Silver, a sliver and grey ghosts!

A couple of weeks ago I met up with friend of the blog Ritchie in the hope of hitting the bass again. We had arranged to meet at the mark at dawn and fish a few hours up until lunchtime. The weather for once had decided to support our fishing endeavours and it was calm, crisp and clear skied with a rising tide. I met Ritchie at the mark where he had been working his lures for about an hour and despite his efforts had only had a couple of bites but no hook ups. I rigged up my Savage Gear Dropshot XLNT with my go to lure, 4.5" Slug-Go in Arkansas Shiner mounted on a 10g football jighead. After about an hour I finally found some bass who wanted to play managed to catch and release three fish, the biggest just over 38cm.

The only usable shot of the bass I caught as my camera was playing up!

As we searched around the rock fringed bay I noticed some small silver fish shoaling in the shallows and after a bit of observation concluded that they may well be sand smelt. Sensing an opportunity to up my species count I found some #28 hooks to nylon and tied one directly to the 2/0 hook on the Slug-Go (New Zealand dropper style). I rigged it with a tiny section of Isome and gently lowered it into the shallows. The fish were not frightened of the Slug-Go and indeed they soon started shoaling around it before one noticed the tiny piece of Isome and seized it. With a yelp of glee I quickly hoisted it up and there in my hand was species #27, which was quickly photographed then released back to his rejoin his shoal.

Lure caught species #27 for 2012 the humble sand smelt

Ritchie meanwhile had had a few bites on his Slug-Go but no hook ups and soon he had to retire to go and work. I said my good byes and headed back to where we started. I had noticed a shoal of mullet nosing about and for once I had come prepared with bread and my light feeder rod. I started by breaking up some bread and throwing it in up tide of the fish and I was pleased to see them start to feed on the pieces as they floated past. I rigged up my rod with a 5g alloy stick float and had it fairly under shotted to keep it visible in the lumpy water. My hook of choice was a wide gape Drennan Specimen #12 and I pinched a small piece of bread flake onto the hook shank, leaving a nice fluffy edge to the bread. I cast out into the free offerings of bread and almost straight away the float shot under! I struck and then madly fumbled at the drag trying to free it. The fish had other ideas and instantly hit top speed before I could loosen the drag and as the rod arched over the hook bent and the fish was free. Oh well, at least they were in a feeding mood! I carried on with the drag set very loose and it wasn't long before I had hooked another mullet, all be it slightly smaller than the first. As always the mullet gave an amazing fight charging around on the surface, trying to get under rock ledges, diving and running before it was finally guided into the landing net. I was expecting it to be a thick lipped grey mullet but it quickly became apparent that it was in fact a very fat golden grey, my first for a few years.

Golden grey mullet, brilliant fun to catch!

Another fine golden grey, worth the effort for sure.

A couple of pics and the fish was released back to its shoal to continue pigging out on the bread. The next couple of hours was intensely good fun. With the mullet shoal feeding boldly on the bread I managed to hook and land a further two golden greys as well as hooking and losing a very powerful thick lipped mullet after a good seven minutes of playing it! It must have been pushing 5 lbs and every time I got him in he would run out again stripping line off the reel with ease. In the end he threw the hook when I tried to stop him running under a ledge, but I was overjoyed as the fight of big mullet really has to be the best light tackle fight out there. I packed up and headed back when the bread ran out, but it really was the most enjoyable sport I have had for a while and it seems I had forgotten how much I love catching mullet. Now that my mullet fixation has been rekindled I will be back there soon and hopefully I can try and get one on a lure of some kind!

Tight lines, Schogsky.