Since my last species-orientated post, I have done a good bit more fishing and added a few more species to my tally, reaching a total of 47 for the year so far. However, only one of these (red mullet) is a species that I looked at in detail in the last piece; the quest for a dover sole has yet to begin and the hunt for a triggerfish is only just beginning. As well as red mullet, the other species that I have managed to add are tope, scad, rock cook, goldsinny wrasse, cuckoo wrasse and black bream. Of these, I don’t think there’s much value in going over methods to catch scad as they are easily encountered and caught in the right areas, fishing for black bream is not something I feel I could write about with much authority, and my pursuit of red mullet will be the subject of a future post. However, it may be of some interest here to talk a bit about tope off the shore and the unusual wrasse species that can be quite readily caught from the shore in Cornwall, providing you find out where to look.
My attempt to catch tope off the shore began with prior knowledge that some anglers had been targeting and catching them on the north coast. I didn’t know exactly where but I had a clue about a mark likely to throw one up and I knew of an unrelated recent capture of one very close by. The whole sequence of circumstances flowed pretty smoothly from then on; a friend provided some wire to make up some bite traces, the time slot for the session was sorted and the weather obliged on the day. On the long walk out to the mark, I felt good about my chances and ready to fish as well as I could. Luckily, there were plenty of mackerel about and it soon became obvious that fresh bait was not going to be a problem. The abundance of mackerel also hopefully meant that there were some larger fish following them in, aiming to cash in on this rich harvest of high quality protein. The tope came fairly early in the session after a big slack liner and, following a short tussle indistinguishable from a smoothhound of the same stamp, a tope of around 5lbs was landed, photographed and released. To be sure, the fish was a baby as far as tope go but for me it was the right species and, realistically, as good as I’d hoped to do. Almost straight after, I hooked a smoothhound a couple of pounds heavier and this really gave me the run around, stripping line and generally being a bit of a boisterous handful. The rest of the session passed without any further grey sharky things and I was able to add tope on to the list as first try success.
The wrasse that I added to the list were all caught on the same trip and it was one that I actually spent a little bit of time preparing and planning for. The area I am familiar with that commonly throws these kind of fish up is some distance away from my home in Newquay, being found towards Land’s End. I had to first try to secure the whole day free so that I could put in plenty of time if the fishing was slow and so that I could stay on into dark if I felt there was a chance of a bonus rough ground nasty once the light went. I managed to sort out enough bait to cover the day and evening and I sketched out a rough mental plan of how I was going to tackle the day. I aimed to target two spots, one a small gully that is noted for producing the less common wrasse species, and the other a rock platform that drops quickly into deep water where I had previously caught cuckoo wrasse along with a mixture of other rough ground fish. The plan was to fish the gully for a couple of hours as the tide dropped down to low water and over the slack, then go back to the car to get the heavier gear before heading out to the second mark. I was also trialling a new rig idea that I’d come up with after learning how to tie twisted booms and I was keen to see how it performed. More on that later.
After a lengthy drive through holiday traffic, I was lucky in that my first mark was just being vacated as I showed up. I had never fished this little gully before but knew it well enough by reputation. After 15 minutes or so, I had a couple of corkwing wrasse to show for my efforts with one being a rather decent fish for that species. However, I was getting a lot of nibbles that I wasn’t connecting with and felt yet smaller fish could be the culprits. I changed from a size 4 hook down to a size 12 and tried again. Almost instantly the nibbles started again, but this time the fish was hooked and I reeled up and swung in a tiny wrasse that was obviously a different species and a new one to me: a rock cook. I was delighted to catch another minutes later, before a heavier thump and a slightly more challenging fight revealed the day’s only ballan wrasse. After this fish, the next couple of drops brought more aggressive bites that were clearly still from small fish. I hoped that these bites were a sign of interest from another wrasse species and one that I had previously only caught in Norway. Sure enough, before long a goldsinny wrasse was added to the tally. At this point, I switched tactics entirely to flicking out into the deeper water further into the gully and exchanging the ragworm baits for strips of fresh mackerel. This ended up producing nothing but another goldsinny wrasse and I made a quick decision to move on to the second mark to try and catch the most colourful prize of the lot; a cuckoo wrasse.
