Wednesday 3 August 2011
Pellet Fishing
Pellets are probably the cheapest and most widely available bait of them all. It will be difficult to cover every aspect of pellet fishing in detail within one article, so what I will try and do is talk through the basics of a few different ways of fishing the pellet with a view to returning to a few of them in more detail at a later date.
I find the term ‘natural bait’ a strange one, as to the majority of fish in Britain’s commercial fisheries pellets will be the most natural bait of all, as these are what they are reared on from birth in the fish farms. A lot of people look at a worm or a maggot and assume that this looks natural to a fish, when in actual fact a pellet may seem far more familiar.
For this reason, there are very few times in the calendar year when pellets won’t work, with anglers who think that they are just a summer bait often losing out. Indeed, at venues such as Tunnel Barn Farm and Garbolino Lindholme Lakes, anglers catch on pellets even in the depths of winter. Being successful with the pellet is largely about confidence, and having the faith to fish with them when other anglers fish far more negative baits.
I can remember Nick Speed winning his section in a Winter League at Hallcroft with 15lb of skimmers on the pellet on a day when the majority of anglers resorted to fishing bloodworm for small roach!
Of course, as an angler you have to adapt your feeding and presentation to suit the quantity and type of fish you are looking to catch. As I mentioned last month, it is best to avoid the ‘one size fits all’ mentality when it comes to rigs, there is no such thing as a dedicated pellet rig, don’t be afraid to adapt you rig to suit the circumstances and the type of fish you are looking to catch.
Expander Pellets
This is probably the most common way in which pellet is fished, and one of the easiest for beginners to master. If you look on the shelves of your local tackle shop you will see a vast array of pellets of different colours, shapes and sizes. In all honesty these are more to catch anglers than fish, and are no better in my opinion than pellets that you can buy in the bag and soak yourself.
Van Den Eydne RS Elite Expander pellets are a good place to start, with 4mm being a nice size for all round commercial carp fishing. You really can’t go wrong preparing these pellets for the hook, soak them in water for around an hour and they swell up to a perfect size. You can leave them in water once they have swollen, and it is often best to do this especially on a warm day.
When prepared in this way the pellets will float, but the weight of your hook will make them sink and they will fall appetizingly through the water.
Personally, I don’t use expander pellets as feed pellets, but should you want to do this use a pellet pump to make the expanders sink, or let them swell up as as above and then squeeze the air out of them by hand. The times that you can do this are limited in the modern climate however, as the vast majority of commercial fisheries make you use there feed pellets.
The best way to prepare these for feeding is simply to soak them for a while on the bank side. I know a while may sound like a vague term, but it really does depend on the kind of pellets that the fishery is supplying. What you are looking for is a soft pellet which remain single and don’t cling together. A good way of keeping them separate is dusting them with a fishmeal groundbait such as Ringers after they have been soaked, and this can also help create a fish attracting cloud as they drop through the water.
Rigs
The thing to bear in mind when rigging up to fish with soft pellets is that it is a delicate bait, and therefore your rigs need to be as sensitive as possible. The best way to achieve this is to present your bait as close to dead depth as conditions allow, and have shot as close to your hook as you can. This is why methods such as the ‘hook in the loop’ are so successful, as they provide maximum sensitivity.
I an ideal world, you would present your pellet just touching bottom with a bulk around six inches from your hook with no droppers, as then bites will be really positive. Unfortunately fish won’t always have bait presented as crudely as this however and you often have to compromise sensitivity in order to achieve better presentation and get bites, so as with worm fishing a bulk with two droppers is often a good place to start. Again, I would recommend the use of Preston Stotz, as these allow you to adjust your shotting very easily by simply sliding them about on the line.
This winter I started traveling with fellow Star contributor Matt Godfrey, who is awesome at all types of fishing, and we attended quite a few matches at Kiveton Waters, where pellet is the predominant method. Matt taught me a trick that has proved invaluable to all my fishing, but in particular pellet fishing. It’s to do with how you lower your rig in.
