Last time I talked about a couple of things that motivated me to rethink my approach to plaice fishing, primarily identifying bait and movement as the key ingredients that worked for me. I think the best way to explain how I have come to think of the behaviour of plaice as a species is to liken them to a lazy old cat that you need to tease in just the right way to get it to play. It stands to reason that plaice would spend a lot of time ‘buried’, after all if I had vivid orange spots, I wouldn’t just lie there atop the open sand for all to see. To attack something is to expose themselves; there is an element of risk involved. Therefore, for them to bite, it has to be worth their while. I think this explains why, whilst they are present inshore for much of the year, they are easiest to catch in the spring when they are hungry, and in the autumn when they are feeding up to go off to spawn. In the summer, they can take their time and weigh up the odds. I think this could at least partly explain why summer plaice often fall to fish or crab baits, both meaty offerings representing a worthy payoff.
The rig that I came up with to reflect my renewed thinking lends itself to the drifting style of fishing I detailed in the previous post. The design itself is nothing new, it is very similar to the rig I use for ray: a ‘dropper’ style rig. The main difference with the plaice version is that it is not tensioned pulley style but instead uses a piece of powergum. This is an important factor as it allows for lighter snoods to be safely used than if using the pulley style. The idea came straight from a rig I found on the internet invented by a man called Adrian Farley who was, by all accounts, a wizard when it came to all things flat and orange spotted. His rig is a dropper ending in the classic ‘wishbone’ assembly with added bling. The key difference in my rig though, is the hook configuration; I use a pennel, with a size 1 aberdeen as the main hook, and a size 2 short shank as the sliding hook. The pennel arrangement has nothing to do with hooking potential and everything to do with bait presentation. I reasoned that flatfish would be used to seeing worms as long and sinuous food items and that to replicate that and trigger the feeding response, I needed to support the top of the worm bait to keep that drawn-out profile. Of course, the classic way to do this is to slide on multiple worms and jam them up tight against the bait stop. However, I have never been happy with this method as it creates a bunched-up, heavy offering. In my mind’s eye, I find it difficult to imagine this kind of presentation moving as attractively as a slimmer, more streamlined one.
I use a couple of other rigs for plaice too. They’re both 1 up, 1 down type rigs using hooklengths of about 24 inches. These prove pretty successful, especially the flapper version which I tend to catch plenty of smaller plaice with. The other version is a clipped rig that can be cast further. This is basically a 2 hook cascade rig with the bottom snood free to slide down to the lead link in ‘dropper’ fashion. I do still have a few of my old loop rigs that I take with me too, as well as a few wishbone variations. None of my up-to-date plaice rigs have attractors as standard but a lot of my older ones do. I think it’s good to have the option and to keep an open mind. If I felt like attractors and beads were the order of the day or other people were catching on them, I’d stick them on.
The reason I started doing away with coloured beads and flashy stuff as standard is that I really began noticing that it didn’t seem to make that much difference for me over using undecorated rigs. In addition, I reasoned in my head that in weaker tides, beads and bits would probably weigh the bait down somewhat and prevent it having much ‘waft’. Movement is a major feeding trigger for most flatfish and I felt that I wanted to be maximising movement and using it my advantage rather than nullifying it with beads (by the way, I’m not including floating beads in this as I think of them as more functional rather than decorative). I think now where beads and flash would really make the most sense to me would be if fishing static to a grip lead. In this scenario, the attractors could help to catch the plaice’s eye and lead them to the bait.
The rig that I came up with to reflect my renewed thinking lends itself to the drifting style of fishing I detailed in the previous post. The design itself is nothing new, it is very similar to the rig I use for ray: a ‘dropper’ style rig. The main difference with the plaice version is that it is not tensioned pulley style but instead uses a piece of powergum. This is an important factor as it allows for lighter snoods to be safely used than if using the pulley style. The idea came straight from a rig I found on the internet invented by a man called Adrian Farley who was, by all accounts, a wizard when it came to all things flat and orange spotted. His rig is a dropper ending in the classic ‘wishbone’ assembly with added bling. The key difference in my rig though, is the hook configuration; I use a pennel, with a size 1 aberdeen as the main hook, and a size 2 short shank as the sliding hook. The pennel arrangement has nothing to do with hooking potential and everything to do with bait presentation. I reasoned that flatfish would be used to seeing worms as long and sinuous food items and that to replicate that and trigger the feeding response, I needed to support the top of the worm bait to keep that drawn-out profile. Of course, the classic way to do this is to slide on multiple worms and jam them up tight against the bait stop. However, I have never been happy with this method as it creates a bunched-up, heavy offering. In my mind’s eye, I find it difficult to imagine this kind of presentation moving as attractively as a slimmer, more streamlined one.
