by johnwest » Fri Sep 23, 2016 12:30 am
With a heavy crop of berries weighing down the branches of the mountain ashes, it seemed like autumn was settling in so it was a good time to target a few harvest wrasse. Rather than be tormented by small wrasse and coalies shredding worm baits, I decided to go hardback crab only. I mentioned in a previous report how my usual crab spot had been destroyed by somebody not replacing the stones as they were so I tried a different location. I had to waterproof myself as the rain had started in earnest but I struck lucky; lifting one flattish rock exposed about 2 dozen perfectly sized crabs. I managed to catch about 20 of them and thought that would be plenty, it was certainly a lot handier than digging lug. The tide had 1 hour of ebb left as I set up a float rig and cast out a short distance and within minutes the first wrasse attacked, a ballan about 1.5lbs. A couple of corkwings and several more small ballans followed and just as the tide turned the rod heeled over hard as a good fish crunched a crab. A few determined dives and surges and the wrasse came up to the surface to thrash about. Finally, tired out, I was able to slide him onto a flat rock and lift him clear. It registered 4lb 12oz on the scales, just on the specimen weight and a new p.b. for me, well for the next 20 minutes. After a couple of missed bites, the next fish pulled the scales down to 5lb 4oz, another new p.b. and specimen. A few wrasse around the 2lb mark and then another good fish at 3lb 15oz showed up in a different green colour scheme. By now I had run out of crab bait so I packed up the wrasse rod and set up the beachcaster with mackerel strip for bait. This produced 4 dogfish, a few small coalfish and a small dab. The mackerel head and guts were fished in close for conger and after a few inches of line were pulled from the reel, I picked up the rod in readiness. Nothing more happened so I reeled in to check the bait and hanging on to a trailing gut was a long spined sea scorpion. It’s not often that the bait is bigger than the catch. By now it was getting cool so I decided to pack up and as I reeled in the flapper, a 1lb 10oz pollack grabbed the bait making a total of seven species for the session. Hopefully I’ll get another turn or two at those wrasse.
- Attachments
-
- Autumnal Mountain Ash
-
- Crab Crunchers
-
- 3lb 15oz wrasse
-
- 4lb 12oz wrasse
-
- 5lb 4oz wrasse
2013 species; 31
2014 species; 27
2015 species; 28
2016 species; 32
2017 species;28
2018 species; 33
2019 species; ballan wrasse,blonde ray, coalfish, cod, cuckoo wrasse, dab, dogfish, flounder, goldsinny wrasse, ling, mackerel, plaice, pollack, poorcod, pouting, scad, sea scorpion, spotty ray, spurdog, thornback, tub gurnard, turbot, whiting.
- For this message the author johnwest has received thanks: 8
- basilrabbit (Mon Sep 26, 2016 9:06 pm), birdseye (Fri Sep 23, 2016 1:44 pm), eyesreilly (Fri Sep 23, 2016 9:56 pm), jack01986 (Sun Sep 25, 2016 8:58 pm), keithmc (Fri Sep 23, 2016 8:32 am), kieran (Fri Sep 23, 2016 9:55 am), Killary (Fri Sep 23, 2016 9:42 am), mickser (Fri Sep 23, 2016 12:01 pm)