Irish_Shamrock wrote:What baits were you using and how did you fish them?
I basically used the same rig all day apart from the flowing trace for Pollock, though I changed the baits depending upon what I was trying to catch. You'll never see my rigs in any magazine, but they work for me. Basically it is a one-up, two down rig - one hook above the weight on a boom and two hooks below the weight on a four foot boom. I also have a Ballan Wrasse lookalike spoon a few inches from the final hook. When fishing for Wrasse I pile on the Ragworm and try and move it slowly hard against the rocks - a cert for Wrasse and equally a cert for losing gear regularly. To minimise losses I use a paper-clip between the weight and the boom, sacrificing weights in the hope of keeping rigs intact.
Over the reefs I used Ragworm to get the Ballan Wrasse as they score high points in our league. When I had caught my five wrasse, I switched to a flowing trace with a Mackeral strip to try and lift Pollock but never managed even one!
On the sand I used the same rig but with a dirty big chunk of Mackeral on the end hook to get my five dogs (couldn't stop getting them in the end!). On the other two hooks I used just a wee triangle of Mackeral hooked only once for Whiting. It was very effective but most were too small.
Once I had my dogs, I changed the bottom bait to Rag and hoped to avoid dogs and pick up Gurnard or even a Cod. The dogs simply left the rag as planned but started taking the wee Whiting baits on the higher hooks! Managed one Red Gurnard though.