Whiting

Fishing Cures The Blues

26th October 2020 by Mike Duddy

I’ve been feeling a bit fed up recently, drowning under a mountain of paperwork and red tape in the office, unable to get out much doing the things I enjoy.

What better way of beating the blues than going out with your friends and catching a few fish.

They don’t have to be monsters to be worthy, and fishing certainly cures the blues.

Have a watch of the latest vid, and have a read below.

Last Tuesday evening, the football match I was planning to attend was called off at short notice (non-league), and rather than sit indoors watching rubbish on Netflix, we decided to head over to Wallasey Docks to see if we could tempt anything other than pin Whiting after dark…. sadly we couldn’t. I’ve heard reports of a wide variety of fish species coming from this venue, but for me its only whiting, whiting and more whiting.

Then as Greater Manchester Tier 3 lockdown has come into force we have decided to stay local, and hit two locations on our local canals the Bridgewater and the Rochdale. Both venues hold some good fish, but its a numbers game,as there is plenty of small stuff that will try to get to your baits first.

We caught a crazy little jack pike on the Rochdale, and had a whole bunch of small perch on the Bridgewater, all fished on drop shotted dendrobena worms.

My biggest perch is only about a pound and a half, caught many many years back on the Rochdale Canal at Slattocks, and maybe now lockdown has been imposed – its time I spent a little time trying to beat this rather paltry pb.

A typical Bridgewater Canal Perch – there are much bigger ones lurking I’ve yet to find them

Slums of the future?? I feel sorry for people living in these little city centre rabbit hutches ,, bright and shiny when new, but already showing signs of ageing and neglect by their management companies — but if I lived there, I’d have a spot permanently pre-baited.

I parked on Hulme Hall Lane (free) and then just fished the 300 yards in the direction of Castlefield Basins,,, it was a busy session

I parked on a road called “The Causeway” and then fished up the canal towards the lock gates behind Lees Brewery. This is a great section of canal that can throw up good fish of all species (as well as micro pike)

Over the next few weeks, I have a number of local venues that I intend to try out to see if they hold big perch — once I’ve gone through my little list – I will take on the advice that I’ve been given by a few friends and hit the tried and tested perch spots in Manchester…I could just cut out the trying and go straight to them, but its more fun finding your own fish !

Fishing Liverpool Docks

6th October 2020 by Mike Duddy

To be geographically accurate, I was actually fishing Birkenhead Docks. But everything down the western end of the M62 is classed as Liverpool to me.

My wife has been asked to do a few weekend shifts recently which has resulted in me taking the kids out fishing with me a bit more. They can usually manage a couple of hours before they get too bored and start misbehaving. Today was about par for the course. A bit of fishing, and a lot of Nintendo in the back of the car … we all had an afternoon doing what we enjoy.

I did actually try to fish this venue on Saturday evening, but as I was driving westwards from Manchester, the weather was getting worse the further I drove, so not fancying a soaking I just turned round and went home (via the offie).

So – with a bit of tesco raw prawn (frozen only £3.99 for a big bag- bargain !) as bait, I set up two rods, with what I call one up one down rigs and 2oz lead. Small pieces of prawn on size 6 hooks… one rod cast about 40 yards out, the other dropped in down the side.

Tesco raw prawn is an easy and convenient bait for someone living far from the sea

The venue is new to me, and I just fancied having a try. It was an easy place to go fishing and look after the kids at the same time. You can fish out of the boot of your car if you really wanted to. Species wise, I didn’t really know what to expect. Phil and I had fished the other end of the dock the previous weekend, and had a few small whiting. But I’d seen photos on various fishing forums of flounder, cod and even Lobster – but it was the Butterfish and Herring which really sparked my interest as I’ve never caught these species before. Liverpool Docks and the Mersey really does throw up some amazing unexpected fish and I was hoping for one of these for my species hunt.

Fishing Liverpool, Birkenhead, Wallasey or whatever you want to call em Docks …

It took about 5 minutes and the tip of the close in rod started to rattle, and we reeled in to find the first of many small Whiting on the end.

We had steady sport for the full two hours, without any lulls in the action.

Micro Whiting – this was as small as they got … but they didnt come that much bigger !

Most of the fish came to the close in rod, and only a few from further out.

Nothing big, but the kids were delighted with the constant sport.

Hope you enjoy the video, sorry about the crying child !

Hopefully a bit of pike action next weekend ….

If you are interested in giving this spot a try — here’s a map

Drop Shotting Wallasey Docks and Salford Quays

29th September 2020 by Mike Duddy

Have a look at the video, have a read below. Please subscribe to the Fishing Fiend video channel and give me a thumbs up!

