A week of mixed feelings

The art of angling is an undeniably bizarre phenomenon. Often involving long hikes and treacherous climbs to the best rock marks, gruelling pain carrying kayaks and kit down to the water and skimping spending on essentials for daily life in order to be able to afford the necessary kit. All of this to be able to launch unnatural man-made creations at whatever might dwell below, in the hope that this might tickle their fancy and return a fish to your feet. More puzzling to some is the fact that often after this ordeal the very prize so hard fought for is often returned to the sea, leaving no net gain to the angler but instead physically, financially and mentally exhausted.

Such thoughts have been buzzing around my mind over the past couple of weeks in light recent fishing experiences. This blog has long sat quiet due to myself, Stuart and Matt each facing pressures from our respective university courses, but at last our time was freeing up and we were able to get back out on the water to wet a line.

On the 8^th of June, myself and Matt had a good session fishing for pollock from the rocks in Falmouth. I initially started by fishing the usual range of soft plastics to target pollock and wrasse, but to no avail, not even a pull. Perplexed, I paused to collect some seaweed for dinner- a challenging task involving dodging waves whilst hanging from rough barnacled rocky shelves. To his amusement, Matt arrived during this break of mine. He soon tackled up with a string of feathers and within his first casts was into a string of small pollock. Not only that, but a few more casts and these tiny feathers were returning good sized pollock. Jammy thing! I resolved to try soft plastics over the kelp beds that were treating him so well, but without luck. As I said that I’d give one last cast before giving over to feathers, I launched into a powerful snap of my short rod. What followed I do not fully understand, but what I do know is that my braid snapped near to the leader knot under the force of the cast, leaving my frustratingly pricey black minnow lure flying freely through the air before slipping through the waves, never to be seen again. After being gifted a string of feathers by Matt my success instantly shifted, with at least a single small pollock per cast and several larger individuals between them. Opening up the stomachs of these showed that the fish were feeding hard on sand eels less that 2inches long, perhaps explaining why they weren’t interested in hitting any of my larger offerings. We finished the day both carrying many large pollock well above minimum keep size, having returned many fish, with 9 pollock and a launce to my rod.

Matt with a fine brace of pollock. 

However the more consistent pattern for the coming week was seen on the Sunday of this week. Myself and a friend, Beau, headed from lunch to fish a prolific bay for wrasse. However we were too late in arriving and found our path to this golden spot covered by the tide. Eager to make the most of the afternoon, I soon tied weedless soft plastic presentations onto each of our rods and made a series of casts over the rocky ledges, dragging these plastics back slowly to try to tempt these hard fighting territorial fish. Early in the session I had 2 hits in quick succession, but these were translated into a snag by the fickle wrasse, requiring a frustrating rush to retie leaders and lures. Despite covering every rocky ledge across the headland, we were unable to locate any further fish.

Previous trips to this spot have returned many fine wrasse.

Just a day later, myself, Stuart and Joe headed out to try our luck once again. Stuart had recently returned from the Isles of Scilly and Joe had also just obtained a kayak, so it’d have been rude to ignore the window of calm winds for a night out on the water. After to usual ordeal of carrying the kayaks down to Gylly (Joe is a much more sensible man, having a set of wheels to transport his kayak), we launched into the softly lapping waves, the sun already low in the sky. Once on the water we glided 200m offshore and across the bay to a sandy spot that had proved successful in the previous summer for mackerel. Here we feathered for 15 minutes, paddled a little further on and repeated. We were however disappointed to find that the mackerel had not yet returned from spawning, with not a bite to any of our 3 feathering rods between us! What was apparent however was a change that had occurred in the sea, with masses of small jellies filling the water. This was troubling for 3 ecologists out on the water, with an apparent shift from the small bait fish here not long ago now seemingly replaced by these competing planktivores. As sun set we paddled over a productive area of reef (see November post), where Joe continued feathering, I tried a surface lure for bass and Stuart tried soft plastics with feathers. Joe unfortunately lost a lone mackerel on his feathers, and whilst my patch 100 proved unsuccessful in locating any bass, Stuart managed to winkle out a good sized green and brown ballan wrasse. Pushing a little further on I managed to find 5 small pollock just below minimum size, which were duly slipped back to their kelpy homes below. Paddling back at midnight it was clear that something had changed in the past few days.

The following day Stuart was out on the water with a 4am start with his housemate Tom, paddling across from the centre of Falmouth into the deep channel opposite St Mawes in search of Elasmobranchs. Myself and Matt were set to take the kayaks out afterwards from 12-4 whilst Stuart caught some much needed rest before heading back out in the evening with Baliant and Joe. However, we were disheartened to find that there had been little success in the morning, with just a few dogfish having been caught leading to Stuart and Tom to target some nice sized wrasse in the shelter of the shipyard. Being one to enjoy a challenge, myself and Matt paddled out across the bay while dodging boat traffic. Sadly, our fortunes were much the same and despite using a prime section of half launce I brought up only a lesser spotted dogfish and a poor cod on my feathers.

