Tricky Wrasse Provide the Treats on Halloween

Another school holiday goes by and again the winds have remained consistently high.  After a week of stormy weather in Cornwall with the family I had the chance to stop at Pops' place in Devon for a couple of days and try and do some fishing.  With such a poor forecast we were resigned to trying for some Wrasse inside the protection of Plymouth Sound, and armed with 3/4 lb of live rag from Clives' Bait and Tackle we set off to the boat.

On arriving at the boat the wind seemed much better than forecast, around 10 knots, so we decided to push out beyond Rame Head and see what the conditions were like.  Pops had made it out on to an inshore wreck earlier in the week and bagged some nice whiting and some huge mackerel, and we had this in mind as we set off.  As we reached the headland however it was instantly clear that the very big swell left over from Friday's blow would make fishing uncomfortable and with a decaying forecast it was back to plan 'A' and a crack at the Wrasse.

Normally we fish for Wrasse at the end of a days wrecking by stopping at a mark near Picklecombe fort for an hour before returning to the marina.  With the whole day available to us however, we decided to try some different marks.  The chart revealed that there were a couple of rocky areas extending from the shore north of Penlee Point and we decided to try here first. 

We tackled up as we waited for three long distance swimmers (yep on the 31st of October they were swimming in the sea!) to clear our drift area.  The beauty of fishing for Wrasse from the boat in shallow water is that you can scale the tackle right back as you can fish straight up and down, and don't have to wrench your gear out of the kelp each time you retrieve.  The tackle we were using was 10lb solid carbon rods with light multipliers loaded with 20lb braid.  A 4oz lead was more than enough and a simple flowing trace of around 3 feet was all that was required.  We used a variety of hooks in the day but the Sakuma size 2 circle hooks were very effective at avoiding hooking fish too deeply and as such I would favour these in the future - more on hooks later!  On previous trips I have used a small spinning rod and fixed spool reel instead and this can be very exciting with a big fish.

So with rods rigged and swimmers well in to Cawsand Bay we started the first drift.  An incoming tide pushed us nicely along parallel to the shore.  My favoured method for this type of fishing is to lower the bait to the sea bed and just let the lead bounce along the bottom.  You have to keep tight to the bottom without letting out any slack otherwise you will snag.  I retrieve two or three turns of the reel every 10 to 20 seconds (depending on how snaggy the ground is) and then let back down to touch the rocks.  Bait was two or three small rag worms threaded up the line and covering the hook.

The first drift provided instant success.  I leant in to a very solid bite and after a couple of short but strong runs I boated a brightly coloured orange Ballan Wrasse.  With the circle hook in the scissors of the Wrasse's mouth, he was quickly unhooked, photographed and released (as were all the fish on this trip).

I quickly rebaited and went back down for another fish.  Two turns of the handle on my reel and I was into another, this time a small Pollack which seemed to be punching way above his weight.  After a quick release I was back in the water again and at the end of the drift another very strong bite produced another Wrasse with almost identical colouring to the first.  It seemed like we couldn't miss.

The next drift produced only a small Pollack, and Pops was struggling to find any bites despite fishing identical tactics.  One more drift produced a smaller wrasse for me which this time was a classic "kelp" red with bright white spots along the belly and flank.  It is the variety of markings on this fish and their "street brawler" fighting style that make me keep coming back for these less than glamorous adversaries.

The bites then seemed to dry up as the tide picked up.  We made the short journey to Picklecombe Fort, but on the way saw a pronounced "hole" in the sea bed on the sounder which decided to try.  The result was small Pollack instantly but no Wrasse so we carried on to the target location.  The bites here we not prolific and the wind and tide were pushing us fast in to the shore.  Pops did however manage a very lively Ballan which was a mix of browns, greens and reds reflecting the variation in the sea bed habitat.

We decided to move again and try some more rock marks between the Plymouth breakwater and Drake's Island.  The first produced a better sized Pollack of around two pounds for me, and the second another Ballan for Pops.  With the tide in full flow and coupled with a freshening breeze we were now drifting at 2 knots.  We were over the small rock outcrops in the middle of the Sound so fast we had no chance of hooking any Wrasse here.  So it was back to Penlee to see if the end of the flood would see a return of the results we had in the first drift.

Pops positioned the boat for a run down the coast again, but this time wind and tide took us away from the shore at a steeper angle on to what we thought would be shale.  But no, we stayed on rock and kelp and the bites started to come thick and fast.  Ballans to around 2.5 lbs as well as a couple of Corkwing Wrasse and a number of Pollack came on board and I guess we had some 30 to 40 fish between two of us on the day. 

Perhaps the most surprising was a Pollack which Pops took on th surface.  It had evidently followed the bait up to the surface and as Pops tried to bring the weight in board the fish, around 2lbs, grabbed the worm and dashed back for the sea bed!

As we made our last couple of drifts Pops had a good run from a fish in mid water which then disappeared.  On retrieving his tackle he found that his Mustad aberdeen pattern hook had straightened - rotten luck.  He attached a new hook and went straight back down.  A couple of minutes later and he was hit by a much better fish.  Now it is always easy to overestimate an unseen fish but this was likely to have been a Wrasse between 4 and 5 lbs based on the bend in the rod and the strength of the runs.  Pops got the fish to mid water and then again, it was gone.  Incredibly a second hook in a row had straightened on him from a pack that has now been consigned to the bin!

This sort of fishing is ideal for small boat anglers and with appropriately scaled tackle can be great fun.  Locations such as Plymouth sound are almost weather proof if you are prepared to take on this sort of challenge and this increases the number of fishable days per year significantly.  It's even better when it is 18 degrees centigrade on October 31st and you can fish in a T-Shirt!

Madpolka Publishing

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