After tramping back to the car and swapping the lighter rods for a couple of pokier ones, I headed out to my second spot of the day and after a bit of a challenging descent (it would have been easier with a rope but I had forgot to bring one) I set the kit down on the comfortable ledge and tackled up. I initially decided to try in short with a light rig but after a couple of exploratory drops and no enquiries, I flicked a bit further into the deeper water, leaving that rod whilst I set up another with a pulley rig and a generous helping of fresh mackerel to test the deepest areas for larger and toothier inhabitants. After hoofing out the heavier rod, I turned my attention back to the first one and noticed I had something pecking away at the bait. On reeling into it, the rig was stuck fast and a good pull was needed to free it. The end gear came back minus bait and I decided to set up a slightly heavier rod with a two hook rig to maximise my chances of connecting with whatever was responsible for pinching my ragworm. The two hook rig was baited with rag and sent out about 40 yards into a fair depth of water. Within a few minutes, I could see that something was intent on dining on my bait and after watching the tip bouncing for a while and being pretty sure that the fish had hooked itself, I picked up the rod, lifted and reeled up sharply. I could feel that something pretty small was there and I watched the end of the line carefully for the first flash of colour to see what I had snared. My first glimpse was of a red belly and I knew I had a wrasse of some kind but would it be a cuckoo? As I lifted the fish out and swung it to hand, I could see that it was indeed a small male cuckoo wrasse and I laughed to myself at how smoothly the day was going; I was racking up the species without breaking a sweat!
After catching the first cuckoo, I switched over to crab baits to see if I could tempt something a bit more exotic – this being an area known to sometimes produce triggerfish. No triggers fell to my rod on this occasion but I did catch another, slightly more colourful, cuckoo wrasse and a poor cod on the crab baits. The heavier rod with the mackerel baits yielded nothing but dog fish and as the evening began to close in, I switched over from the bottom rods to having a go with a float and a spun sandeel with pollack and garfish in mind. The pollack were pretty obliging and I caught a couple quite quickly deep spinning with frozen eel. The gars were present but were staying frustratingly far out and difficult to reach with the float. The one I did manage to hook quickly dropped off and I cursed as that would have been species 46. My last fish was a rather sizable scad that fell to a 16g Dexter wedge fished just under the surface and I decided not to stay on into dark but rather begin heading for home, feeling pretty pleased with my day.
I mentioned earlier that I was trying out a new rig idea on this session and, indeed, I think it contributed a good deal to my success. The rig itself uses stand-off sections created using twisted booms. Tying a twisted boom takes a little practice but once learnt it quickly becomes straightforward and you can then make traces with multiple booms if you want. The hooklengths are then joined to the booms using a loop-to-loop connection which means you can use any breaking strain line or size of hook you want regardless of the rig body material and without using any rig components. The figure-of-eight knot I use to make the hooklength loop also forms a weak spot which will help you break out of snags without losing the entire rig. I also sometimes use a figure-of-eight knot at the bottom of the rig to make a loop-to-loop connection for the weak link to the lead. This is only suitable for short range fishing. For a rig meant to be cast a bit further, some kind of simple rotten-bottom link that supports the lead for casting is in order.
The construction of the twisted boom rig means that you are hardly ever breaking the mainline and losing whole rigs and the presentation is much improved over a rig using a 3 way swivel or other method of producing a paternoster. I personally think the twisted boom rig will be the way forward for me for small fish fishing over rougher ground. I can definitely see me using them for mini species stuff too and the idea could be useful for knocking up a quick dover sole rig on the fly if there were no metal booms to hand.
The twisted boom idea itself is nothing new and I have not bothered trying to illustrate how to produce the boom in pictures as there are plenty of online resources that already do that. I have however made a shortened version of the finished rig (see pic) that shows all the major elements in place and gives an idea of how everything fits together. I usually try to make a pretty long boom, long enough to keep the hook well away from the rig body, as this gives the best presentation. Pop-ups are easily added on to this rig, I like bits of foam for fishing over snaggy ground as they are cheaper than floating beads.