I use a couple of other rigs for plaice too. They’re both 1 up, 1 down type rigs using hooklengths of about 24 inches. These prove pretty successful, especially the flapper version which I tend to catch plenty of smaller plaice with. The other version is a clipped rig that can be cast further. This is basically a 2 hook cascade rig with the bottom snood free to slide down to the lead link in ‘dropper’ fashion. I do still have a few of my old loop rigs that I take with me too, as well as a few wishbone variations. None of my up-to-date plaice rigs have attractors as standard but a lot of my older ones do. I think it’s good to have the option and to keep an open mind. If I felt like attractors and beads were the order of the day or other people were catching on them, I’d stick them on.
The reason I started doing away with coloured beads and flashy stuff as standard is that I really began noticing that it didn’t seem to make that much difference for me over using undecorated rigs. In addition, I reasoned in my head that in weaker tides, beads and bits would probably weigh the bait down somewhat and prevent it having much ‘waft’. Movement is a major feeding trigger for most flatfish and I felt that I wanted to be maximising movement and using it my advantage rather than nullifying it with beads (by the way, I’m not including floating beads in this as I think of them as more functional rather than decorative). I think now where beads and flash would really make the most sense to me would be if fishing static to a grip lead. In this scenario, the attractors could help to catch the plaice’s eye and lead them to the bait.
Above: a selection of weights for plaice fishing and a shortened example of my current favourite plaice rig. Leads from left: a short-wired gripper, Fonderia Roma Sportenn, Fonderia Roma Roccotop, Breakaway Flat Impact.
On the subject of grip leads, I really try to avoid using them for plaice or most other flatfish species. I think plain leads of various shapes allow a much wider range of techniques to be used to locate and attract species that live on and in the bottom sediment. There is one lead in particular that has been absolutely critical in my fishing in the last year or so since I discovered it; the Fonderia Roma Sportenn. I first saw this type of lead in an article on continental-style weights by Callum Graham in Sea Angler. These little beauties are a bit like a cross between a flat lead and a bomb; they cast much better than a conventional flat lead but retain the flat lead’s characteristic of ‘sliding’ instead of ‘rolling’. For me, this is a much better option in stronger tides and at longer ranges where a rolling lead can travel too quickly. The flat style lead also has the added bonus of disturbing sediment as it drags across the seabed, increasing visual attraction.
In scenarios where the tide is moving the heaviest Sportenn (150g) too quickly, then the only option would be to switch to a wired lead. However, before changing to a full-on grip lead, I would try one with the wires cut pretty short and the breakaway assembly bound tight with elastic bands. This holds more than the Sportenn but still allows some tripping and trundling across the deck. A typical situation to use this weight in is where there is a lot of weed catching on the line amplifying the drag effect. If the tide itself is so strong that this weight is needed to get a slow drift, then I feel like I am unlikely to catch plaice until it starts to slow anyhow.
The last element to discuss is everybody’s old favourite: casting distance. I find it odd how most of my better plaice come from longer casts and that casting tight to mussel beds and in likely looking spots close in often only picks up small ones, if any at all. Indeed, sometimes it seems to me like the longer the cast, the better the stamp of plaice. If you examine the stomach contents of a reasonable plaice, they will usually contain fragments of mussel shell. It would seem reasonable to assume that they would stick fairly close to this constant supply of food, but often they are caught a good distance away. My take on this is that I suspect plaice scatter and hide in the sediment throughout the day and possibly feed on mussels and such under cover of darkness. I think perhaps part of the reason very few plaice are caught at night may be because they are feeding on these more specialized sources. This is only a theory and I have very little evidence to back it up, but the biological view is that plaice are most active at night so there has to be some reason why they are so seldom caught then. In any case, it seems to be true in my experience that long casting can be a definite advantage when seeking plaice, even from deep water rock marks.
My intention with these particular pieces on plaice is not to dispense advice or try to come across as some kind of plaice guru (which I most certainly am not!) but to provoke thought and invite discussion. I’m on my own journey and my current ideas may change radically depending on what lessons the fish teach me. I think the most important message that I’d like to get across to anglers interested in plaice fishing is that, more so than a lot of species, plaice give you so much scope to develop a personal style. Talking to and watching other anglers who are into their plaice fishing, it’s clear that tactics and approach vary a good deal across the spectrum. The key to success seems to be finding out what works best for you through trial and error and enjoying the fun and frustration along the way!