Penzance LRF 22-02-2011

Went for a session in the Harbour, Penzance last night. Light to no wind, but a constant thick drizzle coming down, full wet weather gear required. I wanted to try a few different approaches, and arrived at bang on high tide.

First up, seeing what I could learn from using a blade style lure, in this case the Ecogear ZX30 in Dark Knight colour. Started out casting from a low height, and working a lift and retrieve pattern, Has a couple of follows to the surface, but no take. Moved up off the steps to the Harbour wall, and cast short, and worked the lure off the bottom, almost vertically, lifting up quickly making the blade 'buzz', and following the rod tip down in a controlled drop. This brought the takes, and landed a couple of Pollack.

Also tried out a small Ecogear floating crank bait, casting out and a steady retrieve with jerks and twitches to get the lure down in the water, allowing it to rise up. No takes, lots of vibration and depth right to the rod tip. Think I need to use it in some daylight to understand the lure better.

Moved onto the trusty 2" Straw Tail Grub. Rigged it split shot, carolina and on a jig head, Chartreuse and White Glow versions. Found definite patterns between the two species I was catching. The Herrings were all taking on a slow retrieve, mid to shallow. Pretty aggressive takes for a fish of its size. The Pollacks all came from OTD, either cast out, working it off the bottom, or jigged vertically from the Harbour wall, in the lower column of water.

I also tried fishing with a fine wire size 10 barbless Carp hook. The takes were good, but even with pressure on the fish, as it got to the surface, the hook was shaken, or it shook the hook as lifted from the water. Out of about 8 or so Herring and Pollack, think I only landed one fish cleanly. I put this largely down to my inexperience in using a barbless hook, something I might see if I can improve upon in future sessions.

A lot of fish were taken over the 2 hours I fished, lost count, maybe 20+ As the rain eased, took a couple of pics for the report, nothing 'special' taken over the whole session, but was a good chance to try a few new things out.