fishing due to its rock solid reliability and ease of use. Then its my pride and Joy........ my rare as rocking horse shite Shimano Calaisdc :-) this reel beggers belief and is my fav bit of fishing kit its the top dog lure fishing reel money can buy in the world..... not cheap mind one of these puppies will set ya back 600quid i had mine shipped from Shimano Japan as soon as they got released a couple years back, with 4x4 digital control there is nothing conditions wise that will stop this reel! i use it for the pleasure of fishing, from larger lures to tiny spinners. Then its my other pride and joy the Shimano Conquest 51GT-Ti one of the smallest baitcasters on the market and smooth as butter used only for ultra-lighting as this is super tuned for the lighter work, again had this sent from Shimano Japan on the week of there release. almost scared to use it as its soooooo good looking a pure pleasure to use. Ill go through the Fixed spools i use next month and the ways i set the up, will also post some rods up

Winter Piking....

Me and Adrian Fished this sunday just gone in search of some decent fish around some of our local waters. with the rivers looking brilliant and a few "secret" still waters should start coming to life as the colder weather settling in! if im honest i was soooooo hoping for some huge perch but we only managed 4 Perch biggest being half a pound or so, but did see two Perch around the 2lb mark. but with super gin clear water it was almost impossible! we fished a few venues early off with no real luck the Pike we saw just didnt turn on with the odd follow the clear water didnt help matters. we ended up driving to a nearby lowland venue where Adrian managed 2 pike in 2 cast from the first swim we thought things looked up! but apart from a few small Jacks it just didnt happen! mind you i had a follow of a good double around the 15ish pound mark. after a couple of hours we decided to change scenery with the rivers in mind we headed off to a well known Pike and chub river when things finally started to happen with action almost instantly!

although the first 3 pike caught were the smallest iv had from this river 2 of which were less than half a pound! the average here is 6-9lb with lots of doubles when they decide to come out to play! this 8lber was my biggest of the day and really went well on light gear! long runs and tail walks! conditions couldnt get any better it really was amazing out there but the fish just didnt play ball! with the final pike caught being 10 not the best days piking iv had especially the tiny micro pikes trying to breast feed or something off my lure! was great to get out though this venue really does it for me! and ill be back hopefully in the next week or so and ill have some whoppers for the blog!

Bassing Adrian Stylie.......

Well not much time before christmas for the Bass fishing to still come up trumps! with the colder weather heading in rapidly! but as usuall my good mate Adrian certainly made me want to dust off the Sea gear again after fishing Ireland...... heres a short report of what you could call a "GOOD" session :-)

Friday afternoon......leave work early.........go home, grab gear.........arrive at local Dorset mark.......conditions good (what wind there was was offshore, good tide flow, clear water, about 2ft swell and no chop, cloudy/sunny spells).......1st cast, thought I saw a swirl near where my lure landed, no takes....2nd cast, 2lb bass on......3rd cast, 1-1/2lb bass on........4th cast, no takes........5th cast 3lb14oz bass on

and so it continued. After 21 casts I'd landed 10 bass and 1 pollack. Then it went quiet as the tide slowed, the wind swung round to sideshore, chop started to build. Stopped counting casts, but ended up with 16 bass, 4 pollack and 3 gars. what an afternoon! Adrian tells me that most Bass were taken on the great IMA K2 in blood orange i believe, theses lures are the nuts and simply work where most other lures just dont get a sniff. I have 4-5 K2's and they really do catch fish, doesnt matter if your chasing Bass or chucking this lure in the fresh stuff it tracks well and can be fished in a variety of ways check them out along with the rest of the IMA range at http://www.basslures.co.uk/

I'd say that concludes a impressive Bass session by anyones means! im hoping to get out Bassin this coming weekend so keep ya eyes peeled. Cheers Adrian for forwarding me some stuff keep at it :-)