As I say, pellet is a sensitive bait, and where possible it helps if you can read your rig from the moment your pellet touches the water. What Matt showed me (which like all the best ideas in angling seems obvious when you think about it) is to lower your rig to half way down in the water before letting your rig straighten out, i.e. let the droppers fall so the rig is as it would be on the bottom, then inch the rig through the last couple of feet of water. Sometimes the fish will just pull the elastic out before the rig even settles, and when they don’t bites normally come very quickly after the pellet has touched bottom.
An added bonus when fishing like this and feeding with a toss pot, is that it gives the pellets that you have fed through the pot the chance to settle on the bottom before your hook bait reaches them, reducing the occurance of line bites.
In terms of what floats and hooks to use, I would recommend Kamasan B911 as a good all round pellet hook, with Tubetini 808’s being a good model for winter work and Preston PR28’s being a suitable heavier gauge model. Preston Chianti’s are a good float for pellet work in depths to 5ft, though I would thread a rubber over the bristle instead of using the side eye to avoid the eye pulling out, and in deeper water KC Carpa Porths work well.
Feeding
The best way to feed pellets is invariably little and often, feeding to your bites. Putting too much bait in when fishing with this bait is the most common mistake that anglers make, as they draw too many fish into their pegs and then proceed to fowl hook them and often spook what are there and lose them.
I would kick start a session on the pellet with a kinder pot full of bait, and wait for an indication, if none were forthcoming I would be reluctant to feed again in that area for at least half an hour. The best way of looking at pellet fishing is that you are trying to catch a fish, then after you have caught one try and catch another one, rather than trying to draw a load of fish into your peg in one go.
If all goes to plan and you go in and get a fish off your first tosspot full of feed I would feed the same amount again, and keep doing this until line bites become a problem, at which point stop cut back on your feed accordingly. A useful tip for feeding pellets when you are really bagging is to fill your pot up, ship out but don’t feed, see if you get a bite straight away, if you do and you hook a fish tap your pole and feed the pellets in the pot . this way, by the time you land the fish and go back out the fish will be nicely settled over the pellets you have just fed.
Another important thing to consider with pellet fishing is the way in which you strike or, to be more specific don’t strike. All you should do is gently lift your pole so your rig comes about a pole float length out of the water, if you don’t get a fish lower it back in, that way your pellet will never come off the hook, unless of course there is a fish on!
Hard Pellets
As I mentioned in my introduction to this piece there are lots of different ways of fishing pellet in the modern commercial climate, and the way in which hard pellets are often fished is very different to the softly softly approach described above which is required for soft pellets.
On southern match waters, most notably at White Acres, it is very rare to see any anglers fishing with expander pellets, except for silver fish, all carp fishing is done with big, hard pellets, with feeding done either by catapult or by hand.
These can either be attached to the hook by a hair rig, a band or by a lasso, which is effectively a hair rigged slip knot.
In terms of feeding, the emphasis again is on feeding to your bites, with firing a couple of pellets every few seconds being the most common way of doing it, with southerners often referring to this as ‘pinging’.
Rigs used for fishing pellets in this way on the pole generally involve just a bulk a couple of feet away from the hook, with rigs often being set to three or four depths to find where the fish are in the water, with the aim being to catch shallow eventually.
If you have a feature to present bait to, or even plenty of open water to go at, the bomb and pellet waggler really come into there own however, and most of the massive weights you see from southern baggin meccas are taken on one of these two methods.
The real beauty of both these methods is there simplicity, as long as you keep feeding if the fish are there you will catch them. That is not to say that there is no skill in fishing them, as the pellet waggler for example takes a lot of skill to master.
I was fortunate enough to be shown the basics of this method by Spro Sponsored angler Stewart Lister, and though I wouldn’t claim to be an expert there are a few tips that I can pass on that may well be useful to readers.
Firstly, in terms of waggler choice avoid loaded wagglers as these have a tendancy to dive and spook the fish. The best type to go for are the Styrene straight wagglers, they may lack the glossy professional look of some models but have a look at the floats that most top anglers use and you will see that nine times out of ten it is one of these.
