Waggler Coaching

My first ever fishing coaching session in the UK. Decided to fish an Essex commercial fishery knowing that it would be a great place to learn as I had caught several carp and a some decent fish on previous session this year. The plan was to teach my trainee how to fish the waggler, the easiest and most enjoyable way to coarse fish. I got to the fishery a little earlier, and had bought a little 4m whip the night before, so I rigged it up and had a few small roach and roach and then a good bream before before my guest arrived and I had to get down to business. The weather was on and off showers and a little windy.

Knowing that my guest had only ever caught tiddlers with his bare hands many years ago, I knew that I had start from basics, this is a rod, a reel, a waggler, a hook... 2 BBs is the same as a AAA ... etc.

With this new found knowlege, we plumbed up and were ready to bait up and cast. The float went down several times, but he couldn't connect to the fish. Finally got it spot on, but the strike was a little too hard and the poor little roach became a flying fish. Finally success, we had a nice little 2oz roach in the net. After a few more roach we decided to use corn and he hooked into a nice roach, which weighed in at 12oz. Next fish was a beauty, hooking into a nice little Crucian carp. Now able to waggler fish, I was determined to catch some fish but only managed to get a nice roach of about 10oz. I missed a take which was almost definely a good bream. The next cast, hooked into a good fish, and a bream of about 5lb breached clear out of the water and the impact of the fish on the water put so much strain on the line that it broke my favourite waggler in half. It was the first waggler I had ever bought in the UK and have caught hundreds of fish on it. I was not able to recover the tip to reglue it. You always feel some sort of attachment to some of your fishing equipment, but I did break it on a good fish, and would probably have been the biggest bream I had ever hooked. The weather got worse and my guest had to leave. I persevered but only managed another good roach.

Overall a good day with my guest out fishing me.


First fish, a bream.


Guest's first decent fish, a Roach


Guest's first Crucian Carp


My first good Roach


Final Roach


A Rudd

Brighton Marina

I'm trying to blog all of my fishing trips from now on.

Got to the marina about 1pm, fished the East Arm bay 28. 2 Rods. Started with one baited with rag/squid cocktail and the other with feathers. Caught loads of mackerel and got tired of it, so decided to go for mini-species down the wall using very small hooks and rag. First foul hooked a Pouting or Poorcod, cant tell at that size. Then got a Ballan, then Bullhead, several shannys and a Corkwing. Decided to try baited size 6 Hokkais to get something different, but got more mackerel. Left at about 6pm. Nothing wanted my rag/squid at range all day.

Species count for the 2010 is now 25.
See them all here


My first mackerel for the year.


First Ballan Wrasse for 2010


First Corkwing Wrasse for 2010


First Shanny for 2010. (Black form)


Another Shanny (Standard form)


First Bullhead for the year.

Grey Viking - Brighton

I booked a chartboat trip to fish off brighton for Smoothounds and after a few cancellations, finally managed to go out.

Got to the Marina a few hours early so I had a stroll around the marina and found a few nice grey mullet feeding as well as a whole lot of Plumose Anemone.



Thicklip Grey Mullet - Chelon labrosus



Plumose Anemone - Metridium senile

Once we sailed out of port and settled down to fish, people started to hook into some fish, a few dabs and mackerel and then a Starry Smooth-hound came aboard. They looked very much like Gummy Sharks back in Austraia. They are actually just a difference species from the same genus.



Starry Smooth-hound - Mustelus asterias



Starry Smooth-hound - Mustelus asterias

A total of 4 Smoothhounds were caught, none to me though. I only managed to hook into 3 Lesser Spotted Dogfish [#90], I even got grazed by their sandpaper-like skin, which stung like a ....