So, the hunt for more species continues and I do feel good about my chances of cracking the fifty. September is probably the best month of the year for species fishing in my book so the odds are in my favour. I have a few ideas for places to catch triggerfish and sole and I feel confident that a couple of dollops of good luck are going to come my way with them. The other realistic targets yet to be ticked off include silver eel, tub gurnard, garfish and tompot blenny and I don’t think any of these should be too tricky to catch. Watch this space!
My attempt to catch tope off the shore began with prior knowledge that some anglers had been targeting and catching them on the north coast. I didn’t know exactly where but I had a clue about a mark likely to throw one up and I knew of an unrelated recent capture of one very close by. The whole sequence of circumstances flowed pretty smoothly from then on; a friend provided some wire to make up some bite traces, the time slot for the session was sorted and the weather obliged on the day. On the long walk out to the mark, I felt good about my chances and ready to fish as well as I could. Luckily, there were plenty of mackerel about and it soon became obvious that fresh bait was not going to be a problem. The abundance of mackerel also hopefully meant that there were some larger fish following them in, aiming to cash in on this rich harvest of high quality protein. The tope came fairly early in the session after a big slack liner and, following a short tussle indistinguishable from a smoothhound of the same stamp, a tope of around 5lbs was landed, photographed and released. To be sure, the fish was a baby as far as tope go but for me it was the right species and, realistically, as good as I’d hoped to do. Almost straight after, I hooked a smoothhound a couple of pounds heavier and this really gave me the run around, stripping line and generally being a bit of a boisterous handful. The rest of the session passed without any further grey sharky things and I was able to add tope on to the list as first try success.
The wrasse that I added to the list were all caught on the same trip and it was one that I actually spent a little bit of time preparing and planning for. The area I am familiar with that commonly throws these kind of fish up is some distance away from my home in Newquay, being found towards Land’s End. I had to first try to secure the whole day free so that I could put in plenty of time if the fishing was slow and so that I could stay on into dark if I felt there was a chance of a bonus rough ground nasty once the light went. I managed to sort out enough bait to cover the day and evening and I sketched out a rough mental plan of how I was going to tackle the day. I aimed to target two spots, one a small gully that is noted for producing the less common wrasse species, and the other a rock platform that drops quickly into deep water where I had previously caught cuckoo wrasse along with a mixture of other rough ground fish. The plan was to fish the gully for a couple of hours as the tide dropped down to low water and over the slack, then go back to the car to get the heavier gear before heading out to the second mark. I was also trialling a new rig idea that I’d come up with after learning how to tie twisted booms and I was keen to see how it performed. More on that later.
After a lengthy drive through holiday traffic, I was lucky in that my first mark was just being vacated as I showed up. I had never fished this little gully before but knew it well enough by reputation. After 15 minutes or so, I had a couple of corkwing wrasse to show for my efforts with one being a rather decent fish for that species. However, I was getting a lot of nibbles that I wasn’t connecting with and felt yet smaller fish could be the culprits. I changed from a size 4 hook down to a size 12 and tried again. Almost instantly the nibbles started again, but this time the fish was hooked and I reeled up and swung in a tiny wrasse that was obviously a different species and a new one to me: a rock cook. I was delighted to catch another minutes later, before a heavier thump and a slightly more challenging fight revealed the day’s only ballan wrasse. After this fish, the next couple of drops brought more aggressive bites that were clearly still from small fish. I hoped that these bites were a sign of interest from another wrasse species and one that I had previously only caught in Norway. Sure enough, before long a goldsinny wrasse was added to the tally. At this point, I switched tactics entirely to flicking out into the deeper water further into the gully and exchanging the ragworm baits for strips of fresh mackerel. This ended up producing nothing but another goldsinny wrasse and I made a quick decision to move on to the second mark to try and catch the most colourful prize of the lot; a cuckoo wrasse.