Another tip that helps prevent your float from diving is to put the bulk of your shot above the float, with one locking shot underneath. Don’t worry about sinking your line, as the waggler is rarely in the water long enough for skim to become a problem.
As a basic rule of thumb though if you don’t get a bite within a minute cast in again and feed, and keep doing this until you get bites. It is not a method you can sit on and wait for it to go under, you should expect to catch fairly quickly on it, if you don’t go back on the straight lead.
Which Pellets?
As I mentioned in the early part of this article, selecting which pellets to use can at times seem a daunting task, as there are that many on the market all claiming to be responsible for hundreds of ton up bags.
Don’t be confused or daunted by the different sizes and colours, find a type you are confident with and stick with it. By the same token,, don’t be afraid to experiment, as you would be amazed at the difference a subtle change can make. As a general rule though, the old saying holds true: If it aint broke don’t fix it!
I find the term ‘natural bait’ a strange one, as to the majority of fish in Britain’s commercial fisheries pellets will be the most natural bait of all, as these are what they are reared on from birth in the fish farms. A lot of people look at a worm or a maggot and assume that this looks natural to a fish, when in actual fact a pellet may seem far more familiar.
For this reason, there are very few times in the calendar year when pellets won’t work, with anglers who think that they are just a summer bait often losing out. Indeed, at venues such as Tunnel Barn Farm and Garbolino Lindholme Lakes, anglers catch on pellets even in the depths of winter. Being successful with the pellet is largely about confidence, and having the faith to fish with them when other anglers fish far more negative baits.
I can remember Nick Speed winning his section in a Winter League at Hallcroft with 15lb of skimmers on the pellet on a day when the majority of anglers resorted to fishing bloodworm for small roach!
Of course, as an angler you have to adapt your feeding and presentation to suit the quantity and type of fish you are looking to catch. As I mentioned last month, it is best to avoid the ‘one size fits all’ mentality when it comes to rigs, there is no such thing as a dedicated pellet rig, don’t be afraid to adapt you rig to suit the circumstances and the type of fish you are looking to catch.
Expander Pellets
This is probably the most common way in which pellet is fished, and one of the easiest for beginners to master. If you look on the shelves of your local tackle shop you will see a vast array of pellets of different colours, shapes and sizes. In all honesty these are more to catch anglers than fish, and are no better in my opinion than pellets that you can buy in the bag and soak yourself.
Van Den Eydne RS Elite Expander pellets are a good place to start, with 4mm being a nice size for all round commercial carp fishing. You really can’t go wrong preparing these pellets for the hook, soak them in water for around an hour and they swell up to a perfect size. You can leave them in water once they have swollen, and it is often best to do this especially on a warm day.
When prepared in this way the pellets will float, but the weight of your hook will make them sink and they will fall appetizingly through the water.
Personally, I don’t use expander pellets as feed pellets, but should you want to do this use a pellet pump to make the expanders sink, or let them swell up as as above and then squeeze the air out of them by hand. The times that you can do this are limited in the modern climate however, as the vast majority of commercial fisheries make you use there feed pellets.
The best way to prepare these for feeding is simply to soak them for a while on the bank side. I know a while may sound like a vague term, but it really does depend on the kind of pellets that the fishery is supplying. What you are looking for is a soft pellet which remain single and don’t cling together. A good way of keeping them separate is dusting them with a fishmeal groundbait such as Ringers after they have been soaked, and this can also help create a fish attracting cloud as they drop through the water.
Rigs
The thing to bear in mind when rigging up to fish with soft pellets is that it is a delicate bait, and therefore your rigs need to be as sensitive as possible. The best way to achieve this is to present your bait as close to dead depth as conditions allow, and have shot as close to your hook as you can. This is why methods such as the ‘hook in the loop’ are so successful, as they provide maximum sensitivity.