Danny

Channel Critters

Well this isnt lure fishing by any means but still i get offered the chance to wrestle Ugly, Smelly, violent and evil creatures and i dont mean the Girls around pubs on a fri nite, Conger Eels....... me and my Bro headed up to north somerset last nite in search of Congers and Cod. we arrived at the various possible venues bang on high tide planning to fish it down and couple hours back up after low water. all the venues were packed by noddies and local anglers! iv never seen a North coast venue soooooo packed with anglers, they even had a burger van :-)

once we had stocked up on Fridge raiders and cola we headed to the spot we knew had the fish running close enough to be able to cover them with our casts, the fish at this venue are always between 75 and a 100yards off the beach. as you can see from the photo above you really have to pile on the pressure here as the fish try and pile into the big stones that litter this coastline and they WILL snap you off if the get in the rough stuff. it didnt take long before i had my first bite! literally 5mins aftwer my first cast my rod nodded over and smashed over and after a quick spirited fight the first Conger was landed! a fish of about 6lb not a monster but a handfull of angry Biting Eel.......
after a few dropper runs and shy bites the tide really started to crack on and our Fav time of the tide was starting to creep up on us..... i had another steamer of a bite which ended up on me being bitten off by yet another Eel, then as you can see abouve my Bro managed to nail a small Codling at super long range where we knew they would be shoaling at low water. its always good to see the cod showing again after a rough period for the species around UK shores. we managed to nail another big Flubber while trying for the Cod and i lost another decent fish while reeling it in over rough ground. we stuck it out for a couple hours more and decided to call it a day. Always good to try different types of fishing, shore fishing like this isnt really my cuppa tea but all in all a great night out with some nice fish thrown in the mix.

"oohhhh we do love to be beside the seaside"

Just returned from my second trip to Ireland this year, me and Martin headed out a couple weekends ago for two weeks of smashing Pollack, Coalfish, Maks and Wrasse with some PB's thrown in for good measure! we fished a different part of Ireland than when me and Adrian fished the Beara earlier in the summer. this was a totally different back drop to the wild southwest coast but all together beautifull suroundings to chuck some lures around! we even had the weather on our side with only two days deciding to piss it down on us!

we nailed Pollack on every session didnt blank at all! there was'nt the numbers of large Pollack like the beara but we did 20-30 fish a session on numerous sessions with Pollack between 4 and 6lb coming out most days with the odd larger one screaming line off the reels every now and then. we fished mostly wild rock ledges and reefs all stuffed with fish of all sizes, all willing to smash ya lures from soft plastics to surface lures the pollack loved it! on the first session we even smashed the hard fighting Coalfish. no real biggies but had them to around pound and a half, great fun on our light lure gear!

This Pollack which just bumped over the 6lb mark did the usuall dirty Pollack style take and fight! took right under the rod tip and steamed off 20ft of braid easy! its crazy how tough these fish are, pike this size dont even come close to the exsplosion off anger and charge these fish have when they have the kelp! i had 9 Pollack from this mark all between 4 and 6lb as well as my PB Wrasse which was caught on a soft plastic from Lunker City. all the Pollack took MegaBass Xlayers jigged in the deep holes close to the near rock ledges which are tackle grave yards you really have to bang the pressure on these hard fighting fish! check out the beast of a wrasse

We nailed lots of Wrasse on this trip on lures proving that it can be done, if you find the right swims and the right lures they really do abuse ya on light gear! we had most of our wrasse on jigs using 4-5inch grubs or as you can see a 7inch lunker city Fin-s fish!! i even had a wrasse on a surface lure while fishing one of the shallow reefs to the north of our holiday flat! iv never taken wrasse on surface lures just shows how aggressive these Ballans can get! check out the photo of this wrasse Martin nailed on a storm rattle grub on 5inch.

Nailed or what!!!

we found endless coves and points where you can chuck the lures in the right conditions and even the shallow little nooks and crannys produced some monsters! Martin nailed some clonking Pollack in one venue to a cracking 8lb! again on grubs fished tight to the reefs tackle loss was high but worth the risk when nailing fish like these, the storm grub winning again while i nailed fish to 5lb on the xlayers

Xlayers being my best catcher, in various sizes this lure rigged right just murders most fish that swim our seas and even the not so obvious colours doing the business

It wasnt all wild fishing we had some of our best catch's from the multiple small Harbours dotted around the place with fish 4-6lb cropping up nearly everywhere! the best bit is these places are totally neglected by all the anglers over here! anyone willing to put the tim in and venture off the beated tracks will be amazed at what can be had! both me and Henry Gilbey have said before its just plain crazy why its not more popular!

