Plaice Fishing, various marks south coast

They're all over the Plaice

Various marks along the south coast

Gin clear and calm, range fishing a must

Looking back at this years blog, it's been a pretty quiet year fishing wise, a lot of unremarkable sessions, mostly due to ....... bad luck?......bad fishing?......did I upset the fishing god? nah...well maybe the first two. but I definitely have not upset the fishing god, he doesn't exist you see. there have been a few reasons, some I've touched on before, but the honest truth is I've been exploring the Sussex coast line rather than my familiar Kent coast, feeling a bit like a rambling traveller discovering each beach and mark for the first time, then just watching, listening, and learning as I go. Yes it's been a slow start, and I know I will have loads more to learn and discover over the coming years hopefully. The stand out sessions this year have all been reacting quickly to situations and changing tactics to target the fish in front of me, rather than well researched, planned and executed sessions, but that was about to change! The weather's been calm and settled, with clear and sunny sky's, the water is gin clear, and whilst the rest of the fishing community is firmly getting excited about the impending Cod season, for myself and maybe other South East lads, we haven't seen Cod in a fair few years now, and without the Cod bug, I have been setting my sights on another target, the Plaice! especially after the hard work and effort I put in earlier on in the year into finding marks, perfecting rigs, and baits, it was always on my radar to retry and get that one big fish.

The tried and tested Plaice rig

This blog is over 5 sessions during September, and involves 4 venues. The plan was simple, to catch a lovely big fat autumn Plaice!. My rigs through trail and error ended up being very traditional, and for the good reason because they work. 2 hook flappers, nice and simple and very tangle and hassle free, clipped down to provide stream lined baits and rig for distance casting as distance is key on several of my marks, bling was 5 or 7 small 5mm green and black beads between a stop rubber and a sequin. The snods were 16 inches of 12lb fluorocarbon, which was light and long enough to provide lots of free movement and provide some stealth to wary fish as fluorocarbon is a lot harder for the fish to see underwater. bait was only ever going to be Black Lugworm tipped with Squid. Hooks were small match wire size 4 offset Aberdeens, again, light and small, Plaice are experts at sucking worms off hooks, and I wanted them hooks in the fishes mouth, plus the venues I was fishing are quite likely to throw up the odd large Sole at extreme range even in day and clear water, and that is something else I would love!!!

Wait a little longer and catch his friend

My first 2 sessions were quiet successful to be fair, Target fish achieved but only one each session, and only a small plaice each time, and they did serve a purpose, 1.) proved the plaice were back in, and 2.) proved something wasn't quiet right with my rigs. I seemed to miss a fair few bites and dropped a fair few fish on the retrieve, always hard to prove, but I'm convinced I was loosing fish, It wasn't until after a more successful 3rd session where I had 4 plaice that, due to fishing on soft sand at range, often for long periods waiting for bites, the  grip lead was getting buried, and took a fair amount of pulling and tugging to free it up, it eventually popped out quite violently, it was this moment that I think was pulling the hook from the fishes mouth, or at worst tore a hole which then allowed the fish to wriggle off the hook during the retrieve. To over come the the lead digging in problem, I decide to use plain leads, which solved the problem notably! on the 4th session, I landed a fish every bite, 7 fish in total up to 33cm and I didn't loose any on the way in, although working the 2 rods with plain leads at range in a big building spring tide was proving harder work at times. Another thing was, a little bait elastic around the end of the work to stop the Plaice sucking it off the hook, and when I saw an initial bite, I let about 1m of line off the spool, and waited 4/5 minutes just to give the fish some slack to play with the bait, and waited even longer in the hope of a double shot, which worked more than enough times!!

New PB Plaice at 48cm

Hazelnut and bazil crust on Plaice

This was to be my last plaice session, as I'm about to go away on holiday with it's own fishing adventures, but I knew where the fish were, I had the range, the rigs and the tactics, I would be fishing the flood tide from dawn to lunch time, the only thing I couldn't get was fresh Black Lugworm!!! I did ponder at cancelling the trip, but I had some very good quality Frozen Black Lug and I kept thinking that maybe if so many Plaice about that they wouldn't be fussy, so I opted to go. I cast out with a off the ground cast at full wallop and with a stiff off shore wind, I'm sure the 5oz lead sailed well over 100meters, one of the furthest fishing casts I think I have ever done, abet wind assisted, well the first few hours were quiet, not a bite, I didn't mind because just as I predicted they would turn up as the tide began to move. And they did!, it was non stop action for 2 hours! felt like I was mostly baiting up!! elasticating small frozen Black Lugworms onto a size 4 hook is fiddly at best, but necessary!  I had landed 13 Plaice so far in total, and then bang it happened, I slid onto the beach what I thought was another double shot, but turned out to be the Plaice I was after! a whopping 48cm weighing 2lb 12oz!! the plan had wonderfully all come together for a change!,even on the last cast I pulled in a chunky 41cm Plaice! my tally for the day was 15 Plaice. from 26cm to 35cm, and the biggest 2 fish over 40cm. Finally my planning come together, and ended with a session i wont forget in hurry. But now its time for them Cod?.........lol nope, not yet, if the water is clear, when I get back off holiday I'll be hunting the mini Krakens (squid)