I an ideal world, you would present your pellet just touching bottom with a bulk around six inches from your hook with no droppers, as then bites will be really positive. Unfortunately fish won’t always have bait presented as crudely as this however and you often have to compromise sensitivity in order to achieve better presentation and get bites, so as with worm fishing a bulk with two droppers is often a good place to start. Again, I would recommend the use of Preston Stotz, as these allow you to adjust your shotting very easily by simply sliding them about on the line.
This winter I started traveling with fellow Star contributor Matt Godfrey, who is awesome at all types of fishing, and we attended quite a few matches at Kiveton Waters, where pellet is the predominant method. Matt taught me a trick that has proved invaluable to all my fishing, but in particular pellet fishing. It’s to do with how you lower your rig in.
As I say, pellet is a sensitive bait, and where possible it helps if you can read your rig from the moment your pellet touches the water. What Matt showed me (which like all the best ideas in angling seems obvious when you think about it) is to lower your rig to half way down in the water before letting your rig straighten out, i.e. let the droppers fall so the rig is as it would be on the bottom, then inch the rig through the last couple of feet of water. Sometimes the fish will just pull the elastic out before the rig even settles, and when they don’t bites normally come very quickly after the pellet has touched bottom.
An added bonus when fishing like this and feeding with a toss pot, is that it gives the pellets that you have fed through the pot the chance to settle on the bottom before your hook bait reaches them, reducing the occurance of line bites.
In terms of what floats and hooks to use, I would recommend Kamasan B911 as a good all round pellet hook, with Tubetini 808’s being a good model for winter work and Preston PR28’s being a suitable heavier gauge model. Preston Chianti’s are a good float for pellet work in depths to 5ft, though I would thread a rubber over the bristle instead of using the side eye to avoid the eye pulling out, and in deeper water KC Carpa Porths work well.
Feeding
The best way to feed pellets is invariably little and often, feeding to your bites. Putting too much bait in when fishing with this bait is the most common mistake that anglers make, as they draw too many fish into their pegs and then proceed to fowl hook them and often spook what are there and lose them.
I would kick start a session on the pellet with a kinder pot full of bait, and wait for an indication, if none were forthcoming I would be reluctant to feed again in that area for at least half an hour. The best way of looking at pellet fishing is that you are trying to catch a fish, then after you have caught one try and catch another one, rather than trying to draw a load of fish into your peg in one go.
If all goes to plan and you go in and get a fish off your first tosspot full of feed I would feed the same amount again, and keep doing this until line bites become a problem, at which point stop cut back on your feed accordingly. A useful tip for feeding pellets when you are really bagging is to fill your pot up, ship out but don’t feed, see if you get a bite straight away, if you do and you hook a fish tap your pole and feed the pellets in the pot . this way, by the time you land the fish and go back out the fish will be nicely settled over the pellets you have just fed.
Another important thing to consider with pellet fishing is the way in which you strike or, to be more specific don’t strike. All you should do is gently lift your pole so your rig comes about a pole float length out of the water, if you don’t get a fish lower it back in, that way your pellet will never come off the hook, unless of course there is a fish on!
Hard Pellets
As I mentioned in my introduction to this piece there are lots of different ways of fishing pellet in the modern commercial climate, and the way in which hard pellets are often fished is very different to the softly softly approach described above which is required for soft pellets.
On southern match waters, most notably at White Acres, it is very rare to see any anglers fishing with expander pellets, except for silver fish, all carp fishing is done with big, hard pellets, with feeding done either by catapult or by hand.
These can either be attached to the hook by a hair rig, a band or by a lasso, which is effectively a hair rigged slip knot.
In terms of feeding, the emphasis again is on feeding to your bites, with firing a couple of pellets every few seconds being the most common way of doing it, with southerners often referring to this as ‘pinging’.
Rigs used for fishing pellets in this way on the pole generally involve just a bulk a couple of feet away from the hook, with rigs often being set to three or four depths to find where the fish are in the water, with the aim being to catch shallow eventually.
