Marriage, Wrasse and Wreckage

Regular readers of this blog will have heard, or been warned about Norbert Darby. He is as wayward as they come, and so I wasn't surprised when he turned up two hours late to my wedding by the Double Locks the other night. It's a pub I've had previous with, and a great place to have a wedding bash on so many levels.

So in his customary fashion, Norbert arrived rather late, half cut on a BMX and not especially smartly dressed. I was even more shocked to learn he hadn't been fishing in two years. Seemed odd, because we were once both glued to the banks of the Exeter Canal fishing for carp (as recalled in Crooked Lines). And so, in that drunken way that you do, we hatched a plan to go kayaking fishing on the South Hams.

From the off, you could probably file it under "seemed a good idea at the time." Lashing waves. A small boat. Norbert's love of adventure and warped sense of humour. I didn't sleep that well the night before. When you've just got married, it's not a great time to go missing or die. But Norbert was insistent, after another tin of cider, that he had done loads of kayaking in his younger days, when not driving uninsured cars and chasing barmaids.

So anyway, we faced a foggy start to the next day, weaving through backroads and laughing at the lack of civilisation and directions. Low tide was mid afternoon, which didn't seem so ideal but left us with some time. Or enough to fritter away in what looked like a garage-come-shop, but turned out to sell a whole heap of fishing tackle, local tat and all the rest. Norbert left with a four pack of Strongbow, some crisps, weedless bass lures and a 3D postcard with pigs on it, which he thought was the best 99p he'd spent in his life. But this is Norbert. He is permanently acquiring things, only to lose them.



We reached our sheltered mark around midday and got sorted with kit. This takes some discipline with kayak fishing, because when you're out there, everything can get wet or misplaced, so you have to be organised. I put my lure boxes in a fly vest for security. We also wore buoyancy aids for safety. Really bad early 1990's buoyancy aids, to be specific.



We took the plunge right from the beach, getting well out into the little bay quickly. The tide seemed quite reasonable, although the spot we were heading for seemed to channel the currents.

It is an eerie, exciting feeling travelling over rocky, kelpy ground in a kayak. It was great to see a mark I've fished since childhood from a totally different angle too. The odd larger wave would sometimes creep up and give you butterflies, but Norbert was a dab hand at steering the boat.



We headed for a large rock that I must have looked and wondered at from the shore for the last twenty years. Now we could get to it! We'd packed three rods between us. Two lighter lure fishing outfits, along with a more no nonsense set up. I tried the heavier set up first with a Texas-rigged worm. I fished it tight to the bottom, jigging quite patiently and feeling for the bites. I got two early plucks, then nothing. But as we reached a really deep, fishy looking spot, I switched to weedless Black Minnow. I'd just cast some fifteen yards from the kayak and given a couple of pulls, when the rod absolutely thumped over. A pollack? A decent wrasse?



It turned out to be a lovely ballan, not far off three pounds I would guess. Norbert's pictures were pretty shaky, but at least he kept us both alive.



And I'm hardly joking, because after a break and a bite to eat, it was a very different sea we found. The incoming tide and an onshore breeze had kicked up quite a swell. It was tricky just to get into the sea without shipping lots of water. Not a huge issue, because modern sit on kayaks for fishing are very stable, and act like a giant air-chamber. But it's a pain when you have things like lure boxes and a camera on you, regardless of whether you have a dry bag.

Some of the waves on the return journey were large to say the least. The big ones would just pick you up like a toy. It was good practise, although fishing was often out of the question. You have to constantly anticipate and watch for currents and bigger waves. If you head directly into the waves, you get shoved up and down, but in safety. Whereas if you catch a big wave side-on, this is the biggest risk of the kayak rolling and getting pitched into the sea.

Eventually, we had to admit defeat and fish from the shore, since it had seemed way too risky to get into the rocky parts we really wanted to fish. It got pretty rough though. We started to get a battering and the General nearly got washed into the sea. A little disappointing, but there were still fish to be found from the shore, doing a spot of rock hopping and casting lures into the gullies.

I must say, the wrasse have been excellent fun this year but also quite a sharp learning curve. Having a session or two with Andy Mytton has really opened my eyes to the detail here. It is such brilliant, and surprising, fishing too. The trick is to fish lures right amongst it, in the rocks and kelp, hopping across the bottom foot or to with a degree of patience. The challenge for someone more used to freshwater fish, is the patience required. With the smaller fish, you have to let bites develop. But when a better wrasse arrives, the decisiveness of the take can be formidable.

A wrasse of two or three pounds can be too much for the lightest tackle, which explains why I was relieved to land another recent fish of that stamp from a different rock mark. Curiously this was on another more testing session where the larger lures didn't score- and the best of the day took a small 3" section of worm, rigged weedless. Luck had it that the shelf below was quite open and I was able to keep the fish from burying itself. Even so, the battle on an ultralight rod and 5lb hook link was hair-raising, thrilling stuff! A long-handled net came in handy once again too.




Which is enough excitement for a bit. Because it might be June 16th tomorrow, but it's absolutely lashing it down outside. Although you can catch more from me in both the Angling Times and the Turrall Flies blog shortly...

New horizons and old haunts

Does anyone else suffer from false-dawn syndrome each and every spring? The yo-yo temperatures and random seasons don't half mess with the moods of both fish and anglers at times. And this applies whether you're lure fishing a cove in South Devon, or tackling one of Cornwall's wild fly fishing lakes. Which is why I write this week's blog with some relief after some tricky fishing and hard won catches.



