Back at the Marina. 27th Jan

After the success of my first trip of the year I paid another visit to Portishead Marina hoping to get the flounder I failed to catch on the first attempt.

It was a lovely day when I arrived clear skies and not too cold which was a vast improvement on the snow and ice of recent weeks.  The water was slightly clearer than last time but still with a hint of colour so.  I set up in the same spot as last time

I decided to fine tune my gear slightly instead of carp rods I opted for a quiver-tip rod and a barbel rod with 6lb and 10lb lines.  I stuck with a single size 4 hook and flowing trace on the barbel rod.  However on the quiver-tip I wanted to try to target mini species so made up a two hook flowing trace with size 10 hooks with tiny cubes of mackerel and worm as bait.  I stuck with halibut groundbait in the feeder.

It took a few minutes to get bites.  The culprits as I expected were little whiting which were homing in on the little chunks of mack.  With a light quiver tip the bites were quite dramatic and easy to hit.  I managed 3 whiting one after the other then the bites dried up which was a little strange.  I gave it an hour and then decided to move to the other side of the marina where I had been told was the place to catch flounder.  The water was much shallower probably only 8-10 feet and I swapped the mini-species rig to a single hook trace to target the flatties.

The normal procedure when you get a bite from a flounder (as far as I know) is to pick up your flask pour a cuppa and sit back and let the fish have a good old chew before setting the hook.  So with this in mind when I got a flounder-ish bite I gave it plenty of time but after the initial pulls nothing.  I reeled in re-baited and cast to the same area and within 10 minutes got another bite but the same thing happened after the first few pulls nothing.  So slightly annoyed at missing two flounder bites I made up my mind to strike at the next bite straight away.  20 minute later got a bite on the quiver rod I struck and fish on and netted this lovely little fish.

It certainly wasn't the biggest flounder in the world probably about 8 or 10oz but is was mission accomplished for this trip.  Fished on a little while longer but nothing else showed up.  A few other guys were fishing and saw one other flounder caught a little bit bigger than mine.

After 2 trips my species hunt is going well with 3 species caught.  Have just treated myself to an LFR rod which I hope will not only be a lot of fun to use but help me target blennies, gobies, scorpion fish and the like to really boost my species tally.  Although I think summer will be the best time to target mini species I don't think I can wait till then to play with my new toy so will be heading out as soon as I can to practice and I think a good sized flounder will put a serious bend in it.

Tight lines

2013 Species - Thick-lipped mullet, whiting, flounder

Portishead Marina 6th Jan 2013

Reports for the main Bristol Channel this winter have been mixed to say the least.  There are cod out there and of decent size but they are thin on the ground so a lot of luck or lots of hours are needed at the moment to be successful.

I didn't want to start the year with a blank so I opted for a few hours fishing at Portishead marina hoping for a flounder or two to rattle the rod tips and get my species hunt under way.  I'd never fished the venue before but was aware that freshwater tactics were the way to go so armed myself a couple of carp rods and set the alarm for an early start in the morning.

Conditions in the marina looked good with a bit of colour to the water which I hoped would encourage the fish to feed.  I kept my set up simple with flowing traces carrying a few bright beads and a small spinner blade for added attraction with ragworm on a size 4 hook.  Rather than using a plain old lead I decided I would try open-end feeders loaded with halibut groundbait containing chopped up mackerel and squid.

Having grown up coarse fishing I've used groundbait for years but like most sea anglers its not something I've really used in salt water.  With such a great range of fishy groundbaits and pellets on the market its an ideal time to start experimenting with groundbaiting in sea angling and is something I intend to do over the coming months.  Whether it will help my catches I'm not sure but it can't do any harm!

Back to the fishing and I started to get bites straight away but they were little rattles that didn't develop into proper bites I suspect little whiting and gobies were probably to blame.  I continued to fish hard despite the lack of fish casting regularly to get a bed of bait on the bottom which would eventually attract something decent.  I finally got my reward about lunchtime when I struck into my first proper bite of the day and the rod arched over into a good curve.  I thought I'd hooked into a large flounder but I was in for a little bit of a shock when instead of a a flounder a mullet broke the surface with the ragworm bait hanging from the corner of its mouth.  The fight was not as heart stopping as I would have expected from a mullet but was very relieved when I managed to scoop the fish up on the landing net at the second attempt.

My 5lb mullet.

The mullet went 5lb exactly on the scales which was a massive PB.  After a quick photo it was returned to fight another day.  I had a few more bites after returning the mullet but no more fish and packed up mid-afternoon.  I went home a very happy man!  

My species hunt challenge has started with a bang although not quite in a way I was expecting!

Looking forward to my next trip already.

Tight Lines.

2013 Species List: thick lipped mullet

The Challenge

Its January 2013 and I have set myself the challenge of trying to catch as many species of sea fish as I can  from UK waters in a calendar year.  Living in Bristol I have great local fishing in the form of the Bristol Channel and I will also be making regular trips down to the south coast around Weymouth.  This blog will chart my progress throughout the year and will hopefully keep me focused on the task at hand.  

I'm looking for a final figure of at least 35 species.  In 2012 I managed a total of 33 species (ballen wrasse, ballions wrasse, bass, black bream, black goby, blonde ray, brill, bull huss, cod, common goby, corkwing wrasse, dab, dragonet, garfish, gold sinney wrasse, lesser spotted dogfish, launce, ling, long spined sea scorpion, mackerel, plaice, pollack, poor cod, pout, red band fish, red gurnard, silver eel, starrey smoothhound, thick lipped grey mullet, thornback ray, tompot blenney, turbot and whiting).

This list is missing a few species I would normally expect to catch such as conger eel, cuckoo wrasse and scad so with a bit of luck I should hit my target and if i can find a couple of new species and maybe a personal best or 2 along the way all the better.

Fingers crossed for a good year.