Andy 1965
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2020
- Messages
- 375
- Reaction score
- 3,427
- Points
- 93
- Location
- North Wales
- Favourite Fishing
- Lure
After last week’s unsuccessful conger / tadpole hunt, I was determined to give it another go, and with a complete change in the wind direction, I decided last night to try another mark off my list of spots, where I know tadpole fish have been caught before. My chosen mark was on the other side of the island from last week and has deep water directly at your feet, so there would be no need to cast far. My first conger bait, a whole squid on an 8/0 running ledger, was therefore only lobbed a few rod-lengths out. This was followed shortly after by a 2-hook flapper, baited with sandeel and lug, which was literally dropped straight down the side.
Over the next hour, I explored the area in front of me with the scratching rig, casting it into any likely looking spots, but apart from one small tap, the baits remained untouched. While this was going on, I was also keeping a close eye on the conger rod, but again it remained depressingly still. It was early yet though, and I knew from experience that things could change completely without warning at any moment, or so I hoped
.
As the next hour passed, things did in fact begin to improve and I started to get a few bites on each rod, they were only half-hearted efforts though, and as the 2-hour mark of my session approached, I still hadn’t caught anything.
Soon after this, I was rebaiting my conger rod when I happened to glance up at the scratcher, and I noticed that the line had fallen slack
. I hadn’t seen any signs of interest but when I tightened up the line, I could feel something pulling back. I reeled in slowly, hoping that the culprit might be my target, but that turned out to be wishful thinking, I was still happy though to beat the blank with a small pollack, only a tiddler but my first of 2023, and species number 6 for the year 
.
After threading another small piece of lug onto the hook, I lobbed the rig out to roughly the same place again and turned my attention back to the conger bait, but barely a minute later I was surprised to hear the scratching rod bouncing around in the tripod!
Dropping the half-prepared conger bait again, I ran to the tripod and picked up the rod, and I could immediately tell that this was a better fish than the first one. In fact, I did wonder if my bait might have been snaffled by a strap conger, but no, I was pleasantly surprised when pollack number 2 broke the surface, a better fish of around the 40cm mark 
.
30 minutes later and it was the conger rod’s turn to register a bite, it wasn’t anything spectacular though, and to begin with I wasn’t even sure it was a conger. A series of gentle tugs took line off against the drag, but it was only in small amounts at a time. I waited for these to develop into something more substantial, in the hope that it would give me something to strike at, but the big pull down I hoped for never materialised. In all I must have given it 10 minutes or so, before I finally decided I’d had enough and when I finally lifted into it, I was relieved to actually feel some weight on the line. It wasn’t massive but it did at least put up a bit of a scrap, and I was happy enough when the first eel of the night finally broke the surface. It wasn’t the 20 I hoped for, more like around 15% of its weight
, but at least for the second week in a row, it was one of my target species successfully ticked off 
.
Hoping this was just the start, I quickly released the strap and got another bait out ASAP, but despite my best efforts it was to be the only conger of the night. The closest I came to adding to my tally of eels, was when half of the smallest pollack attracted some interest, but despite me giving the assailant plenty of time to get it down, the bait eventually came back in with barely a mark on it, so I began to wonder if it was a conger after all
.
As for the other rod, there was no sign whatsoever of Mr Tadpole and the only thing I could tempt was a token doggie.
So that’s 2-0 to the tadpole fish, and I’m losing by an absolute cricket score to Congerzilla
, but it’s still good to be catching steadily in what is traditionally the quietest month of the year, and hopefully sport will start to pick up again soon.
Over the next hour, I explored the area in front of me with the scratching rig, casting it into any likely looking spots, but apart from one small tap, the baits remained untouched. While this was going on, I was also keeping a close eye on the conger rod, but again it remained depressingly still. It was early yet though, and I knew from experience that things could change completely without warning at any moment, or so I hoped
.As the next hour passed, things did in fact begin to improve and I started to get a few bites on each rod, they were only half-hearted efforts though, and as the 2-hour mark of my session approached, I still hadn’t caught anything.
Soon after this, I was rebaiting my conger rod when I happened to glance up at the scratcher, and I noticed that the line had fallen slack
. I hadn’t seen any signs of interest but when I tightened up the line, I could feel something pulling back. I reeled in slowly, hoping that the culprit might be my target, but that turned out to be wishful thinking, I was still happy though to beat the blank with a small pollack, only a tiddler but my first of 2023, and species number 6 for the year .After threading another small piece of lug onto the hook, I lobbed the rig out to roughly the same place again and turned my attention back to the conger bait, but barely a minute later I was surprised to hear the scratching rod bouncing around in the tripod!
Dropping the half-prepared conger bait again, I ran to the tripod and picked up the rod, and I could immediately tell that this was a better fish than the first one. In fact, I did wonder if my bait might have been snaffled by a strap conger, but no, I was pleasantly surprised when pollack number 2 broke the surface, a better fish of around the 40cm mark .30 minutes later and it was the conger rod’s turn to register a bite, it wasn’t anything spectacular though, and to begin with I wasn’t even sure it was a conger. A series of gentle tugs took line off against the drag, but it was only in small amounts at a time. I waited for these to develop into something more substantial, in the hope that it would give me something to strike at, but the big pull down I hoped for never materialised. In all I must have given it 10 minutes or so, before I finally decided I’d had enough and when I finally lifted into it, I was relieved to actually feel some weight on the line. It wasn’t massive but it did at least put up a bit of a scrap, and I was happy enough when the first eel of the night finally broke the surface. It wasn’t the 20 I hoped for, more like around 15% of its weight
, but at least for the second week in a row, it was one of my target species successfully ticked off .Hoping this was just the start, I quickly released the strap and got another bait out ASAP, but despite my best efforts it was to be the only conger of the night. The closest I came to adding to my tally of eels, was when half of the smallest pollack attracted some interest, but despite me giving the assailant plenty of time to get it down, the bait eventually came back in with barely a mark on it, so I began to wonder if it was a conger after all
.As for the other rod, there was no sign whatsoever of Mr Tadpole and the only thing I could tempt was a token doggie.
So that’s 2-0 to the tadpole fish, and I’m losing by an absolute cricket score to Congerzilla
, but it’s still good to be catching steadily in what is traditionally the quietest month of the year, and hopefully sport will start to pick up again soon.