Lesser Spotted Dogfish - Scyliorhinus canicula #90



Lesser Spotted Dogfish - Scyliorhinus canicula

On the way back home, we I photographed this nice Gannet:



Northern Gannet - Morus bassanus

Fishing in Hong Kong

19th -23rd March 2010 - Fishing in Hong Kong

I fished the Avenue of Stars on the first couple of nights and days using just bread (with bacon or ham) from the many bakeries around Kowloon or Hong Kong and only managed to catch a several Broad-banded Cardinalfish which was a new species for me. My only other Cardinalfish was the Southern Cardinalfish which I dont have a photo of. There are several species of Cardinalfish that occur in Hong Kong, which have two dark strips above the lateral line which extend into the tail. This species is positively identified by its tiny first dorsal fin which is lacking in the other species.


Broad-banded Cardinalfish - Apogon fasciatus - #82

While planning for this holiday, I found a nice little hiking path on Lamma Island. Halfway down the track there was a nice beach and I decided to fish here, hoping to find something different but only caught a few Grass Puffers, using the same baits I used on the previous days. I species I previously caught in Japan.


Grass Puffer - Takifugu niphobles

On the final day, I decided to buy proper bait from one of the many street fishmongers around the city, it was a bowl of fresh prawns for $15HK, and went straight to the Macau Ferry Terminal to fish. Straight away, I caught some White-spotted Rabbitfish. Fish of this family, closely related to Surgeonfish, but have venomous spines. I managed to get stung half a dozen times by them. They are extremely painful and the pain lasts about 10 minutes, but it does eventually ease off. The throbing pain didn't deter me from fishing, but caught no other species except for more Cardinalfish.


White-spotted Rabbitfish - Siganus canaliculatus #83


Chinese Demoiselle - Neopomacentrus bankieri #84

Later in the afternoon, I decided to fish in Kowloon again to finish off the remaining prawns. This proved successful and got me a further 3 new species. Earlier on, I kept losing my bait but I downsized to no16s and landed a few Chinese Demoiselle. This were nicely coloured small damselfish which looked like they belong in a reef aquarium. Next new species was a Marbled Rockfish. A close relative to the Scorpionfishes, they do have venomous spines but look more like Groupers or Perches, luckily I managed to avoid being stung. The next new species was the Striped Catfish. I had previously seen these in public aquarium around the world but never thought I'd ever catch one. This is most possibily the most venomous catfish in the world and there have even been reported deaths involving this species. I didn't know this at the time, although I knew that all catfish have venomous spines, so I was quite careful holding it up for a photo, but I droped in and had a spine in my hand and another one in the thigh. Fortunately, I don't think I got stung deep enough so I wasn't really affected by the venom and it was not very painful. It had been a successful days fishing, so I thought I would call it the day there. 4 new species is not a bad result.

The end result for the trip was 6 species in total of which 5 were new species, bringing my species total to 86.



Marbled Rockfish - Sebastiscus marmoratus #85


Striped Catfish - Plotosus lineatus #86

Fly fishing on the River Test

Fly fishing is one of those mystical sports where to the unguided eye, seems bizarre and is astonishing that such a technique actually works. What is with the throwing of a lasso like line continuously at a river with what seems to be just a ball of fluff at the end of line? How can it possibly work?

I gained an insight on fly fishing by watching a documentary series, A River Somewhere, where two Australian comedians travel around the world fly fishing. It was more of a travel show with just a little bit of fishing in between, but has opened up a whole new aspect of fishing for me.

Having moved to London and not having done much serious fishing for a few years now, I thought I might have fly fishing a go. After all, England is the birth place of fly fishing, and where else to give it a go than on the River Test, a world renown chalkstream in Hampshire.



Grayling - Thymallus thymallus #55 - My first ever fish on the fly and first Grayling



Grayling - Thymallus thymallus



Grayling - Thymallus thymallus being released

I had arranged with the guide to pick me up at Andover station and we would drive to the River Test at Wherwell. I spent the first hour or so learning to cast. I learn the basic techniques, forward casts, false casting, roll casting, mending etc. There was quite a lot of flow in the river so we decided to fish from the bank instead of wading. I was fishing a klinkhammer on the top as an indicator and a hare’s ear nymph on the bottom. It took me a while to get the hang of it. The indicator dipped quite a few times but I kept on missing the strikes. On one magical occasion, I hooked into the a small fish so it was quite easy to play it back into the net. It was a nice little Grayling [#55].



