South West Gurnard on lures

[Flipper]

I have a weird obsession bouncing jigs to catch gurnard, so having seen some of the LRF crew catching a few I thought it would be worth a go. First session I managed a complete blank ad I got the tides wrong and the weed was horrendous. Second session, the wind was tricky, but, having cycled through my usual jigs I was at a loss as to what to do, so swapped to my never fail, a Halco Twisty. It absolutely flies and has a knack of producing gurnard when bounced on the sea bed, sure enough they turned up the goods and 3 small gurnard absolutely hammered the lure at various distances. I just love their aggression on light tackle. Third session, was another complete blank as the wind changed to side on and picked up making keeping contact difficult.

So a very mixed bag, but, yet again my craving for more has been stirred.

 

[wingnut55]

Great effort mate, nice one. Some lovely Gurnard and pics too.

Ian.

 

[bananas]

Well done mate, they great fun on lures when you get every thing right .
If I get her mum all moved into day ill be out this evening having a go for them from the rocks.

 

[Flipper]

All the best @bananas if you get out

 

[Bothrops]

I have a weird obsession bouncing jigs to catch gurnard, so having seen some of the LRF crew catching a few I thought it would be worth a go. First session I managed a complete blank ad I got the tides wrong and the weed was horrendous. Second session, the wind was tricky, but, having cycled through my usual jigs I was at a loss as to what to do, so swapped to my never fail, a Halco Twisty. It absolutely flies and has a knack of producing gurnard when bounced on the sea bed, sure enough they turned up the goods and 3 small gurnard absolutely hammered the lure at various distances. I just love their aggression on light tackle. Third session, was another complete blank as the wind changed to side on and picked up making keeping contact difficult.

So a very mixed bag, but, yet again my craving for more has been stirred.View attachment 47447View attachment 47448

I have caught gurnard by bumping artificial Gulp worms along the bottom on my local Dorset beach using a Carolina rig but was really surprised last year while on holiday in the US. Fishing a very shallow beach using a Patchinko surface lure on Rhode Island hoping for a striped bass or bluefish I kept getting obvious follows from a fish I couldn’t identify. Eventually I hooked one and it was a decent sized gurnard (in the States they call them Red Robins). I was very surprised that they would take a surface lure and so continued to catch plenty using the same tactics on a variety of shallow beaches. They all took very aggressively and it was great fun although I never managed a striper. I have never got around to trying the tactic here in Dorset but it must be worth a try, however the US gurnards were much bigger that the ones I typically caught in Dorset so maybe our smaller local fish might shy away from a surface lure, who knows?

 

[Trampster]

Nice interesting report & photos Flipper - well done!

 

[Tatunka joe]

Sex toys and tiddler fiddleing to catch Bernard’s is there no end to this madness good stuff flip loves a gurnard I does

 

[Bluemicky]

They love a baited feather

 

[Goateeblank]

Always good to try something different. Especially when it works!