Quiet paths. Lonely stonechats, November gloom. Sneakily, late autumn is my favourite time of year to be by the Dorset coast.
You can’t argue with the verdant furore of spring, of course, but there’s something to be said for the melancholy of a dank autumn day. Slow days with soft light, dark vignettes licking the edges. The days are shorter, now, and there’s a fresher bite in the breeze. Winter’s coming and the fish know it… Especially the bruisers.
There won’t be many more of these gentle days. Soon it’ll be tireless turbidity, wind and churn. The littoral won’t be a place you’ll want to linger. Get out there while you can… The cold’s creeping closer.
It’s no secret to say that it’s been an exceptional autumn for squid on the British south coast – that cat is already well out the bag.
Dad and I have made a couple of trips to Weymouth to get a piece of the pie, paying a visit to the Stone Pier in both late September and late October. We had a good haul both times, having around twenty squid and cuttlefish between us on both trips. I’ve now got a freezer full! I’m not a big bait fisherman, so we’ve six months’ worth of calamari to enjoy at our leisure.
The going tactic has of course been squid jigs (the subject of much popularity and ‘hot air’ in the UK right now – my favourite jigs are bright white, orange and pink, with loud rattles!) but float fished silver fish have also accounted for a good number of squid. Fishy baits for squid seem to have fallen out of fashion, but a squid spike is a consistent way to present a bait down deep when the weather’s rough.
Here’s my recipe for tempura battered squid rings (it pinches the Thai dressing from FISHING WITH CAL’s YouTube channel) – and for the cuttlefish, this slow cooked recipe from ‘Beans & Sardines’ is just gorgeous… The cuttle goes so sweet it’s making my mouth water just thinking about it!
I had my suspicions that a shore caught cuckoo would end up being a tricky customer, and unfortunately, they were! The trouble is that cuckoos generally like to live in deep water, and that isn’t something that’s super abundant within casting range of the Dorset coast… I would guesstimate that most of my favourite Dorset rock marks aren’t much deeper than 10-15 feet, and that’s at a push!
Planning some fishing for my last few weekends of summer freedom I stumbled upon deepest Cornwall for the mysterious cuckoo. In my Google searches I’d found credible reports of them frequenting the stretch of coast between Land’s End and Mousehole, and I’d soon read enough… I was sold, all in, pot committed. With a polybox full of frozen prawn and crab I drove the five and a half hours towards Penzance in a fishy daze.
… A wrasse-filled weekend, sampling some serious coastal scenery.
The spot of choice oozed classic Cornwall; at the end of a bushy lane of stone fisherman’s cottages, sprawling gunneras, echiums and blue hydrangeas – sporting a trouty babbling brook and cobblestone slipway. The aqua-blue shallows of the cove quickly gave way to deep water that was chock-full of kelp, with a 2oz lead taking a good ten plus seconds to hit the deck. I arrived on a warm Friday afternoon, fishing the slightly easier to access side of the cove to avoid a nuisance string of crab pots. Once set up on the rocks I fished hard with prawn for a good 3-4 hours; the ballan were incredibly obliging in a deep and shadow-filled gully at the cove’s end, but the cuckoo remained elusive.
Dodging a seal, I cut back along the rocks to fish the main belly of the cove, flicking a few whole prawns out around 25 yards, towards another string of pots. My tip was soon being yanked, but it was all very subtle – sporadic pings, sometimes seconds or even minutes apart. They were positive, but not quite bites. I eventually connected with one – a small ballan – and then, unexpectedly, a second. Whatever I’d hooked spent a few seconds writhing on the seabed, not wanting to budge, before lolling over and coming in like a floppy banana peel… When the slender form of a cuckoo broke the surface I wound like a mad man!
… A rare Cornish wrasse, as bright as brass.
Bringing it in, grinning from ear to ear, I admired the elongated form of the last wrasse I needed to collect. It was a stunning creature – as bright as brass – and this example was truly intersex, with the neon blue face paint and yellowy shimmer of a male but the strawberry blush of a female. It was neither a ‘he’ or a ‘she’, but a flamboyant in between. The sixth and final chapter of ‘Labridae’ could be closed – the deed was done! Six species of colourful wrasse, all shore caught from around the south coast… It’s a properly daft achievement, but a special one.
