The Bro seemed keen for a day out and I was only too glad to facilitate as part of my re-habilitation so the car was duly loaded up, The Bro collected and off we went. The main target was to be wrasse and we (or should I say “I”) had frozen hardback crab, lug and shell-on prawns along with some mackerel for bottom fishing over the sand. Leaving home, it was wet and windy but conditions improved as we headed west. We both set up tripods and beachcasters baited with mackerel and lug; this proved to be a complete waste of time as over the next 6 hours, not one bite registered and baits were retrieved untouched. The only flattie we saw was a decent flounder captured by a cormorant which spent a good 20 mins trying to work out what to do with it, it was surely too big to swallow.
Fortunately the wrasse were more obliging; as the tide began to flood the bites started and The Bro landed a small ballan of around two pounds to open his account. I followed suit with a similar sized fish, most of our fish were around the 2lb mark but The Bro outdid himself with a 3lb 5oz monster which put a mighty bend in his rod, admittedly with a test curve of about 2lb, it may have been a little soft as many fish reached the safety of snags despite the rod being almost bent circular. It never ceases to amaze me how skilful wrasse are at stealing bait and we were quickly running out of crab. I switched to the cooked shell-on whole prawns and started getting bites straight away. Eventually I hooked my best of the day, 3lb 8oz and this was followed by a few others between 2 and 2.5lb. I am now satisfied that these prawns are a good bait for the wrasse, perhaps as good as crab. They are certainly easier got! I’ve included a photo showing exactly what they are and how they look when trussed up in elastic on a hook. They make quite a long bait and I wonder would a pennel arrangement increase the hook up rate? I tried cutting off the head but I suspect those black eyes set in a red head may act as a target for the wrasse to attack. Further research required! A small coalie about 30cm and a few corkwings added to the tally before the prawns had all been used. For a while another guy joined us, he was using rag and while he caught fish, they were definitely smaller than the ones we were getting on the crab and prawns. We were also joined for a while by keymcg from the forum, good to see you ; we enjoyed the craic.
We probably lost more and perhaps better fish to snags than we landed, but a wrasse in the hand is worth two in the weed. One wrasse that The Bro landed had a hook and short length of line already in his mouth from a previous encounter with an angler. We ended up with about a dozen fish each and with one of us having to work in the morning, it was time for home.
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