Saturday morning Charles and I set of to explore a mark we have not visited yet this year. We left the caravan site and and drove to Kingsbridge where I was to stop to buy enough food and liquid for the pair of us to survive for the day. Parked the car up outside the shop, and suddenly  realised I had left me wallet back at the caravan. A quick rethink and we decided to go back and fish a little more locally and thank the lord we did!

First girl falls to me!!

This one fell to a Tackle House Feed Shallow mullet pattern. Perfect on an overcast day in medium water clarity.

Next it was Wayne’s turn. Second time fishing and second fish. Wayne was using a Giant X-layer in Ayu colour with a Decoy 15g jighead.

Waynes 2nd fish

I knew the fish were coming in with the flood tide chasing the sandeel and felt certain we were in for a fast and furious session. Charlie found the wind was too much for his 10lb braid and extremely light rod so I tempted fate and put my Tenryu Buldog Evo in his hands, gave him a pointer on where to cast and YES, WELL DONE MY BOY. CHARLIE LANDS HIS FIRST BASS. I’m not sure who was more pleased, Charlie or me.  This is the now 6 year old who braved sub zero temperatures at the Cornish bumble last November and who has followed me over rock and sand at all hours of the day and night since then in search of a BASS . Congratulations Charlie, you deserve this one mate. Feed Shallow again.

Not sure if Charlie caught the Bass or the Baas caught Charlie!

And so they kept coming, This time on a Z-Claw. Fantatstic lure with an action that absolutely drives any predatory fish mad. If there are fish in the water and you deploy a Z-claw it’s just a matter of time. This one was taken just below the surface.

Z Claw delivers!

Given the windy conditions SW gusting 25mph, I set Wayne up with my Tenryu Rod Bar 270. Wayne hooked and fought more fish than we caught collectively, but just couldn’t land them. On two separate occasions he hooked into fish that had the Rod Bar bent double. I had to drop my rod and run over and adjust his drag in fear of the rod snapping on one fight.  We will work on his landing technique and report on his progress!

To finish the day this beautiful girl gave me a full on scrap. She was not willing to give an inch and took me through gully and kelp before she was tamed. Lot of respect. All fish returned unharmed.

A big fight for a 4lb fish

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Last Friday evening I launched the RHIB from the beach at about 1600hrs as Charlie had been bugging me about a trip out in seek of mackerel. We were joined by my eldest Madison and my neighbour Pete.

I motored out in line with the two land marks got the triangulation about right and Charlie and Madison dropped their feathers. We were in about 130ft of water. I could see a fairly big shadow on the fish finder and as I was trying to get a depth reading against the glare of the sun when Maddy shouted “I’ve got a fish on Dad, about 30 winds of the bottom”. So there was our depth! Next Charlie was in and it carried on like this for about 15 minutes.

Thats my boy.

With about 15 Mackerel in the bucket and the evening drawing in we went in search of bass. Maddy had a follow but no takes I’m sorry to say.

"Bon apetit

Back to the Caravan for a fish supper. YUM, YUM.

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I heard Charlie explaining the basics of lure fishing to his pals and had to check out his tuition techniques.
He had even gone to the extreme of making up a rod and lure as shown below!

What a set up Charlie Boy!

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So, It was going to be a big moon, a super moon of egg type shape. Yes sure. But bloomin hell, did you see her in all her splendid glory away from the city glare of artificial light?  What a shape; on the way home from the estuary mark she began to show but there was slight cloud cover so she was a bit hazy, but a very odd shape.

Back to the caravan, a beer later and it’s time for a walk to the beach. The cloud is now clearing and its 2200hrs. Low tide. My favourite gully must be exposed. It is only accessible  at low springs and is a slight trek across  a reef outcrop and will give up good fish even on the brightest day.

The egg shaped moon is huge in the sky and giving plenty of light. I carefully work my way out across the reef  in the moonlight expecting to see my favourite gulley in all its glory, water shimmering etc, etc.  Its gone!!!!! No water, sand and kelp. Lots of kelp. The far reach of the reef where I usually fish soft plastics into kelp in three feet of water is now a waterless landscape of  limp kelp on the rocks. I couldn’t quite make out how far the tide had retreated past a normal spring low mark but I knew this was pretty extreme stuff . I decided to play it safe and head home and come back out at low tide 12oohrs Sunday in the hope of fishing past my normal imposed boundary.

As Charlie and I were going to be fishing the gulley and the sandbank near by, I decided we should  take a look from above, looking across the bay. This would give Charlie a birds eye view of the gulley, the sand bank and the only channel left for fish to leave the bay as the tide ebbed away.

The Image below shows the waves breaking over the sandbar, the gully in the rocks and the sand channel escape route which runs out to open water. This is 2 hours below low tide.

The hunting ground

Having given Charlie the low down, formulated our fishing plan we made our way across the reef to the gulley and the kelp beds.