After tramping back to the car and swapping the lighter rods for a couple of pokier ones, I headed out to my second spot of the day and after a bit of a challenging descent (it would have been easier with a rope but I had forgot to bring one) I set the kit down on the comfortable ledge and tackled up. I initially decided to try in short with a light rig but after a couple of exploratory drops and no enquiries, I flicked a bit further into the deeper water, leaving that rod whilst I set up another with a pulley rig and a generous helping of fresh mackerel to test the deepest areas for larger and toothier inhabitants. After hoofing out the heavier rod, I turned my attention back to the first one and noticed I had something pecking away at the bait. On reeling into it, the rig was stuck fast and a good pull was needed to free it. The end gear came back minus bait and I decided to set up a slightly heavier rod with a two hook rig to maximise my chances of connecting with whatever was responsible for pinching my ragworm. The two hook rig was baited with rag and sent out about 40 yards into a fair depth of water. Within a few minutes, I could see that something was intent on dining on my bait and after watching the tip bouncing for a while and being pretty sure that the fish had hooked itself, I picked up the rod, lifted and reeled up sharply. I could feel that something pretty small was there and I watched the end of the line carefully for the first flash of colour to see what I had snared. My first glimpse was of a red belly and I knew I had a wrasse of some kind but would it be a cuckoo? As I lifted the fish out and swung it to hand, I could see that it was indeed a small male cuckoo wrasse and I laughed to myself at how smoothly the day was going; I was racking up the species without breaking a sweat!
After catching the first cuckoo, I switched over to crab baits to see if I could tempt something a bit more exotic – this being an area known to sometimes produce triggerfish. No triggers fell to my rod on this occasion but I did catch another, slightly more colourful, cuckoo wrasse and a poor cod on the crab baits. The heavier rod with the mackerel baits yielded nothing but dog fish and as the evening began to close in, I switched over from the bottom rods to having a go with a float and a spun sandeel with pollack and garfish in mind. The pollack were pretty obliging and I caught a couple quite quickly deep spinning with frozen eel. The gars were present but were staying frustratingly far out and difficult to reach with the float. The one I did manage to hook quickly dropped off and I cursed as that would have been species 46. My last fish was a rather sizable scad that fell to a 16g Dexter wedge fished just under the surface and I decided not to stay on into dark but rather begin heading for home, feeling pretty pleased with my day.
I mentioned earlier that I was trying out a new rig idea on this session and, indeed, I think it contributed a good deal to my success. The rig itself uses stand-off sections created using twisted booms. Tying a twisted boom takes a little practice but once learnt it quickly becomes straightforward and you can then make traces with multiple booms if you want. The hooklengths are then joined to the booms using a loop-to-loop connection which means you can use any breaking strain line or size of hook you want regardless of the rig body material and without using any rig components. The figure-of-eight knot I use to make the hooklength loop also forms a weak spot which will help you break out of snags without losing the entire rig. I also sometimes use a figure-of-eight knot at the bottom of the rig to make a loop-to-loop connection for the weak link to the lead. This is only suitable for short range fishing. For a rig meant to be cast a bit further, some kind of simple rotten-bottom link that supports the lead for casting is in order.
The construction of the twisted boom rig means that you are hardly ever breaking the mainline and losing whole rigs and the presentation is much improved over a rig using a 3 way swivel or other method of producing a paternoster. I personally think the twisted boom rig will be the way forward for me for small fish fishing over rougher ground. I can definitely see me using them for mini species stuff too and the idea could be useful for knocking up a quick dover sole rig on the fly if there were no metal booms to hand.
The twisted boom idea itself is nothing new and I have not bothered trying to illustrate how to produce the boom in pictures as there are plenty of online resources that already do that. I have however made a shortened version of the finished rig (see pic) that shows all the major elements in place and gives an idea of how everything fits together. I usually try to make a pretty long boom, long enough to keep the hook well away from the rig body, as this gives the best presentation. Pop-ups are easily added on to this rig, I like bits of foam for fishing over snaggy ground as they are cheaper than floating beads.
So, the hunt for more species continues and I do feel good about my chances of cracking the fifty. September is probably the best month of the year for species fishing in my book so the odds are in my favour. I have a few ideas for places to catch triggerfish and sole and I feel confident that a couple of dollops of good luck are going to come my way with them. The other realistic targets yet to be ticked off include silver eel, tub gurnard, garfish and tompot blenny and I don’t think any of these should be too tricky to catch. Watch this space!