A really monstrous Ballan wrasse didn’t make an appearance (and nor did a Cuckoo) but I had the pleasure of fishing some lovely wild places – and I only saw two other anglers the entire week I was there. I met some friendly faces along the way and was treated to a silly amount of Welsh wildlife – choughs, gannets, guillemots, razorbills, stonechats and skylarks… The list goes on.
The wrasse fishing wasn’t plain sailing. Far from it, actually, and a building northerly wind put paid to a good portion of the north coast fishing I’d planned. For a trip in late May the wind felt cold – and I won’t be forgetting a Saturday morning fishing St. David’s Head in a thick and chilly fog any time soon! But the novelty of having both a north and a south coast to fish wasn’t missed, and it was the calmer south coast that kept the bites coming when the north was too wobbly.
… There were plenty of these around!
I barely scratched the surface of the county, of course – spending the majority of my time chugging to spots between Fishguard, St David’s and Solva – but it was a blissful enough way to spend several evenings and a weekend. One of the biggest revelations of the trip was discovering float fishing for wrasse, after being talked into it by a friendly ex-commercial fisherman in Fishguard harbour. While the ledger rod remained quiet, the float rod accounted for several three pounders, and a good four, pictured below! I was in disbelief, and it left me wondering why I was so late to the party. I wouldn’t go as far as to say I’m a float-fishing convert, but it’s an exciting enough way to fish, and a bit less tackle hungry.
A return to Pembs will hopefully be on the cards before the year is out – I need to make a more concerted effort for that shore-caught cuckoo – but we’ll see how we go. A big thank you to ‘Cosy Cottage’ for putting me up in Fishguard for the duration of the trip. It lived up to its name entirely, and made for an excellent fishing base.
… The charred blacks and reds of a genuine Welsh dragon!
I’d love to know the origins of the rock cook’s name, but a search hasn’t thrown anything up. I wondered if cook had some second meaning in Old English, or Cornish – but it looks as if it simply means to cook and always has done, so I’m stumped! Whilst I didn’t observe this petite chef cooking up any culinary delights from within the rocks, they were certainly fussy enough eaters!
… Their location was no real bother. As Swanage is for the Baillon’s, the stretch of coast between Torquay and Brixham appears to be a particular stronghold for ‘the cook’. Despite their genuinely rare as hen’s teeth status they can be found in good numbers around Brixham Harbour, seemingly able to happily hold their own against their greedier cousins. From what I’d observed at low-tide (under a shady Brixham pontoon on two sequential lunchtimes) I wondered if this is because of their eating habits – whilst they are of course opportunists, like all wrasse, they also appear to be extensive grazers. The whole time I was chasing one they didn’t stop picking at the rockwork, in fact, and that’s what made catching one so troublesome!
The first lunchtime I persisted with small sections of the ‘old faithful’ isome worms, fished on short dropshot rigs with tiny size 18 hooks. I’d found the fabled cooks, at least, with a nest of seven or eight fish holding up under a couple of slabs of rock in two feet of water. They’d periodically appear from beneath their rock and give it a once over (diligently pecking away at the edges of the rock as they went) before slinking off or moving on. Casting as delicately as I could I simply couldn’t tempt one – the isome worms were almost too blatant, which was ridiculous. I’d come close several times, with a number of the fish following the worm as it fell through the water column, but just eyeballing it intensely before growing bored and continuing their grazing. They were frustratingly fussy… The tide was soon flooding (and a high-tide rock mark calling my name) so I snuck off, vowing to return the next lunchtime.
… Fussy eaters indeed!
I’d a plan the next morning… I’d called ahead at Brixham Tackle, from the campsite, and they’d confirmed they sold maggots. I was soon back under the pontoon, flicking a few reds in with every cast. Whilst I didn’t see the cooks eating any, the ballan, blennies, pouting and goldsinny were more than happy to! The trickle of reds seemed to be doing the trick, and the cooks slowly started showing some interest in them in a curious but very casual fashion. It was the females who were first to let their guard down; they outnumbered the males several to one and appeared to be slightly more interested in feeding – the odds weren’t in favour of the ‘blue boys’.