It’s been on my mind now that after 7 consecutive blanks I need to catch a fish or two. The words “Mick the blanker” have been posted on my facebook page and even though I enjoy trying out new methods its always good to have a little confidence boosting session at an easy venue. Over the years, my go to easy venue has been Bradshaw Hall Fisheries in Bolton, and a few other local easy waters where i can catch for fun (Drinkwater Park on maggot fished shallow, Sainsburys Pond on punch bread for example) but today I fancied using up some worms I have in my shed so decided to go drop shotting at Salford Quays for some perch.

This would set me up nicely with a few fish on the bank, so that I could then head off down the motorway to the other end of the Ship Canal, and have a try for the unknown by fishing the drop shot at Liverpool Docks, a venue I’ve only ever driven past before, never stopping, never looking, and certainly never fishing.

I got to the quays early doors, and the sky was blue, and so was the water (the quays management dye the water to suppress weed growth – health and safety for the swimmers and other water users). I set up my 7ft 0.5-9.0gram drop shot rod, loaded with 6lb braid, 4lb flouro and a size 12 hook. Got my worms out and hooked up half a worm.

Salford Quays — Please don’t fish from the boardwalks when the swimmers are out

First drop in, I slowly retrieved and could see a shoal of small perch flitting about around the worm – first cast — the fish were there, it was going to be a good session!

A 6 inch Perch – the average size at the Quays — but the odd one grows MUCH larger.

And so it proved as I caught perch after perch for around two hours. I started off on the boardwalks near the Beefeater, but once the open water swimmers started their morning session I moved off Ontrario Quay onto one of the side canals. The angling club and the water sports centre have a very good relationship and for health and safety reasons the club ask anglers not to fish when people are open water swimming. The Quays is a shared space, plenty of room for all. The swimmers are over and done in 2 hours,,, so please just leave them to it.

So I started out fishing the canal between Ontario and St Peter Basin. It was stuffed with perch – all hungry for a bit of worm ,, and I caught plenty of greedy 6 inch perch. As we moved round into St Peters Basin, I was hoping for a few bigger fish from near the rafts of floating debris — as the big perch love a bit of cover.. however it wasn’t to be – I just kept on catching the small ones. Very welcome as well after a run of trips with no fish.

Once Phil arrived later in the morning, we stayed on St Peters Basin for another half hour or so, banging out small perch for fun.

We then decided to head off West down to the other end of the Manchester Ship Canal, and have a try in the salt water of Liverpool Docks. I’m slowly getting into my sea fishing, and especially my species hunting, but due to the geography and built environment here in the North West — LRF/drop shotting opportunities in the North West are in short supply on our local coastline. I’ve wondered for quite a while if Liverpool Docks would be a good venue, but there isn’t that much info online. So it was a bit of a step into the unknown. But on the premise of if you don’t give it a go, you’ll never find out – we drove out to Wallasey Docks, and once we found somewhere with parking and access (Tower Rd) we set up our drop shotting kit again, and loaded the hooks with garden worms.

Liverpool Docks – a very welcoming place

The water looked very inviting and clear, we could see huge growths of mussels and anemones on the dock walls, and the odd prawn flitting about but not fish.

First drop in we found the water to be 23-28ft approx deep, and after a while of jigging about down the side with no interest from any fish we started to flick our drop shot leads a bit further out into the dock.

Initially we were worried about debris/snags at the bottom of the docks, but these proved unfounded, as it turned out to be snag free.

The after a couple of plucks and stripped hooks, Phil hooked into the first of quite a few micro whiting.

The bites were no where near as frequent as Salford Quays, and all we caught in the hour or two we spent fishing were a few small whiting. However, Phil had a cracking bite/pull down on his rod tip leading us to believe that there are other, bigger fish in there, and that a return visit with a bigger variety of baits, and heavier drop shot leads might be worth while.

I say we needed bigger leads, as our 3.5g weights were really too light for the job in hand – when I come back it will be with 10g – 30g weights and with lug/squid/sand eel as bait.

Checking out a new venue is always good fun, but figuring out the fishing and catching a few is always better so we will be returning soon.

At the close of our day, we headed over to the Liverpool City side of the Mersey and had a look round the docks near Brunswick and Mariners Wharf. However parking was terrible, as was fishing access. And where there was access there were hoards of tourists/day trippers enjoying the nice sunny Sunday afternoon.

I apologise for the poor camera/shaky video. Next time out, I am going to be using an antishake camera holder, and will start trimming, and adding music and other fiddly bits to my videos.

In the mean time, please remember to give my new videos a thumbs up like, and please please please subscribe to the Fishing Fiend video channel.

