Sea Fishing - Alan Yates’ Monthly Diary

Alan with a couple of dab - typical of the small species you can expect right now.

It’s New Year, it’s tough out there and Alan suggests it’s time to get real – or to get on a boat!

The New Year is not every sea angler's favourite time of year – in many regions most of the bigger, mature fish drift away to spawn and shore fishing becomes tiddler snatching for the sake of it. Great for the catch, measure and release competitions, but for the specimen hunter sheer hell. I can picture some anglers sticking pins in an effigy of the rockling – it’s as bad as that and I suppose me telling you that frozen shrimps are a really deadly bait for rockling won’t help...

But the fact is that you need to be a realist to continue to fish into February around much of the country and that’s why lots of shore anglers either put their gear away until spring - or defect to the boats!

As I write the shortest day of the year has passed and the New Year suggests spring is on the way as the nights start to draw out very slowly, but it’s a false hope really because we still have several months of freezing, fishless, shallow, snow and rain melt water and tiddlers to come.

So get real! I switch to a couple of trouting trips on the large fish waters, plastic fishing I know, but it does the job. At sea the only real alternatives are the deep water piers or a trip in a charter boat.

If you are like me and are desperate to fish from the shore then it’s a time to get into match fishing. Competitions don’t need big fish to stir the enthusiasm; competition the challenge of catching something - anything - and your fellow anglers do that and I rate the banter as highly motivating. OK not all anglers can get excited about match fishing but I would urge all to give it a fair look as a positive way to spice up the fishing when it becomes slow or less exciting because there are fewer big fish!

You don’t really need any specialist tackle to get involved and your local angling club matches are a great starting point because they are always friendly competitions with little at stake except pride. Mind you get hooked on the buzz of competing and your gear is guaranteed to take a turn for the sensitive.

At a higher level, I fish a few large opens at this time of year and if you take this route you may need to look at your tackle choice more closely. For me it’s the TF Gear Delta quiver tip that gets an airing, it’s a bit stiffer than the original Fox Conqueror and with the option of three light tips it’s much more like coarse fishing and makes tiddlers more fun.

A fixed spool reel enables me to reduce the line size down to 8lb or 12lb whilst many New Year matchmen like the bite sensitivity that the micro braid lines give them and this line can only be used on a fixed spool reel. I must admit having tried micro braid in 30lb it’s hard to ignore it in favour of mono and its casts miles as well!

The other tackle of the New Year include the much smaller hooks and it’s here you need to be careful. Beware of the very fine, light wire models. The season can still spring a surprise big codling or even a ray and so if you go small hook, at least go strong small! Lighter snoods, mini wire booms, floating beads, and sequins are more of the scratch fishing paraphernalia whilst top of the bait list are sticky lugworm laced with fresh maddies [that’s small ‘harbour’ ragworm to the uninitiated – Ed] or sand whites.

Results do depend upon the region you live in and the species on offer and these can range from dabs or flounders to whiting or codling, or even rockling BUT one thing is for sure - the fishing won’t be easy.  Bites are hard to come by and the catch rewards are limited, but I tell you what, the satisfaction of catching something when the chips are down is just the same as catching a specimen!

More and more competitions are switching to measure and return and increasingly the weight for length chart system is being used. The original measure and return entailed length only with the most fish usually dominating BUT that gave the specialist competition anglers and snatchers an advantage because three rockling would beat a codling, whilst by weight they would not get near.

So now, tables of weight for length points have been devised (The Sea Anglers Match Federation weight for length chart is brilliant) and this means a codling gets the same reward it would with a weight comparison against the bigger species. The big plus for the average angler is that the elite matchmen, good at catching lots of small fish, can be matched, even beaten by bigger fish giving all competitors a better chance of success.

The best piece of advice I can offer shore anglers this month you may have heard before because it’s one of the rules that I fish by in winter: Avoid fishing venues where you cannot cast further than the low tide line. In other words don’t fish on sand etc that’s been exposed to the cold or frosts. Fish definitely steer away from cold, shallow water and frozen seabeds AND regions where cold snow melt and rain has entered the sea!

Some Penn League competitions around the UK worth fishing in February include:

The Fountain SAC Open on 12 February at Seabrook and Hythe.
Fishing 11am until 4pm.
1st Prize £1000 Entry £15 plus pool.
Contact is Brian Barnes 01303 260875

The New Milton Sea Fishing Club Annual Open on 25 February at Avon Beach through to Highcliffe.
Fishing 7pm until midnight.
1st prize £250. Entry £12 plus optional pools.
Booking in Sunken car park Avon Beach Island View Road. From  5pm.
Contact is Lawrence Darke 01425 272010 or 07759829226 or Darren Flower 01202 486189 or 07729800597

Blackdown SAC Open Beach Competition at Blue Anchor / Minehead on 19 February. Fishing 3pm until 7pm.
Sign In At Blue Anchor Hotel from 12.30pm
Entry:  Seniors £10 Juniors/OAP £5. Pool optional £1.
1st Prize £200 plus prize table.
Contact Alan Shepherd on 0791 2018910 or 01823 664085

The West Coast Two Day Open on 25 and 26 February at the Gynn Wall
Fishing 10.45am - 2.45pm Sat and 11.30am - 3.30pm Sun.
Registration Saturday at 8am West Coast Tackle £40 all in
2 Hooks, no Bait Bans , zones, pegged match.
Pre book only: Contact Dave Hutch 07872942820 or Dave Payne 01253 851001 or 07973286143

Tight lines, see you on the beach!