Hounded

This Summer / Autum has seen a bit of different fishing for me, I’ve been concentrating more on my sea fishing during the warmer months this year, simply because the river fishing has been so dire in my area that it’s not been worth going. I did have a couple of trips when the season started, but all I caught was a couple of very small zander which I had to work hard to catch! I’ve caught enough zander not to be too worried about scratching out 2lbers! So, I quickly knocked those trips on the head.

We have, at least, not had too much of heat wave this year, but low flow conditions always make it hard for zander, and your best chance is fishing late or early. However, the word on the street (or maybe that should be river) is that hardly anything has come out, so that reassuring, I think! Well, reassuring that it isn’t just me being pants, probably not that reassuring that not much has been coming out.
We all know the rivers are not as clean as they used to be, but was the Severn ever clean? Certainly, for a good few years now, there has been rafts of foam coming down in the flood water, which killed the fishing, no one seems to know where this comes from. You can imagine that the regular winter floods bring a lot of wash off into the river as well so was it ever really clean – clean? Maybe that why the zander did so well in the first place?

Sea Fishing;
So on to the sea fishing, the day after the start of the river season I was out on the Bristol Channel the water temperature was 19 degrees which I found quite surprising. I’d gone out for some Bass, but the bass fishing had been hit and miss all year. I have found that when the Channel goes clear as it sometimes does around the end of June, that the Bass fishing becomes really hard, which shouldn’t be the case when you think about it, clearer water means they can see your lure better – right? Certainly it must be better that the milky coffee colour it usually is.

What I think happens is, when its clear, the mackerel come further up the channel and the bass go out feeding on them, so they are not in the usual spots where you catch them on lures. Either way it had been hard, so I shifted my attention on catching some rays which are usually quite obliging. After a few of these I stated picking up some early running Smooth Hounds on the squid baits which was a good sign. Usually if you get an early run of hounds, the big Smooth Hounds are not that far behind.

I had been over to the Isle of Wight hunting the Stingrays again a couple of weeks earlier and had managed to get hold of some massive spider peeler crabs, for some reason they get a lot of them over there. These things were huge, the size of the palm of your hand, each one would make about six normal baits. I was excited to use them on the Channel, crabs work well for hounds, but so does prawn where I fish, often, with prawn and squid wrap often out fishing normal peelers.

Anyway, I had found a couple a spots which are usually good for the better stamp of hounds. The first one being a rocky outcrop in about 30 feet of water, this spot was usually good up until high water on medium tides then you can blow it off. I’d had double figure fish from here before and its weird that you nearly always got them just before the tide changed.

You would get a chance of a hound all the way up, but as soon as the anchor went slack and the boat started to move, if you got a bite then, it would most likely be a good one, and it would also be the last one from that spot before it went dead. Knowing this I saved the big spider peelers until 30 mins before high water, then baited up and lobbed them out.

I use simple 4/0 pennel rigs for them, you don’t need anything special just strong line as if you catch a few they can rub the mono I use 60lb Amnesia which stands up to it, but obviously you change it if is damaged. The main rigs are pully rigs with 8oz leads which will hold in most instances.

With both baits in I didn’t have to wait long as one rod was nearly pulled out of the boat as a good fish ploughed off with the bait, this is usual hound tactics they are not subtle when they pick the bait up. After a good hard fight, I got it in, it was a bit bigger than the usual stamp of fish certainly a double. But I didn’t have time to mess about with it as the other rod was quickly disappearing over the side, so I quickly grabbed it and played another respectable hound in.

As Tom Jones would say, “It’s not unusual” to catch two hounds at once, I’ve done it a few times now as they do swim around in packs of similar sizes.
Like most shark species, Smooth Hounds have the ability to invert their stomach. It is thought they do this so they can get rid of inedible items, shells, sharp bones etc. As I was unhooking one it did just that and coughed up its half-digested meal, in the bottom of the boat, all around the boat, and all over me!
What surprised me however was what it had been eating, there were little crabs, hermit crabs and a massive lobster claw! Phew did it stink, the joys of Smooth Hound fishing.

The next time I was out I tried the spider peelers again, and from the off I was catching hounds, so they clearly liked them, in the end I was fishing them with a wrap of squid, as they seem to be more “mushy” (technical term) then usual peelers, and I felt that adding the squid would help keep the scent in for longer, not that it really needed it as the fish hit them quite quickly if they were about. I had twelve that day, but nothing overly big, However, I felt that with the water being clear a big one should be on the cards as that is when I have had the larger ones before.

The following week the tides were right for another spot where I had had some doubles before so I thought I would give that a go, this spot was a bit deeper on the edge of a drop off in 50 feet of water. I like it here on smaller tides as you still have a good force of water going along the drop off. This time I was running short of spider peelers so I fished on rod on the old faithful of prawn and squid wrap. First cast I was into a good fish, on the prawn! After a bit of a tug of war, I managed to net it, it was a better fish, and I went to weigh it, but I had forgotten my scales! I did however find a measuring tape and it was 114cm which is somewhere between 13 and 14lbs. A reasonable fish, and the largest of the day.

The next day I went back to the same spot and made sure I had my scales with me! Again, I was using spider peeler on one rod and prawn on the other. Today the fishing was slower, but I still felt confident in getting something before the tide changed, and as usual just as the tide was slacking off, I was away to a good fish on the prawn again. This fish fought hard, even pulling the boat around as the tide had slackened. They are quite awkward to net when there is no tide. When there is tide you put the net at the back of them and slacken off and they fall into it, when there is no tide, you need to scoop them, which they don’t like! But soon I had it in the boat being weighed 15lb 2oz, the best of the season so far.

So, my conclusion was that the IOW spider peeler crabs worked well in the Bristol Channel, they certainly drew the attention of lots of fish, but the larger Smooth Hounds still preferred the old faithful Prawns!