Out On The Ocean Wave

1st June 2020 by Mike Duddy

Out on the ocean wave — SIB Fishing — well not really, being a bit on the cautious side of things I waited for a nice calm day and there was hardly a wave worth talking about.

There was however plenty of fishing and other goings on that are worth talking about.

I’ve taken a little inspiration recently and a shot of new enthusiasm for my fishing by having a read of this great blog by Scott Huchison called Something Fishy Going On

Scott first contacted me back in 2012 when I was doing my first species hunt, as I had caught Bitterling and Pumpkinseeds and he was keen to find out where he could catch them and what methods worked best. Scott has carried on his species hunting now has a really impressive tally from both UK and overseas…. well worth having a read through his blog …. you will never go on holiday without a rod again i promise you.

Anyway back to recent events … As I’ve said before I’m livening up my fishing by restarting my fishing list and starting again from scratch. This means I get the great fun of catching new and old species again, and scratching them off a list (ahhh…. simple pleasures)… Here is a link to my latest up to date list which shows the species I am targeting and when and where I’ve caught them. The list is for UK waters only.. I might start up a new list for “holiday fish” when I get round to it.

So, now my target species include both freshwater and salt species I have the great excuse to get out on the briny again.

I’ve had a small SIB for quite a few years. A SIB is a soft Inflatable Boat that can be rolled up and stored in a bag when not in use – as opposed to RIB – rigid inflatable boat – which has a rigid hull and can’t be easily transported or stored.

I bought the SIB to use for maintenance work on club ponds. I’ve only ever taken it out on salt water once before, and that experience put me off a bit, as my boat partner for the day discovered he suffered from sea sickness about 10 minutes into the trip which then had to be aborted. The boat is also quite heavy to handle, and carrying the boat and engine across a soft sand and shingle beach proved to be very hard work, knackering actually.

So after a gap of 12 months of not using the boat on sea I decided to have another try with a different fishing partner last weekend. And after a bit of “Facebook research” I discovered that by adding detachable wheels to the back of the boat I could move it from car boot to sea much more easily, and also discovered a number of easily accessible free to use slipways which put an end to trudging across soft shingle and sand dunes to access the sea.

All set up and ready to go – its much easier dragging the boat across the sand using the detachable wheels than carrying everything by hand.

Anyway – we set off at 4pm and with a high tide expected at 7.15pm we agreed to fish until 9pm so that the tide would still be close to the slipway and save us dragging the boat up across the flat soft sands.

As this was a second attempt at a first fishing trip, we set our sights quite low, going no more than 1km off shore before dropping anchor.

We had all the appropriate safety kit, life jackets, hand-held VHF radio, and a mate who was fishing on the beach who could keep us in sight all the time just in case something bad happened.

As it happened, we heard on the radio whilst driving to Cleveleys that a fishing boat had sunk earlier that morning with two angler rescued and another lost presumed drowned. As these tragic events had only taken place a few hours earlier less than 5 miles away it didn’t take long before we had an overhead visit from the coastguard rescue helicopter and an RNLI fast boat just checking that we were OK. A quick chat on the VHF radio, the sight of our anchor, life jackets etc they soon left us in peace to continue our day. Very sad that someone has lost their life in pursuit of a few fish, my heart goes out to the mans family.

There’s a chopper up there coming to see us.

Quickly followed by a visit from the RNLI inshore lifeboat

Anyway – about 4.15pm we dropped anchor and our lines went over the side.

Andy my fishing partner for the day dropped a string of feathers over the back of the boat whilst I was fiddling about baiting up a simple two hook flapper rig with black lugworm. He had a couple of rattles but they came to nothing.

I dropped my line down and was immediately aware that there was quite a strong tidal flow from right to left, and that i needed to increase the weight of lead I was using from 2 to 4oz in order to hold bottom. Weights changed I immediately hooked into a double of dabs. A species I’ve caught many times before but not in the last few months so they were of course very much welcomed as a new tick on my list. As was the inevitable dog fish that followed.

By now I was catching a fish a dab or a dog a chuck on the two hook flapper rig, but Andy had got bored of the small stuff and had baited up another rod with big raw freshwater prawns. It didn’t take more than 10 minutes before he had a solid take, and he hooked into something that started to take plenty of line off his reel. After a short sharp hard scrap a lovely Smooth Hound was boated, and I started to think about trying out a different technique to see if I could catch something bigger too.

So I set up another rod with a running ledger, a 5oz weight and a whole squid pennel rigged – maybe catch a ray, a bass or a hound.

Squid on a Pennel Rig – I need to buy some bigger hooks the lower hook was an 3/0 and was masked by the bait…. maybe a 5/0 next time.

