Fishing advice please

snowleopard

snowleopard

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Following on from the kids on board thread, I'd appreciate some advice on fishing at sea.

I'm a fair hand at Mackerel and blue water fish but have never attempted Bass, Cod etc.

Any suggestions on basic kit, places to fish, trolling speed etc?
 
We fish anywhere all the time or should I say we chuck a line or two out and generally forget about them. Once in blue water or here in the Caribbean we troll at any speed but up to 8 even 10 knots is good. Best advice we were given is to let the lure out as far as you can - none of this 2 boat length business, once we did this we nearly always catch something. (note my avatar) We use rods but many use hand lines - you need much strongetr line eg 200lb rather than 80lb otherwise you will lose too much - a 10lb Tuna at 8 knots dun arf produce a lot of drag. You will need a gaff, and we use rum in a small bottle - but any alcohol will do - just squirt into the gills and even the biggest monster of the deep stops fighting - and it saves having to use a winch handle.
I use small surface squid type lures but if nothing much is happening might try a deeper running spoon type thingy. Happy fishing
 
Forget about trawling or trolling (I'm not sure which) unless you are in warmer waters such as the med or Carribean. I Used to do a fair bit of fishing on the Clyde that was when there was fish to catch. Cod feed right on the bottom and is best done on a drift with baited hooks, a weight on the bottom of the line and a couple of three way swivels about a foot apart with 8 inches of line tied to each one and a hook on the end will be fine know as a trace or paternoster (google) Forget the beads and crimps a 3 way swivel will work just as well.
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. I found Rag or Lug worm usually worked well as bait. You can go digging for them at low tide or buy them in some fishing shops. lower your line until the weight hits the bottom and leave it there and wait for a bite. Once the fish start biting you have to strike (lift the rod up fast and hard to set the hook in the fishes jaw). Sometimes you won't need to do this as the fish being greedy barstewards will swallow the bait and hook. Pollack or coalfish tend to hang around reefs or wrecks generally not feeding on the bottom and they can be caught with artificail lures. Ask in some local fishing tackle shops for advice.
Good advice also online
http://www.btinternet.com/~kevin.l.j.knight/rigs.htm
 
I am going sailing in Corfu in 4 weeks time, i've no fishing gear and don't want oodles of the stuff, I want one piece of kit that I can catch something on /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

WHat should I get? I thought about one of those telescopic rods you see advertised on tv...

Cheers Andy
 
Had quite a few fish today in Oxwich Bay,

Just a spinning rod, (small and light) with a lead weight etc.

Bait was easy, a packet of cooked prawns from Sainsbury's.

Ok for small fish, and nothing too serious.

If you have ambitions for something bigger, you could buy a boat casting rod, plus appropriate heavy gear. And then bait needs to be expertly chosen.

But then you need to decide whether you want to fish, or sail!

We have a chinaman, (towed fish hook!) but usualy only catch mackeral on it during the summer. Mackeral is an excellent catch as they taste so good, and come in severals!
 
To catch cod you will have to stop sailing and will probably end up with bored kids, potential nightmare scenario.

For Bass try a plug that looks like a very small mackerel and troll at about 2 or 3 knots if you can get the speed down that much. If you happen to be in the area of the Eddystone light sail in really close to that , it is a known good area for catching bass.
 
Very little to catch there! You might get something if you troll a lure. Alternatively you can float fish off the wall or pier in some of the harbours, but the fish you catch if any are measured in millimetres!
 
Agree with Tranona. There are few fish in the Med. except in some special locations. Just have a look at the local fishing boats when they come in. Usually they have just a bucket of small fish for supper.
On the other hand I think it is criminal how much swordfish and tuna the big specialist boats are putting ashore.When we overnighted in Bagnara, Calabria a boat put 60 large swordfish into a container lorry and nine other similar boats were expected in the morning. Its unsustainable!!!
 
as an aside to this post, why do you see so much mullet in and around marinas which seems to go unused? Is there a reason that people don't catch and eat mullet and if so what is it please?
 
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Is there a reason that people don't catch and eat mullet and if so what is it please?

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Probably two reasons:

(1) Grey mullet are wily old beasts and are not as easy to catch as other fish. Very fine line, minute hooks and a variety of baits. Local favourite is bread paste laced with rotten cheese or rotten herrings. Use only enough to just cover the hook (preferably black, not shiny). Chum with small amounts of minute bread crumbs mixed with sand to create a small cloud that disperses rapidly and get the fish to eating mode. Use a tiny float and do not strike violently because their lips are very soft. If you smoke cigarettes while you are fishing for mullet, the chances of getting bites becomes remote.

(2) If the sea where they are caught is clean, they make excellent eating having a snow white flesh that is very tasty. BUT it is essential to clean them well. There is a black film that lines the body cavity and that must be scrupulously cleaned off. Any traces that are left, no matter how minute, tend to give an overall bad taste of iodine - which is why many people don't eat mullet. Rubbing the cavity with half a lemon, after removing the black film, also helps.

Once you acquire the knack, you'll enjoy fishing for them.
 
Sitting on a pontoon not catching mullet is one of the best ways known to man of wasting time! If you do want to catch them a net accross a creek when the ebb is running works well. If nobody is looking a spear gun also works.

However once you have caught it you have to be inventive for cooking. Once it is cleaned it is OK in fish stew as it is bulky and white, but does not respond to direct and minimal cooking like grilling.
 
Fishing from a boat in the Ionian produces, Albacore, Blue fin, Yellow fin and bullet Tuna, also Barracuda, Dorada, spearfish and swordfish. The best method by far is using livebait such as small garfish. trolling from a yacht using a plug will produce tuna, flat sea is best, do Not troll into the sun! Bass are caught close in, less than 20 metres depth, but for these fish, the lure or livebait should be deeper (midwater)
 
I'm a beginner too but to pass on some of what I've learned and seen work:

1/ a fish finder is a real help
2/ fish tend to lurk on the downtide side of rocks waiting for their dinner to be swept over the rock towards them
3/ where birds are diving , there are fish
4/ pollack can be caught easily on a feathers type lure. drop to the bottom quickly or you'll end up with just mackerel. once there lift up a foot and jigle up and down. we once caught 2 largebucket load off the bishops in half an hour
5/ live prawns are great bait for bass - you can catch them with a prawn net in the growth underneath many pontoons.
6/ travelling at 5 knots you can forget anything round here except mackerel, but they make good pot bait.
7/ got given a great recipe for crab soup using the small velvets etc that we Brits throw away and the French eat.
 
Hi, I would class myself as a novice angler. I like to use dexter wedges on a strong spinning rod and a small multiplier.

The weight of the dexter wedge helps to mitigate the multiplier's inevitable drag and a stiff(ish) rod set up, both of which are good for my novice status I reckon. I've had good success with wedges over other more realistic lures, which are probably better for an experienced bass/coastal angler but I've never been able to get a bite on one in the sea. I've had these lures followed by quite large numbers of fish but never an actual bite whereas the dexter was getting a bite every two or three casts in the same area.
 
You also need a licence in Greece to fish from a boat, I have a licence to fish on a friends Greek reg boat or on my own boat (Greek reg) my boat also has to be registered for fishing. I do not know if this would affect a Brit reg boat or not.
 
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