If you have a feature to present bait to, or even plenty of open water to go at, the bomb and pellet waggler really come into there own however, and most of the massive weights you see from southern baggin meccas are taken on one of these two methods.
The real beauty of both these methods is there simplicity, as long as you keep feeding if the fish are there you will catch them. That is not to say that there is no skill in fishing them, as the pellet waggler for example takes a lot of skill to master.
I was fortunate enough to be shown the basics of this method by Spro Sponsored angler Stewart Lister, and though I wouldn’t claim to be an expert there are a few tips that I can pass on that may well be useful to readers.
Firstly, in terms of waggler choice avoid loaded wagglers as these have a tendancy to dive and spook the fish. The best type to go for are the Styrene straight wagglers, they may lack the glossy professional look of some models but have a look at the floats that most top anglers use and you will see that nine times out of ten it is one of these.
Another tip that helps prevent your float from diving is to put the bulk of your shot above the float, with one locking shot underneath. Don’t worry about sinking your line, as the waggler is rarely in the water long enough for skim to become a problem.
As a basic rule of thumb though if you don’t get a bite within a minute cast in again and feed, and keep doing this until you get bites. It is not a method you can sit on and wait for it to go under, you should expect to catch fairly quickly on it, if you don’t go back on the straight lead.
Which Pellets?
As I mentioned in the early part of this article, selecting which pellets to use can at times seem a daunting task, as there are that many on the market all claiming to be responsible for hundreds of ton up bags.
Don’t be confused or daunted by the different sizes and colours, find a type you are confident with and stick with it. By the same token,, don’t be afraid to experiment, as you would be amazed at the difference a subtle change can make. As a general rule though, the old saying holds true: If it aint broke don’t fix it!
Monday 4 July 2011
Hartbeespoort Dam
With a catchment area of over 4100 square kilometers and a wall of 59 metres tall, Hartbeespoort Dam has always been one of the favorite and most visited dams in South Africa. Since it's relatively close to Johannesburg and Pretoria, it receives the water enthusiast by the masses every day and boils over every weekend. It was built on the farm Hatbeestpoort which was owned by General Hendrik Schoeman in the 19th Century but has seen a number of revisions and upgrades until it was completed and opened in 1923. It lies between the Magalies and Witwaters mountain range and the name literally means "Pass of the Hartbees."The Wall is 150 meters long and was built over a gorge in the Magalies which resulted in 57km of bank all around the water. From extremely deep cliffs to shallow stretched banks for every type of fishing. The Dam still serves primarily as an irrigation reservoir but due to the size of the water surface, has quickly become the ultimate playground for all types of water fans with Yacht clubs probably being the oldest attraction to the water.
Regrettably for the fisherman a lot of these banks have seen new developments which seems to be the new quick build-to-sell money making scheme in SA, where we lost out on quite a substantial amount of fish-able locations to new high priced houses and estates with price tags only foreigners could afford. More and more speculators and construction companies target land along the water, resulting in fewer fishing possibilities with each new addition. We've received news that Rust de Winter was the next to fall and the land has already been sold.
What most people might not have heard of, is that the shoreline around Harties now has almost NO aquatic plants anymore because of these developments. These plants you might come across in most dams, play an important part in a very delicate eco system, and last we heard, an astounding 98% of a 57km shoreline has been destroyed at Harties.
Now it's no secret that Harties has some of the filthiest most disgusting water in the whole country. Apart from the unbearable smell which might put a smile on every angler's face when he thinks of all the residents who "stole" his fishing spot with their fancy houses and waterfront gardens, it just can't be comfortable paying that kind of money for a "piece of heaven" and receiving somebody's "processed" meal as a housewarming gift. Harties always had a problem with pollution but this escalated to an unmanageable capacity in the last couple of years. So much that the local authorities have almost given up.
So what seems to be the main problem here? For one, you're not allowed to blame it on any human waste whatsoever! You can come up with alternative theories, as long as you don't mention sewage. It doesn't matter who comes up with whichever theory though, the biggest problem in Harties as it is so with numerous dams in SA, IS human waste, and our local governing bodies' inability to manage this effectively. While it is by far the biggest problem it's not the only big problem in Harties.
