From the sublime to the ridiculous



Sublime ?

 

 



Well in those far off days this was the rudimentary selection of lures that I used to great effect on my local waters . The upper reaches of the Adur were a great place for surface fishing for Pike amoungst the lilies with a Jitterbug and Lucky Thirteen ( I also had a Scum Mouse which was weedless and apparently hookless as it got take after take but never succeeded in landing anything ! I called it my conservation mouse !)  and the " S 's" in the various sizes caught me lots of Pike , Chub and Trout from the Arun and Adur . In fact what I would class as my best and most prized catch was taken on a trusty Big S in the original silver colour , an 11lb 8 oz Sea Trout from the Rother . I must get an electronic version of the photo to upload onto here .

Then I discovered that collecting habit .....

 Believe it or not there are more but I couldn't fit them on the table ! Oh and by the way I have sold a lot to try and reduce the collection down to a reasonable level . Oh dear !

Then of course came the plastic collecting phase . I sold a lot of them too !

But now the LRF phase swings into focus , and funnily enough I have found loads of wormy type things in the depths of the shed so I am off and running .

Of course I forgot to say that I fly fish as well , so it wasn't long before the fly fishing for Pike bug was passed my way .

Ridiculous ?



Lure Angler's Anonymous

Hi ,  my name is Dave , and I am a Lure Angler .......so begins the introduction from someone with a problem .

There I have admitted it ! The great thing about lure fishing is its simplicity , a few ( remember that !) lures in a nice little box , a rod and reel , landing net and off you go . Well that was me twenty odd years ago , a few favourite lures was all I needed  and I caught fish and enjoyed the whole thing immensely .

I had two compartmentalised boxes , one for spoons and spinners and the for  other plugs . My favourite lures at the time were the " Big S" and its near relatives the " Midi and Mini " and various spoons plus of course Mepps spinners in different sizes . I had a couple of secret weapons in the " Barrie's Buzzer" and  some surface lures , the " Crazy Crawler " and " Jitterbug" plus the " Lucky Thirteen " . Plus of course a few really secret "rubbers " (ooh I say )and jigs .

Then it happened , I started reading about lure angling and joined the LAS ,  and being a gullible sort I realised that the fish I was catching with my limited selection of lures were obviously very stupid because you HAD to have the latest " in " lures to catch fish , so Harris Angling catalogues became my bed time reading and my collection began to grow . New storage solutions were also soon on the agenda and more boxes with nice compartments were soon gracing the fishing shed shelves . With one very happy angler ( collector ) who actually seemed to now spend more time playing with the lures  and planning on new purchases than actually fishing with the ever expanding lure collection . ( Some never got wet !)

I had it bad ! I refused to bait fish at all for 5 years  ! A fish caught on a lure was the only one that counted ! The phrase " A jerk bait at one end and a fool at the other " comes to mind .

Well ..... trips to Egypt , Sweden, Scotland , Ireland  and all sorts of reservoirs with lures of all types were fantastic and I did catch fish , but I spent loads of money ( don't ask I dread to think !) on rods , reels , braid and lures , oh and lure boxes , but there came a day , when my 5 years  of  no bait fishing had to came to an end .

So I went back to proper fishing and funnily enough I caught more fish ! And bigger ones too !

There is a time and a place for lure fishing . I always have the time but I don't want to fill up the place with lures that don't get wet !

Well after selling most of my lures , I still seem to have a lot but they are ones I know I will use and that they work , but  I have developed a new interest .....LRF. Could it be that the fishing tackle industry is having a LRF ( laugh) on us anglers ? Apparently you need special gear to do this type of fishing .

This seems like a re invention,  as I was dangling plastic worms and jigs all those years ago , but look at all those lures and worms of different  colours , and nice little boxes to put them in , plus new rods and reels . The dark angel of lure collecting is rising from the ashes of what ever compartmentalised box I locked it in years ago ..... to be continued

Undulate Heaven

A rising set of tides meant that the Tope mark , we had fished , was out of bounds so Jeff decided on an attempt to capture a smoothhound and some rays .
I decided to stick with the circle hook approach as an experiment and Jeff kept with the more traditional "J" hooks .
I must admit I am still a bit confused as to the actual practicalities of how the circle hook works but work it does  as long as you don't strike , and the level of "easy" to remove hooks really benefits their use . I also de barb them .
Anyway cuttle and squid formed the main course for what ever would come along .....

Well six nice undulates with the best well into double figures plus of course the ubiquitous "cat Sharks" meant a great day with fantastic weather !

Tangling with Tope

Unfortunately a planned trip out with Jeff on "Jupiter's Moon" on Saturday was not possible due to the wind and waves ....and more importantly the 150 million Kw's of power being launched from the sky , which if you are standing waving a lovely carbon fibre stick in the air, from a boat with lovely steel rod rests and aeriels ,  surrounded by a few miles of open water seems a recipe for disaster !

However the weather God was looking favourably on us because Sunday was a beautiful day .

The action was pretty instant with Tope , and few interloping doggies . The Tope were giving gentle bites with few of the screaming runs we had last year . But the circle hooks and mono traces meant good hook ups and easy un-hooking . But they really do "hang on " !

We could not get fresh mackerel so we used frozen baits . They were really excellent and those that say "only fresh bait works" might be missing a trick .

In all we had 28 tope to about 20lbs. I even had one Tope take a retrieved bait . Deadbait wobbling for Tope , now there's a thing !  Great fishing , thanks Jeff !