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