Peach, mother of pearl and glittering blues…
It took a little over an hour, but an inquisitive female eventually took the bait… I’d landed a single maggot on a slab of rock and caught the attention of two females as I teased it down the shelf, landing it in an inches wide gap in the rockwork. It had just fallen into the crevice when the rod tip stuttered; mere seconds passed between the initial bite and having the fish in a firm grip in the palm of my hand… To have it fall off the micro barbless hook after two lunchtimes of effort would have been too much to bear! She wasn’t a peacocky male, but she was still gorgeous – painted in vibrant peaches, and tinted with mother of pearl and glittering blues.
A fine end to the day – sunset, and a grill on the Breakwater.
Most people in England saw the New Year in with a prolonged spell of heavy rain, but we were lucky to have escaped the soaking and spent much of January in Poland – staying with family, enjoying the odd mountain walk, and, I should mention, getting married! The week of the wedding was Baltic, with heavy snow on the hills and temps in the valley down to -14°C… But I’ll take that over a never ending deluge in the UK any day of the week!
One from the wedding – she’ll kill me for this one!
A proper winter’s outing for wrasse was well overdue, by at least a year, so once we’d arrived home and the rivers had begun to fine down, I was – rather expectedly – Dorset bound. Conditions were reasonable on Portland Bill but the breeze was just a touch too stiff for my liking; the south westerly had turned the neap tide quite choppy by lunch time. Cold fingers were made worth it by the handful of wrasse landed, with two being a gorgeous tangerine orange. I missed the best bite of the day by being too busy watching an oyster catcher, but I won’t complain too much… It’s enough to be ‘off the mark’ for the 2024.
Tangerine orange, brightening up an otherwise dull day.
We’re three months into being first time parents and the novelty is just starting to wear off… We’ve survived the initial shock and we’re now settling into a new normalcy. It’s been brilliant, but the adrenalin’s ebbed away and I’m starting to feel it.
In recent weeks I’ve learnt a new level of tiredness – the new normal – so I’ll just have to like it or lump it. It doesn’t bode well for my rock-fishing, but then neither does living two-plus hours from the coast – and that’s never been a problem! My jaunts to Dorset have always been a rare treat, something to be treasured. And they still are, albeit a rarer treat now – but importantly they’re not off the table.
I get out just enough and, in a way, it keeps things fresh – as conditions are never the same on any two given days. If the rocks were closer to home they’d inevitably loose their sparkle, or I’d get lazy… But when the alarm went off at 4am this weekend I had no trouble getting up. I couldn’t get out the door quick enough, in fact! Sleep deprived or not, some things never change. The sun was shining and the Portland Bill wrasse were feeding…
A fine set of gnashers…An ‘Ope and a prayer…These didn’t last long…… Only a touch over 3lb, but a serious scrap!
I really wanted to dislike Swanage Pier. I didn’t like the prospect of having to pay £6 to fish it between the confines of 9-5, and even less so did I like the cost of parking a car in Swanage – at £9 for the day! Adding to that £15 the cost of fuel, food, and a bit of bait, I was quickly pot committed to a fish not much longer than the palm of my hand.
I’d been to Swanage once before, visiting with family in the summer, and knew that it would be busy with tourists and holidaying fisherman. I didn’t know then, though, that it was a Baillon’s wrasse stronghold. Weymouth had been crawling with day-trippers too, but at least in a harbour I could slink off to find some peace and quiet… You can’t really do the same on a pier. With the prospect of the cost, plus the general summer bustle, I have to admit that the pursuit of a Baillon’s felt like a chore before I even stepped on the wooden planks of the pier.
A settled morning – you’d never guess thunderstorms were due in the afternoon!
