A little bit of Ballan....

I headed out on Wednesday to try for some wrasse on the hrf gear hoping for

some nice fish. I hit the mark at around 9 in the morning the sun was high and the water was

crystal clear and flat calm. I rigged up a senko stlyle stick bait texas and began to fish in the various 

gullies and weedbeds around the place trying various retrieves from deadsticking leaving the bait on the 

bottom with an occasinal twitch to a slow retieve along the bottom to see if I could trigger a bite with some small taps i could tell that i was gone too big so a reduction in lure size and hook size was in order.

Size 1 hook and 3inch senko rigged up still small taps but no takes so i rigged up some gulp lugworm in black with blue fleck results were instant with a number of wrasse fallling to this lure 

 By now it was midday so after around 15 fish or so I noticed that the stamp of fish wasnt what I had hoped for wth the biggest being about 2.5lb so it was back to the car for some lunch and rigging up the lrf gear.

I headed back to the water at around 2 or thereabouts with the tide now all but out.

after the luck i had with the gulp earlier in the day it was hard to pull myself away from it and try something else so I decided to start of with some 2" fish fry for ecogear fans they are basically a strawtail imitation or vice versa straight in with a nice little ballan

next couple of casts a nice little corkwing

and another Ballan

All went quite then for an hour or so with the tide bottoming out with just the lrf staple and favourite of mine

the pollock rearing their heads

these fish fight well above their weight and he are great sport on the lrf gear the biggest being around the 1.5lb mark no big fish but great fun

It wasnt long until the ballans began to come back with plenty of shy touches and pick ups where the fish

takes the lure but only the tail and a strike only ends up with the lure snapping back through the water column

I fished on with the gulp fish fry and i was into another ballan as soon as the tide began to push in

the supply of these lures was now low so I switched over to 4'' sandworms with no difference in

takes the fish just kept coming thick and fast 

this one waved and smiled for the camera..

The mark was really exceeding my expectations at this point with over 40 fish landed 

especially with conditions being as they were clear bright and crystal clear water conditions

which i had previously struggled to find a wrasse just goes to show that with angling in general you

never know what can come your way.

By now it was around 6 'o' clock in the evening and it was getting progressively harder to pick up fish

I found a nice gully around 15ft deep and was deadsticking the lure on the bottom when i felt the smallest of taps then all of a sudden the rod doubled and the drag sang I was into a serious fish after a couple of runs it got into the weed and no amount of coaxing was getting it out. I waited for it to move on but it was bedded in and my leader snapped the first bit of tackle loss of the day ....I was gutted not to land it but I now know where the fish lives so I'll be back.

Bites were few now with the tide all but in I continued to try with a few fish including my first ever green wrasse 

the green on its head and eyes was alot more vivid than the photo shows probably my favourite fish of the day.

This however wasnt the end with another few ballans and a couple of corkwings showing face to round off what truly was my best ever day out on the wrasse with my LRF gear

A truly awesome days wrassing the likes of which I have never had with 50 wrasse landed and more bites missed. 

I really hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I have enjoyed writing it and for any LRF doubters

out there I say pick up a rod and give it ago.

Tight lines 

Jay