Brown Trout - Salmo trutta #56



Brown Trout - Salmo trutta

So fly fishing does work, and soon enough, I had a nice little Brown Trout [#56] in the net. It was about 1.5lb, was looked well worn, being out of condition and out of season, it had probably just spawned. You can see signs of tail damage probably due to building of a redd.



Grayling - Thymallus thymallus



Grayling - Thymallus thymallus

I spent the rest of the day catching a few more grayling. As it got warmer, they started taking the Klinkhammer as well, but I wasn’t fast enough to hook into them.

First British Fish

I was out rockpooling at the Brighton Marina looking at Blennies, Prawns, Anemones etc. On this occassion, I decided to bring my little 5 piece fishing rod and some fresh prawns for bait. Casted the bait out several times but not much happened. On one cast, I wound it in and there was a little tussle on the end. When I got it in I saw that it was a Bullhead. My first british fish [#54]. They kind of look like scorpionfish, but are not venomous at all. They flare out their horns when they are out of the water. Actually, I'm not even sure if I should count it, I don't think it was hooked. It was just holding onto the bait. I released it into a little rockpool where I took the photograph below.


Longspined Bullhead - Taurulus bubalis #54


Longspined Bullhead - Taurulus bubalis


Here are some of the other creatures I photographed on the day.


Shanny - Lipophrys pholis


Snakelocks Anemone - Anemonia viridis


Shanny - Lipophrys pholis


Green Sea Slug - Elysia viridis


Rockpool Prawn - Palaemon elegans

Playa Santiago - La Gomera - Canary Islands

I spent a week in La Gomera in 2008, and it is a fantastic location for a sun holiday, with nice black beaches and nice mountain walks. We stayed in a little town called Playa Santiago which was made up of just a few shops and a church which was set into the side a rocky hill. At the end of the road there is a little jetty where the ferry which takes you to San Sebastation and a Whale Watching trip departs. I didn't bring any fishing equipment on this trip but was able to buy a very cheap telescopic rod and reel from the local store and used some nice baguettes for bait. With these necessities, I headed towards the jetty to try them out.

On the way to the jetty, I spotted a nicely coloured fish, with a yellow body and brown stripes. Later on I found out that it was a juvenile amberjack, a proper gamefish. When I arrived at the fishing mark, there was a fishing boat landing its catch and they had a nice haul of Skipjack Tuna. I'd love to catch one of those one day.


Juvenile Lesser Amberjack - Seriola fasciata


Skipjack Tuna - Katsuwonus pelamis

After I started fishing, I realised that hooks I was using were way too big for the fish I was trying to catch on the wharf but even then managed to catch 3 species of fish, all new species to me. First was the Bogue [#51], which was a very common fish. They look like sardines but are actually a species of sea bream that were enlongated instead of deep bodied. I then had several Canary Damselfish [#52] which where black with electric blue fins. Finally I caught a few Ornate Wrasse [#53], a fish I did see them while snorkelling and they are a very pretty fish, but only a few females and not a more colourful male.


Bogue - Boops boops #51


Bogue - Boops boops



Canary Damsel - Abudefduf luridus #52


Ornate Wrasse - Thalassoma pavo #53


Ornate Wrasse - Thalassoma pavo

On the whale watch earlier in the day, I stopped for lunch and threw in some bread to attract fish. I spotted quite large sized Bogue and a few Derbio. They are in the same genus as Permit but are a lot more streamline. In Australia, fish of this genus with the same shape as derbio would be called a Dart.


Bogue - Boops boops


Derbio - Trachinotus ovatus


I saw many fish while snorkelling in Playa Santiago. White Seabream, Blennies, Lizardfish, Pufferfish and Wrasses were seen.


Moroccan White Seabream - Diplodus sargus cadenati


Red-lipped Blenny - Ophioblennius atlanticus