CHECK THIS OUT!

Good Lord, who pulled the plug out?!!!!!

The limp kelp you are seeing behind Charlie is normally floating on low springs. I fish it weedless. Not much chance today! The Super Moon has dragged the tide further than I have ever seen at this South Devon  mark.

The gulley below is normal at least 3 feet deep, check out the depth now, not even a foot deep. You can clearly see the sandy bottom at the bottom of the photo.

Charlie at the end of a very empty gulley.

Until the tide turned we were literally fishing in a couple of feet of water. We tried hard and soft plastics but nothing. And then I turn around to see Charlie rummaging through his rucksack. He comes out with a big smile on his face waving a 50mm storm wide eyed shad. The thing is you see, is childrens’ minds are wide open to anything. Charlie has about 15 lures in his bag. Some hard, surface, sub surface, sinkers and bottom bangers. He also has soft plastics, worms, grubs, shads, crabs, prawns. I always encourage Charlie to think it through, what will work and why he thinks a particular lure may work at each mark.

So, he release his JB clip and fastens on the little shad. Good cast Charlie boy, big plop. He waits. Good boy, and waits, gentle jerk, it sinks back, line goes slack and he gives the shad a real jerk and BANG!. Fish on, fish jumps, so did I, splash down and slack line. “Reel in Charlie, it’s probably running at you”. He tries but the fish is gone. He is gutted. I am intrigued.

“Charlie mate, why did you use the shad?”

“Well Dad, you keep telling me to think like a fish. I thought the water was so shallow we would probably be fishing for small fish, and, well, I thought they may like some company”!!!!!!!!!!! And shrugs his shoulders at me as if it was obvious!

And so endeth the lesson.

Ah yes, that will do nicely!

And then he wouldn’t give up. The sun came out and Charlie spent about 4 hours non stop casting.

Charlie, waders off, still fishing 3.5 hrs after we started. CHECK OUT THE SHAD HE IS USING!

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Saturday Evening, super moon tides at local estuary mark. This is a real chance for my 6 year old  twins Charlie and Evie to get their first cast of the season.

They are both presented with their new rod and reel ( to be reviewed a little later) and off we trot in search of some strong tidal action.

Charlie with Lisa in "the washing machine" in the back ground

I had anticipated the super moon would have some effect on normal springs but I wasn’t quite ready for the rip tide. Neither was my darling wife Lisa who took a few big waves side on. They kept coming out of nowhere with little warning.

However, she would not give up but on this occasion sheer determination did not pay off. Bloody good effort though.

As for Charlie and Evie, well after 20 minutes poor liitle Evie was freezing, but no complaints. Charlie is just mad for it and will fish until he drops as he did at the November Lure Forum Cornish Bumble. Good boy!

Evie with estuary behind her. She is getting cold now.

All in all a great few hours fishing.  No fish to show this time but the children are fine tuning their techniques in ready for the first fish push of the season. They will be waiting. And what better way to spend some quality family time?

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My 2 boys decided on the way back from a visit to the grandparents that they wanted to do some evening fishing with Daddy, so we got home, put some kit together and proceeded down to our local estuary (armed with a flask of hot chocolate)

The boys couldn’t hold their excitement with being on the beach at 6.30 on a winters evening and after I managed to catch up with them and stop them rolling around in the sand and water,  I armed them with a couple of rods, all set up with some 35g steel lures.

The oldest; Finlay, is on his 4th trip out lure fishing, so I was happy to leave him casting away on the shores edge, whilst I tried to talk Oscar, my 6 year old boy through how to cast his lure into the water.

Oscar is a little ‘livewire’ who’s head is in the clouds most of the time, but Sophie was on hand to help.

The tidal flow was rushing out with pace;  we could have done with another hour to allow for the flow to slow down; giving the boys a greater chance of attracting any of the fish feeding in shallow water.

Only 2 nights before, I had caught a couple of plaice on steel lures and although they didn’t provide any real sport, it would have been a good opportunity to get the boys catching something.

As light became dark, the cold got the better of the boys, but they enjoyed a hot chocolate and a little rock climbing to make their evening adventure complete.

Although we had a few knocks and could see evidence of activity in the water, we would have had to stick around for the flow to slow down even more and after 45 minutes the boys were ready for some late supper and a good nights kip!

They both said what a lovely time they had, so I can’t wait for the clocks to change and the spring weather to come in earnest, so we can start catching a few fish and maybe a bass or two!

These are the first few small steps we take in encouraging the younger ones amongst us to come out and have a go, giving them space to enjoy the environment, as well as dip in and out of playing with the kit and seeing if they can catch a fish.

With many children having a short attention span, lure fishing is perfect, because they don’t have to stand there by the rod, waiting for something to happen and when they do have a rod in their hands, everything involves their hand and eye co-ordination, so in effect they are keeping themselves busy actually trying to attract a fish to their lure.

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