we also fished a fair bit in the hours of darkness which again is still unheard of over here we got some funny looks from the locals walking out to the spots armed with lure gear in the pitch black! but remember that this is such a dangerous coastline even in the day, the most experienced anglers can get into trouble here! so this sort of fishing is best left to guys who know there stuff! we fished mostly rough seas where we knew the pollack will be in close and smashing the baitfish which are shoaled up hiding from the mental seas i managed Pollack to 7lb in the pitch black truly heart stopping stuff when you cant see anything around you!

check out the scenery we were lucky enough to fish you cant beat sun sets like this in these beautiful suroundings! heres Martin gearing up for another night session which is always great when the conditions come good! this is proof that people should really be seeing this with there own eyes!
All in all a brill two weeks away fishing some amazing venues in the most amazing scenery you really cant beat this! cant wait to get back over there next year with Adrian again to put the Pollack back on the rocks bring it on!!

New toys for Ireland!!

Off to Ireland on sat and finally rumaged through the gear im taking..... along with two Savagear Road Runner travel rods and my trusty Shimano's ill be packing the fab Sakura Alpax which i have on long term test and is the reel that taimed the Beara Pollack on my last Ireland trip i have been sent a rather nice package from Nick at TopWater. I am now armed to the teeth with lots of slimey new MegaBass soft baits such as Xlayers, Spindle worms and the rather stinky Hazedong's. but the lures iv been waiting for are the new 100mm Sebile soft swimmers! if you have followed my Blog i was lucky enough to get my hands on the first swimmers in the country months before they went on sale through http://www.basslures.co.uk/ these were the standard 130's which i wrote about on here. they truly are wicked lures and really do the Sebile magic swimmer brand justice!

Heres a picture of a selection of Sebile magic swimmers ranging from the (hush hush) not even released Swimmer 82SSK snagless, soft swimmers 105 and 130 and the standard Magic swimmer 110FS all these lures have proven time and time again that all pred fish just love them from Perch to the double figure pike in fresh water and the Pollack and Bass in the sea fish just love them! Sebile really do have the playing field sorted from floaters to fast sink! they even got the swimmers in the Salt & Sun series which are specially designed for the most bad ass toothed fish that swim in the sea or fresh water! Another Sebile product that i am lucky enough to have my mits on are the Sebile hollow stick shadd softbait! based on the popular EFFTEX winning Stick Shadd they are designed with the same removable weight system as the Soft swimmer where they are rigged on a beast of worm hook where the tunstan weights can be pushed on. the hook sits inside the Lure where the top slit opens pushing the hook into the fish for near 100% weedless fishing over lillies or heavy weedbeds.

Check out the Youtube videos for most of the Sebile range on there own channel, some really innovative designs and lures which in my eyes are punching in a league of there own in the new and exciting lure market of 2010-2011 iv had the chance to check out the 2011 range and expect BIG things..... of coarse ill have first picks before sales in the UK so keep ya eyes peeled. Please check out www.basslures.co.uk for the sebile range they will sort you out with most of the 2010 catalogue, get in touch you will not be let down on what ever Sebile lure you choose. Tight lines

Danny

Off to Ireland AGAIN!!

Well im having a rather Poo time at the mo what with recent Job issues and money rapidly running out..... so its amazing that iv been offered another trip to Ireland!! this time we are heading to the west coast rather than the wild wild southwest Beara. iv never visited this part before and have seen it many times through good friend Henry and his TV shows on sky.

Just check out the views of this place...... writing this makes me just wanna get out fishing!! Ireland has soooo much to offer even if you are a worm dangler but for me its the epic light lure fishing for Crazy Pollack, Coalfish, Bass and the odd surprise! fingers crossed for the weather as its pretty dam wild out there but thats the beauty of being lucky enough to visit these places through my fishing! i am a luck Bugger. Im over there for 2 weeks this time and i simply cannot wait!! going to be using some new gear from the guys at Topwater so ill be doing some product reviews on here so keep ya eyes peeled! lets hope we can connect with some more wierd and wonderful species like the John Dory from the last trip

Ill post up more info on venues where we will visit when i know more, off out fishing tonight for Pike on the surface lures. will post up if we have a good session

Danny