I might mention an interesting piece of gossip I was told by one of the residents on the Harties banks who was informed of a solution which he then told us about. A certain American company contacted the authorities at Harties to tell them about this new water treatment plant or machines or system channels which would improve the water quality back to the acceptable levels in quick time. While this company offered to do this whole operation for free (as an initial offer), the local government declined this. He couldn't tell me why they didn't accept or what the terms of this offer was, but we will have an opinion on this as soon as we receive the facts. Let's hope this was only temporarily postponed, or that it was by chance similar to their own almost implemented action plan, ha ha!
We do however take our hats off to the residents who now have started their own operation which means they pay for this themselves. According to studies, the algae and the stink you smell when driving past there, is a result from diminishing zoo plankton in the water, which in turn is destroyed by fish like Carp and Canaries. Now for them to get the zoo plankton back, they need to establish enough islands or floating plant islands. With this operation, they've decided to take out 2 tons of fish per day from Harties and this fish is then given to the local communities in the vicinity. Whether they know that this fish is sold on the streets or not, I personally doubt if this should be seen as a "service" since some people are getting money for the fish, but the majority of the community has to buy it then. The other issue is when the day comes when the fish hand-outs suddenly stop. Are these recipients going to quote Douglas Adams and simply say "So long, and thanks for the fish"? I highly doubt that! And with the lacklustre way of dealing with the increasing netting problem, let's hope these folks don't miss the fish too much.
For those who have heard of the authorities (sure it's still DWAF) that now have started another project called "Metsi a me" which is now in full operation, we honestly hope this works as it all sound very promising. While this might sound exactly like the program the residents have started, Metsi a me doesn't stop here.
First off, we all understand that sediment unavoidably builds up over time in any dam, and even if the dam has these weirs to dispose of some of the sediment, it only temporarily moves the problem, it doesn't solve it. While this sediment not only takes up the place of the water it traps nutrients which are vital to the Eco system of the dam which in turn eliminates some of the algae growth.
Also that there are now plans to pump these algae out of the dam in certain sections is good news for all. Isn't it nice to hear some good news for a change? The question we would like to know is, how much algae are we talking about here, and how long will this take?
Some more good news!
Since the sediment layers on the bottom of the dam trap all kinds of good and bad elements, plans are to pipe into these sediments to get to the good stuff and release it, like nutrients which in turn will improve the zoo plankton growth. Also it's been proposed to look for any idea how to utilize the sediment to somehow turn it into profit, thus not only lowering the percentage level these layers occupy, but to create a continuous offset for this pumped resource.
Back to the fishing in Harties.
Taking out fish in Harties or not, the fishing has always been substantially good. While some say it's a bad idea, there are others that is of the opinion that there's too many smaller fish which would result in bigger fish if you get the balance right.
Harties has never been a shy dam when it comes to big Carp. Mostly the full scale Carp but big Carp! I don't think there's another dam in SA that has seen more 16 footers in its life than Harties. With quite a few popular fishing venues around Harties, it remains the anglers' choice where he would like to target these fish. Apart from technology that has shorten the length of the 16 ft rods, the distances now reached has improved which normally results in decent bags of fish. However the last few years has seen these numbers go down quite dramatically with more and more people telling me that they blanked for a whole weekend. It has become nothing unusual if an angler didn't get a single bite for a day, but a whole weekend might break the poor man.
Personally I don't fish Harties if I don't have to. It's just one of those dams where it is imperative to have at least 2 spools of backup line as you are guaranteed to get hooked up, stuck or broken off with at least 1 out of every 3 casts if you use your normal 2-hook rigs. One always have to make some alterations or compromises when fishing at Harties.
If I can offer a few pointers, either catch with only one hook, or use dart bombs for sinkers. (Those plastic ground bait support that weighs almost nothing.)
