Well Planned But Unexpected - Coastal Lure Fishing

A few weeks ago I'd been talking with my friend about fishing the conditions and the season a bit better rather than persevering with what we'd like to be doing. I really enjoy a bit of lure fishing in the sea but I had no need to be standing on the rocks in a gale this February, 

We scouted out a likely mark, got the calendar out, checked the tide tables, the weather and this weekend there was an afternoon low tide down the South West, with a storm coming in later in the evening that meant that the top of the tide would be just as the the sun dropped and hopefully a nice calm evening. Couldn't be any better for chucking lures for Bass.

Setting off we were running late, I'd forgotten my lunch & some new lure I'd picked up so we kicked about the option to just give in and fish local but it was too good to miss. We stuck to the plan and headed off... into a massive queue on the A78. You know it's bad when the SATNAV offers to take you all round the houses and still saves you 20 minutes. Sat in slow traffic is definitely a time to second guess but even if we missed the first half hour of the turn it was going to be too good to miss.

Down the track and a rapid hike down the beach in waders under a blazing sun had warmed us up so we picked a spot to start working our way towards a rocky outcrop. Seekers are my go-to search pattern, these little metal lures cast a mile and work really well with a spin stop retrieve dropping invitingly amongst the rocks and bladder rack before dashing way. Thankfully there were fish in the mood to chase and pretty quickly the first one was landed, nothing huge but the blank was off!

Blanks off thanks to the Seeker

The fish on a Seeker was expected, what happened next, not so much! There were fish feeding in the surface and my friend's rod hooped over but it wasn't a Bass, from a distance the silvery fish thrashed about but it didn't look like a Mackerel or a Sea Trout. I waded closer to snap a photo as he held up his first ever Garfish, 

A needle beaked fish that can grow up to 3ft long, they're more common in the warmer water around the south and west of the British Isles. I'd certainly not caught one in Scotland and now they were leaping about in the surface in front of us chasing bait fish. They are a popular small sporting species that fight hard on light gear. They'll often put on a spectacular show in their attempts to throw the hook.

Gar on

We hooked some and lost some in the next hour, scaling down a little resulted in more positive conversions. Quite a few we had were well over the minimum keeper size if we'd wanted a feed before we got back onto Bass fishing and working bigger lures rigged weedless to fish through snaggy ground.

Net Filled

It's not every time things come together and plenty of fish are caught, I love just being out but you do need a good day to remind you why we keep trying.