AT LAST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

God where do I start!!!!!!! This winter must have been my worst ever with regards to fishing, I simply havent been for months and apparently have been a total nitemare to be around (sorry)!! What with the strong easterlies then big southerly gales and the enevitable groundseas it has been impossible to get out with any hope of safety or actually believing that you will catch anything!!!! Slowly but surely things are a changing and it cant come soon enough!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With the water temperatures still way down on last year it has been noticeable from the distinct lack of sandeels and bait fish resulting in fewer sea birds around the islands and the numbers of pollack caught have been the lowest for years! Finally with our weather finally deciding to settle we should all see the catches improving day to day. Even the wrasse, our usually ever obliging soft plastic quarry have been almost non-existant and certainly far from their aggressive feeding best of last year but yesterday was the start of things as I actually managed to get out for a few hours (yes for those that had thought I had sold all my gear and started knitting, I havent but have been dormant).

I decided to head out under the airport to the marks that hadnt let me down all last year, water clarity was unbelievably good, best I have seen this year in fact and if I could remember how to fish I felt in with a chance!! Starting out with the Major Craft Crostage I rigged up a small crawfish pattern called Ghost Shrimp texas style and within a few casts and the odd missed bite (the expected rustiness from lack of fishing) I had the slamming over and the first of many wrasse was brought to the landing net.

Several small wrasse followed before I decided to move in the hope of finding some larger fish with the dropping tide.

A change to a new as yet un-named soft plastic from Jackslrf which certainly looked the business brought more success.

Notice the blue spots appearing on the fins and dorsal tail, a sure sign that the wrasse are starting to spawn.
This fish put up a decent scrap as it tried to find sanctuary in its rocky home. Now that I was back in the groove I changed over to my new toy, a Century 7'7'' Vectura-Ti. I got this rod purely for the big wrasse that Ive hooked and lost before. It will be put through its tests over the coming year but it certainly feels powerful, way more powerful than the Century HPR 7'3'' model that I have used before. This new range of rods are based on the exact same blanks as the HPR's just with the new 3M Powerlux™ resin system used and have the much improved Titanium SiC guides fitted as standard. I made several casts with the new rod and found it a joy to use and was certainly more than a match for many small wrasse up to 3lbs.

A final move back across the bay for the start of the flood saw the wrasse continue to snap up the lures being offered and were of a slightly better stamp with a couple of 4lb fish bending and testing the Vectura.

Things were starting to go quiet so I decided on having the last cast when I hooked the biggest fish of the session, not massive but at 5lbs it made the trip all the worth while.

All in all it was great to be back out on the rocks and even more pleasing was that I hadnt blanked. Now all I have to do is learn how to take photos again and everything will be ok!!!!!!!!!!