Conger after dark and a re visit

Conger . You either love them or you hate them ? Well I like them . A proper fish to catch that really is a majestic sight in the water,  and when you get one to the side of the boat , I am always faced with the thought that I might not want to share a small piece of deck with 5 to 6 feet of slimy muscle packed eel , with a sharp set of teeth at one end ! Circle hooks rule !

Back in my regular boat fishing days , I used to run a boat fishing club at work . We went out every month and used a skipper at Littlehampton called Mike Pratt , who fished from a boat called " Blue Badger ". Mike was a really great chap and helped us catch some really nice fish , amoungst which were a few nice Conger . Mike insisted that the best Conger fishing was to be had in darkness and he was proved correct a few times when we booked night and evening trips . I managed a personal best 70lb Conger on one of these trips .

I happened to mention to Jeff that the location I caught my Conger from was a small inshore wreck . Jeff then started to make local enquiries to track down the mark . It seems it is no longer in favour with the locals . Good news !

So off we went to track down the wreck and hopefully some nice sized Conger . The Mackeral again proved elusive so it was down to frozen bait to do the magic.

I had recently bought a new 30lb Ugly Stik so it was a good opportunity to try it out .

After locating the wreck we fished our baits close to the structure and sure enough the Conger soon found our baits . We managed 6 Conger with fish to about 50lb . I always like to judge the size of the Conger by the size of its head . If it is as big as a Labrador dogs head its a big fish ! And this one was !

One of the smaller ones !

Getting bigger !

One issue was lost fish . I had a couple of what felt like large fish take me into some sort of structure and then after a battle out they would come only for the braid to be chaffed and the fish lost . I hate losing fish so maybe a heavier rubbing trace next time ?

Well the next time came round quicker than I thought ! Jeff phoned up the day after  for another trip , so off we went again . this time we fished a short distance away from the spot from the previous day but on the same wreck. Again we were quickly into fish but I managed to lose all three of mine to the broken line syndrome . Jeff landed two and lost one .

I am going to up the gear next time to a 50lb rod and TLD 25 plus 80lb braid and 100lb rubbing leader . Rest assured I will be" hanging on"  if I am lucky enough to catch another one !

Green for Tench..... but I get Silver

I have joined a new club which has access to a lovely lake , probably best described as an old " Estate Lake" . I last fished it about 20 years ago when I lived on its doorstep , so it was great to go back .

Well two early mornings have resulted in all sorts of fishy results but all of them silver in colour not the hoped for green tench !

Oh and I stupidly got sun burnt too ...ouch !

The lake looks great for a bit of Eel fishing so I will go back next week for an evening session after work  and fish through until it gets dark . Lets see what happens ?

The elusive Smooth Hound ...a fifteen year search

I have tried for the last 15 years to catch a Smooth hound from the beach . Admittedly I have only tried a few times each year but its always the same ; those around me catch , or its the " you should have been here yesterday mate !" scenario. What have I been doing wrong ?

Well Jeff had his ear to the Sea fishing grape vine and the latest info was that Bracklesham beaches were on fire with Smoothies .. so off we went .

Firstly the issue of crabs for bait .

A crab trap resulted in an amusing interlude but some essentially free crabs .

The beach was crowded and bristled with beachcasters !

Unfortunately Jeff managed to achieve the best birdsnest I have seen in ages !

The witching hour approaches !

Well we did everything right but ....the run of fish came down the beach as we watched rod after rod bending over and fish being landed but not where we were ! They stopped two groynes up !! Doh next time !

Tope ...but where have all the Mackeral gone ?

Well the tides have come round again which enables Jeff's favourite Tope marks to be the target for a fish or two. The tide race at these marks is amazing ! Even on a small tide it rips through , and I would hate to fall in as you would be down tide with no way home in seconds ! But re reading a few articles and books on Tope the good spots have a tidal flow , so we are onto the right spot !

One issue for us this year has been the lack of Mackeral . So this trip was planned using frozen bait . One tip around using frozen bait , especially that frozen at home rather than blast frozen commercial stuff is that the bait can be soft , so a few wraps of baiting elastic on the bait first then hook into the elastic and bingo you have a bait that will stay in tact .

The circle hooks are  real benefit in my view and and I squeeze down the barb on mine to assist in easy removal. All the fish were hooked in the corner of the mouth apart from a reasonable Tope of about 20lbs which gave me a real scrap and it was hooked in the pectoral fin ! I am going to drop down a size in the hooks and in the leader strength . I don't know why as the current rig seems to work !

On the subject of circle hooks I like mine to be attached with a loop to allow the hook to move through a full 180 degrees . I notice a lot of the writing about the use of circle hooks advocates the hook being " snelled" and fixed . Obviously worth some experimentation but this seems to work !

We had another great day with lots of Tope and a complete shoal of Cat Sharks ! Jeff also managed a giant sized Pouting on a half fish bait !

Another great fishing day on " Jupiter's Moon " . The fishing off Littlehampton is really something else . Don't tell anyone !

Great to be afloat !