Out on the water on a beautiful summer day. 

The sad tale of a lack of success was followed the next day with our trip out gilthead bream fishing. It was great to be out on the water with Jen and Stuart and to get a feel for the dynamics of fishing for this elusive species, all for the purposes of Jen’s research. Stuart and Jen both missed hard bites from steamtraining bream, while I was pestered by small bass further up the creek. Despite a lack of fortunes I felt that I learned much that day to improve chances for future trips, and it is never bad to be out on the water. Whilst we paddled back in the middle of the night, lit only by the night sky we all paused to behold the beauty of the environment we were in. The water was perfectly still, acting as a perfectly glassy mirror of the sky above, disturbed only by the occasional stroke of a paddle sliding through the water. The peacefulness hit me, with the absence of any unnatural noise save that of the occasional mullet and seabird, shouting above the usual sounds of everyday life that even here in Cornwall I have become accustomed to.

Peace in the creek.

Thursday was a day off fishing to recover and tend to essentials of ‘life admin’ I had been ignoring, however I was back out again on Friday but this time for a spot of fly fishing at Innis with a good friend, Tony. We decided upon the specimen lake, as this offered greater depth and hence was fishing better in this hot and bright weather. The game started early for me, with a trout smashing my silver humungous fly as a quickly stripped it in after having made a duff cast. Taken by surprise, the trout obligingly eased towards the bank after an initial hard hit. However as it neared the bank it came to life and went on a surging run that stripped my loose retrieved line and started taking more line tirelessly from the drag. I put the brakes on the fish, pushing against my rotating spool in an attempt to slow the fish from reaching an overhanging jetty that it was piling for. This was not appreciated by the fish, which simply pulled harder, forcing me to hold my breath as I prayed that my knots might hold against this tug of war that had formed. Argh! Fish off! My line went slack at this clinch point and my heart sank as I feared the worst. However I soon realised that the fish had instead elected to swim straight towards me, and was still holding my fly. I stripped the line quickly to regain tension and after 10 more minutes of fighting had a fine specimen of 5.5lbs in my net. The rest of the day was hard fishing, with only the occasional pluck of the fly as the sun rose high and warm in the sky. Despite using heavy weighted flies of various patterns on an intermediate line, drawing the fly close across the bottom, I just couldn’t buy a bite. We were most grateful to the fishery owner, who seeing our distress late in the afternoon gave us a selection of booby flies, suggesting that I fish these on the fast sinking line I had brought by chance (being used normally only when saltwater fly fishing from the kayak!). This, though feeling slightly like cheating, certainly worked a treat, with another 2 large rainbows taking the fly in quick succession- first for myself and then for Tony.

A hard fighting specimen, certainly gave a good account of itself!

Once again motivated by this success, the following day I headed out with Beau to a rocky platform on the Lizard peninsula to try for pollock. This was however sadly unsuccessful, landing only a few smaller individuals. This was repeated with an attempt for mullet around Falmouth’s quays as a birthday celebration. There were certainly fish around, though larger individuals were not interested in feeding and the smaller individuals that were feeding lived up to their reputation of being difficult to hook, never fully committing to taking the bait in. Hopes were raised and then fell as I lost a small mullet just over a pound, and the session coming to a conclusive end when a group of builders disturbed the peace by jumping into the water of my fishing spot. Good to see British work ethic at its finest!

A glimpse of the lifeboat launching just next to our spot on the Lizard.

That brings me here (if you’re still reading!) examining the worth of this pursuit, in light of a tough couple of weeks. It might well be that the recent high pressure systems, bringing warm and bright weather has put off predatory fish species from feeding, or that the baitfish they target have pushed further offshore. Or perhaps these are just excuses I make to console myself. I however am adamant that this pursuit is wholly worthwhile, and am set on continuing. Taking these failures into account and having made notes in my fishing log will help to target more effective tactics or times to pursue various species for the rest of this summer and over the coming years. Further, fishing to me is an excuse to immerse myself within the environment and ecosystems that I love and learn about every day through my university education. Some of the best fishing trips are not those with the most fish, but those where a glimpse of glory is seen through the magnificent surroundings, stirring up something of awe within. When fish are caught it is not simply an exercise in feeding oneself, but a chance to admire the beauty of these often unseen and under-appreciated species, before slipping them back to swim another day. Lastly, fishing has a strange ability for a solitary pursuit to draw together companions, sharing their joys and failures together (preferably over a glass of whiskey) or birthing new friendships with the telling of many a fishing tale.

And here I hope that you might share in these experiences with us, through our ambitious tales.

Dan.