It seems I just can’t get enough of catching wrasse on lures. It was
this time last year that I decided to bite the bullet and start experimenting
with lightweight lure fishing. Wrasse and pollock would never have been my intended
quarry up until then but now I’m a full-time, rough-ground addict!!
After the initial surge of building a suitable lure
collection, I have now established some serious favourites and it seems the
majority is now relegated to the Tupperware’s and biscuit tins surrounding me in
my office. If you like big-boys toys then you too are likely to have been
sucked in and now have many boxes of plastics in various colours, shapes and
styles. It seems more than ever that the lure market is as good at hooking fish
as it is the customer and I for one have been guilty of thinking any new bit of
sparkle is a must have if I'm to make the most out of my sessions. This of
course isn't true and the more I learn, the less that seems to go into my
bag each time I go fishing. I'm also remembering why I set out on
this journey and that was predominantly to fish lighter!!
During most sessions
last year I was leaving home with everything I had acquired, including jig
heads, lures (hard and soft), weights, hooks, leaders etc.. It was defeating the
object of going lighter but I suppose at the time I was unsure of the right tackle
for the situation and didn't want to be caught short on the rocks without the
right gear. It seems now with more experience I've become better at assessing the
situation beforehand and now only leave home with the bare minimum. For one it’s lighter to carry and above all, it’s easier
to find what you’re looking for in your bag and organise things so it's there to hand when you need it. I've always been a bit OCD and if you’re remotely
similar you‘ll know the impact that good organisation can make to a days fishing.
I'm hoping as the year progresses I will find a need for the excess tackle but
for now it seems that in most situations I will fish a weedless hook, soft
plastic lure and maybe a small nose weight running free on the leader. Jigheads would just be a nightmare in the kelp and even over clean ground I find
myself adopting texas-style rigging to limit dragging in any floating bits of
weed which are everywhere at this time of the year after a good blow.
There’s also the matter of my serious fetish for paddle-tails this year! Senkos and X-layers were becoming my favourite styles last year but now it seems I have found extra confidence with lures such as the awesome Sawamura One’ Up Shad and the Keitech Easy Shiner.
Both have added impregnated scents but the
movement as soon as the lure hits the water seems to drive some fish into a feeding
frenzy. I now refer to these as Haribo for wrasse and whilst not being
the cheapest lures to let them rip to shreds they do pay for themselves with
the amount of fish you catch.
Anyway, enough waffle for now, time for some fishy photos. Needless
to say it’s been wrasse, wrasse and more wrasse. Don’t think I’ll ever get
tired of catching these beautiful fish. Well done to Stuart on nailing that fatty that ran you aground
last time!! Thanks for reading!!
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