What I also found that works for me, is if you reel in like a man possessed! Try and break the world line retrieve speed record. This somehow keeps your rig of the bottom which I am sure should look like a busy barber's floor in this day and age. Since fishing line doesn't disintegrate over time, I'm positive the banks around Harties contains more lines than the script for Othello.
All the conventional bait applies to Carp in Harties, it's a matter of what works for that day. From flour dough being the most used to mealies and worms, Carp in Harties take worms throughout the year.
Barbel is the one fish in Harties you can always rely on. No matter what the conditions you will always be able to catch a few. Normal bait applies too. Livers, crabs, worms, small fish, everything!
Kurper on the other hand has become quite a novelty in Harties as it is not seen so much as it was years ago. Even its size has declined over the years, but this we could probably write down to the selfishness of the average angler (not putting the fish back) combined with the effects of pollution and the impact of the Bass that has been in Harties for years now.
We do however see decent Three-spot Breams from time to time but it's been a while since we've come across a decent size Blue Kurper.
What you can bank on during the summer months are those aggressive Canaries which can provide hours of fun on spinners, worms and other smaller fish, or even small pieces of their own kind.
Bass on the other hand is a regular in Harties and I can remember us catching them on quite a few occasions. Those days we would still risk it and cook one of two but I think even medical aids these days stipulate on their contract prior to you joining that it would exclude Harties fish. Their numbers grew over the years but I won't go as far as saying that they're abundant in Harties, although I might recommend one popular place to maybe revise the venue name and change it to something more suitable, like Baars Hoekie or Bass Corner.
Harties gets its water mainly from 2 rivers, the Crocodile River and the Magalies, which also has some decent fishing around those rivers up to the intake at the dam. While there are still a few places to fish around Harties, one can however drive around the entire dam, including those places along the river in one drive as the road circles around all of them.
Monday 27 June 2011
Bait Fishing For Bass With Ragworm.
Of all the baits used by anglers aiming to catch bass in the UK, the humble rag worm appears to be the favourite. Fished on a long flowing pulley rig or with the flowing trace method, ragworm is the number 1 bait for bass around these parts. Favoured hook sizes are between 1/o and 3/o and lead weights used are usually between 2 and 5 ounce grip leads. Ragworm is a great fishing bait for bass from both rock and beach marks. It is advisable to vary casting distances although more often than not bass are caught very close to shore. As with all methods the best times for Bass fishing from the shore are either first light of the day at dawn or last light on an evening.
Monday 20 June 2011
Best Reels in the Business
In addition to their industry standard product warranty for their acclaimed Legend 200 and Legend 400 saltwater reels, Atlas has rolled out their exclusive business process patent pending guarantee which states the following:
“Anyone who purchases a Legend Series Reel to receive the reel and try it out, if they are not satisfied with the reel quality we at Atlas Reels will take the reel back and authorized the purchase a replacement reel of a value of up to 10% greater than the reel purchased from Atlas. For a Legend Series exchange the customer must exchange their reel at the place of purchase and covers any brand’s single speed lever drag model. The customer must make the decision to exchange the product within 6 weeks of purchase and return the reel in “new” condition as determined by the shop employees. The offer is void if there is any “policy abuse**” as deemed by the Atlas Reel Company.”
The leadership team at Atlas Reels is confident that this exceptional offer provides consumers with complete confidence in purchasing their Legend Series reels and truly sets their company apart from even the largest competing manufacturers.
CEO of Atlas Reel Company, LLC, Bobby Bowden explains, “We believe the Legend Series is the best single speed fishing reel available and we’re willing to back it up with the best guarantee in fishing which really makes a statement in how confident we are in Atlas’ quality and performance—this guarantee does just that.”
Atlas Reel Company recently introduced their first product line, The Legend Series regionally up and down the eastern seaboard and has received much acclaim from casual to competitive anglers, including winning several tournaments. Atlas Reels also donates a portion of all sales to organizations who are dedicated to preserving saltwater habitat and the rights of recreational fishermen.
Saturday 18 June 2011
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