A day on the bait

The bulk of my fishing is with lures so it makes a pleasant change to sit back, relax and fish with bait. Today’s tactic was to fish large(ish) fish baits for Thornback Rays and fish small fish and squid baits for flatfish and whatever else takes a fancy.

20min paddle out to some nice flat sandy ground, drop anchor and get the baits overboard. Wasn’t long before the tide was racing through so a nice scent trail was on the go. The small flatfish were the first to appear and lots of them! Soon as the bait hit the bottom they were on it, great fun on the light gear and it’s something I should do more of.

It was a little while before the first Thornback appeared, tap tap on the rod showed one had taken an interest in my Mackerel bait, waited a few seconds, struck and fish on! Felt huge but turned out the tail got caught on the line during the fight making the fish into a big sail against the tide! Always nice to catch Rays, I think they are a lovely looking fish.

Fresh Mackerel bait dropped down again, wasn’t longbefore the rod was tapping away, great another Thornback I thought only to reel in a tiny flatfish that was perhaps a little to greedy!

The smallfish rod was still providing great sport, this time a tiny but very plump Cod appeared. If it keeps eating the way it has then it’ll be a 30lber within no time!

Managed another Thornback a little bigger and that was it, very enjoyable and I’ll be back bait fishing soon 🙂