Just like Andy a short time earlier, I cast down tide and to one side of the boat, and I could feel the lead bouncing across the hard sandy sea bed. Then tap tap bang, my rod tip slammed over and I hooked into a fish that set off like an express train. Thankfully, hooks, knots, line all held together and I soon boated this lovely Smooth Hound. My first ever hound – so a totally new fish species for me and I was thrilled.

We both fished big baits on Pennel Rigs until the bites started to dry up at high tide. Andy lost count of how many he caught between 5lb and 9lb. I had 4 of them to about 6lb on squid. Most of Andys fish were larger than mine and fell to whole raw large freshwater prawn or peeler crab baits.

I’m a bit mean when it comes to sea fishing baits, I think bait prices are extortionate especially peeler crabs which go for £1 each. So it really made me laugh when Andy said he was going to go for a double figure fish and lashed 3 crabs to a big hook, only to get a bite and then reel in a Dab on the end …. £3 for a Dab? It certainly made me chuckle.

As all this was going on…. I hooked into what I thought was at first a big dog fish – however as I got it closer to the side of the boat I realised I’d caught my first ever Tope. Not the biggest of Tope by any stretch of the imagination at only 2ft long, but a Tope is a Tope and it was a shark with teeth!

Wow — what a great day we were having… catching far more fish than if we had been standing on the beach with our beach casters (Phil who had remained ashore had only caught a single solitary Plaice – and no other bites)

However once the tide turned at 7pm, and the tidal flow from right to left slowed down, so did the bites from the larger fish. Andy persisted and had a couple more dog fish and hounds, but I switched back to the lugworm and two hook flapper rig and immediately started to catch Dabs, Whiting and Dogfish again

It was great fun, but with as the sun started to set, and the tide uncovered the base of the slipway we headed back home Happy, smelly and exhausted.

What a great afternoons fishing…. I’m getting to quite like sea fishing.

I’ve had a look at the tide times and heights for next weekend – and there are going to be a few really high and low tides on Friday and Saturday — I think I will come back with the kids and fishing nets to see what we can find at very low water.

Am now up to 9 species on my new list – I wonder how many is a reasonable target for 2020 ? I’m thinking 50 is possible with not too much effort.

Only Mad Dogs And Englishmen

29th May 2020 by Mike Duddy

Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid day sun, and only anglers take their kids with them fishing in it. Ha Ha.

Still off work on furlough and in charge of entertainment and education of my two poor kids.

So… yesterday looked like a great opportunity to spend some time on the beach at Cleveleys, high tide 3.15pm, and a chance to further indoctrinate the youngsters in a bit of fishing.

We picked up some bait (black lug) from the local tackle shop, and had a rod in by 2.15….. and then we waited, and waited. A small tide, scorching sun and the kids enjoyed playing and throwing in stones far more than fishing.

Fun Waiting For Bites On A Lovely Hot Day

Fishing 5 Bar Gate Cleveleys — My Little Apprentice

Then my wife turned up with fish and chips, the tide went out without us getting a bite and we just kicked back and enjoyed the day.

I didn’t feel too bad as there were more anglers out on the beach than I’ve ever seen before in my life… and we weren’t in a prime location…. those in the prime locations also didn’t catch..

At 8pm … Mrs Fishing Fiend returned home with the kids, and I met up with a couple of socially distanced pals to fish the low tide.

I’ve never fished a summer low tide here before, so it was good to meet up with someone with plenty of local knowledge as the tide goes out a long way, and there are plenty of gullies to endanger anglers if they back fill behind you as the tide rises.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself, enjoyed the company, and enjoyed the blank saving micro whiting that committed hari kari on my rig just as it was turning dark.

It was a great evening to be out, nice and warm, a lovely calm sea, and a big learning experience as my mate Andy who is a local venue expert showed us how to do it as he caught this lovely 8lb+ Stary Smooth Hound using peeler crab and a VERY long cast.

Fishing Cleveleys Low Water — Another Sunset Shot – Usually Followed By My Latest Innovative Excuse For Blanking

Cleveleys Smooth Hound — Andy With An 8lb 12oz Smooth Hound Taken At Distance On Crab

Being shown the ropes by a venue regular is a massive help, and I now know whats necessary for me to get in among the fish here.

Anyway — I’ve added another species to my newly restarted species list – a Whiting – I’ve caught many of them before plenty bigger than this one, but maybe none of them were as welcomed.

I will be back soon and see if I can catch my first ever smooth hound… I just need to take the kids out to catch some crab baits and remember to take my chest waders (essential kit for low water fishing at this venue).