I had promised visiting angler Jim Sutherland a suitably mixed trio of outings, in fact, for what would be an unusual mission for me. The idea was three days of very different predator and fly fishing, adding a different twist to my usual guided fishing trips in Devon and Cornwall. Besides brushing up on casting skills and discovering some new fishing styles, he wanted to fish alongside me to produce an article.

A refreshing change for me, because by and large I do not fish when I guide. Aside from demonstrating the odd technique, I think it's poor form. Equally, as many articles I've appeared in, I can probably count those written about me by someone else on the fingers of one hand. As often as not, I tend to cover what others are doing, tending to agree with the saying that there's no telling what can be achieved if you're not fussed about who gets the credit. This way you get a much broader pool of knowledge than your own limited perspective. But this time it did make a nice change not have to do all the running and note-taking!

We started with a spot of lure and fly fishing in the rockier extremities of South Devon. If you can be bothered to walk, there are some stunning secret beaches and coves here. It's especially lovely to return to some of these spots you remember from childhood armed with more "grown up" fly or lure fishing tackle. The only slight hitch was that it had been a couple of years since I'd been to this particular spot, hence we slalomed through poky lanes and, on one occasion, popped into a local village hall where a makeshift polling station had been set up, just to ask for directions.

On this occasion, I intended to start with the lure rod, like Jim, because I desperately wanted a lure-caught wrasse. However, my usually reliable Shimano reel then decided to have a meltdown, with the spool no longer locking in place. Usually I cannot fault these reels, but I guess nothing lasts forever and twelve odd years had taken their toll. A bit embarrassing, to say the least, to be left with a tangle and a bust reel!

It was to be a curious quirk of fate though, because I soon got into the rhythm of casting a sandeel style fly pattern and began getting bites. A small pollack came first, before I wondered if I was seeing things. On a couple of deliveries I thought I had spotted long, silvery shapes chase the fly. And then I had my answer- a garfish took hold! My first garfish on the fly ever in fact (I've often seen them chase, but never got one in). The only slight regret is that I didn't get a better picture- but the sun was right in Jim's face and I decided I wanted to avoid excessive handling and let the thing go.



We had a testing, sometimes gruelling day after that. I was certain the bass and pollack would arrive on the rising tide, but they just wouldn't appear. And so eventually, we turned our attention back to the wrasse. In my case, I eventually tore myself away from the fly as Jim let me borrow his spare lure outfit (although I spent the day getting ribbed about "hire charges"). I broke my duck later in the day, but it was Jim who really earned his stripes with an absolute cracker that fought like fury. I'm going to be a party-pooper here and only show my own, more modest effort, because I don't want to steal his thunder for the full write up.



In the process of a really interesting three days we covered miles in the end, tackling Cornwall's Colliford Lake in pursuit of its stickleback-clobbering browns, not to mention a jaunt on the local canals. The latter, I think, really floated Jim's boat. Like me, he is a confirmed sight fishing addict with somewhat itchy feet, which was probably for the best given how many yards there were to cover over three days.



We had action packed hours and slow hours, but it was all interesting fishing. Perhaps the highlight was a foray into shallow waters with the fly. We had seen bream on the verge of spawning, but for the first time in the year I also spotted numbers of roach and hybrids sunbathing. They were willing to rise too, although they wanted quite small flies- larger bugs were flatly ignored, while a size 16 to 18 spider was sucked in gingerly by several nice samples.



We also played with the pike and perch- in my case, using my own dropshot minnow flies (which you can now find on my site). The perch were tricky, but in the clear margins it was possible to sight fish and use fluorocarbon rather than wire, to earn more takes. A little split shot or two and you can work these beautifully on the fly rod- but they'd also cast on a light lure set up.


I'm always torn with this kind of fishing. I'm reluctant not to use wire, but with fluorocarbon you tend to get more takes from perch, while you'll also land the typically small pike that take a shine to the minnow. It almost goes without saying that you should also debarb the fly/lure so that if there is a mishap the thing will come out easily once the tension is gone.

When it comes to "prospecting" with the fly and areas where you can't spot pike and take evasive action however, the only option is a wire trace. This was just one of several fish we shared on small lures and bigger pike flies:




Again, I'm reluctant to reveal all because no doubt Jim will produce a cracking write up and I have no desire to steal his thunder. Nor is this anything new, because it's fair to say that there's always a lot more between and behind the lines with what I write here. I just cannot include everything. Don't get me wrong, I love the blog as a kind of quick-fire diary. But I cannot give away everything for free and nor would you want me to- unless you're keen on the idea of a fishing landscape almost devoid of "real" books or magazines.

I've been as critical as anyone in the past about the fishing magazines, but it is as vital as it has ever been to support the print media. To give you some inside perspective from my own world, the balance of my income from print writing to digital content has swung totally in favour of the latter in the past three years. Part of this is because I write blogs for hotels and tourism these days. But in fishing the same is steadily happening. And while we all have to embrace change, we could be left with a world devoid of printed words if we're not careful, which would be a huge shame. Remove the rewards and standards will drop with the world of advertising holding all the ace cards, it's as simple as that.

It has been almost an ironic twist, therefore, that having written for the fishing press for over a decade now, I finally have a weekly column in the Angling Times! Yes, I know I've been outspoken once or twice before, but to their credit they have freshened things up with the new look magazine and even found space for an oddball like me. The Far Bank looks set to be a lot of fun. My remit is a sideways glance at the funnier and stranger aspects of the sport. This week's topic, for example, is all about the lure of dicey spots and dodgy casts.



I have lots more hot, strange and thorny topics to come in the months ahead, but if there's anything that amuses, perplexes or bothers you that you would like me to get my teeth into, do get in touch with me or drop the Angling Times a line!