… I was just being a grumpy sod. I really shouldn’t have been, and on reflection I was incredibly lucky. I enjoyed myself a lot, and what unfolded that morning might even have been, dare I say, the most effortless piece of angling I’ve ever embarked on? The brain fog had already begun to lift as I sat opposite Swanage Angling, enjoying a cup of tea in the sunshine outside a café. I was waiting for the tackle shop to open at 08:30 and had already had a leisurely walk around the seafront, which had a double rainbow curving above it and away into the distance behind Old Harry Rocks. With a small parcel of ragworm wrapped in newspaper and my miniature fishing gear stowed in my rucksack I stepped onto the pier, and strolled right past the ticket point, exchanging a cheery hello with the lady in the office… No rods, no ticket? I kept walking.
The sun dappled beams of the pier and teale waters below…
My cheap as chips LRF gear: a 6ft NGT Travel rod and a 2500 size Daiwa Ninja.
My spirits had lifted to the point where I was practically skipping. I passed a group of blokes waiting for a charter boat, and that was the extent of the anglers I saw for the day – what a treat.
They’re funny things, piers, but I found this one to be lovely, with the teale waters of the ‘lower deck’ full of potential. It was a day of neap tides and we’d had light winds all week, and as such the water clarity was excellent – it was so excellent in fact that I had to double take when the water beneath my feet begun flashing like a strobe light, with great plumes of bubbles frothing on the surface. A pair of scuba divers surfaced nearby, chatting excitedly about the mysteries of the deep that they’d been snapping below.
The fish didn’t seem to mind the water being lit up like a Christmas tree, and my chunk of ragworm on a size 12 carp hook, tied to a scratching rig, was soon being gnawed away at. I’d tied up an array of micro rigs in 6lb fluoro; including several iterations of dropshot rigs, and cheb rigs with hot pink weights – but I needed neither! Swanage was about to deliver the ultimate slice of beginner’s luck, and with the first drop the rod tip vibrated and rattled over. I lifted a speckled fish onto the deck, expecting the first of many corkwings… But bugger me, it was a Baillon’s! I studied it closely, almost refusing to believe it – but the peachy fins, black smudges, and light blue face streaking confirmed it. Plenty of tiddlers were caught on ragworm and isome after (abundant corkies, ballan, pouting, tompots, and black bream) but there were no more Baillon’s.
Outrageously good luck: light blue markings under the eye, a black spot on the dorsal and tail root, and burnt peach fins.
By 10.30am I’d had my fill and it was mission complete. I didn’t want to spoil what had been an otherwise perfect morning so I packed up and left the sun-dappled pier behind. I decided to put the remainder of my rag to good use somewhere rockier ‘just around the corner’ – but that’s a tale for another day.
Other than the abundant Ballan and Corkwing, the toothy Goldsinny was set to be my easiest shore-caught adversary – but it still gave me a good run for my money!
Perhaps I was just unlucky, but it took a good dollop of persistence to track one down. My hunt began on a warm day in the middle of August, with the scene of the showdown being the familiar ground of Weymouth Harbour.
A stunning example of a corkie; cyan and deep reds.
The day started quietly and the harbour was as pretty as a picture in the morning sunshine, with plenty of big mullet ghosting around in the shallows. The 7am calm didn’t last (of course) and a few hours later the harbourside was heaving with holiday makers. I didn’t mind, I was knee deep in mini-beasts… The corkies, baby pollock and pouting were ravenous, and even the odd tompot blenny and juvenile black bream had made an appearance. Tactics were the stuff of textbook LRF; small isome worms from Jonny Lerfer, mini scratching rigs, and just one or two SSG shot to hold bottom. In reality the rigs were no different to my ‘big’ ballan rigs but they were just tied with finer fluoro (5lb Drennan Supplex) and finer hooks (size 14 Drennan Super Specialists).
Vibrant greens.
The morning slid away in a frantic flurry of casting, striking, and hauling – but there’d been no sinny! It was well past lunch time when I was rewarded for my efforts, and not until I’d walked the length of the harbour, the Stone Pier, and back again… But I finally found my pot of gold in a quiet corner off the old Pleasure Pier, in a shallow spot between the limpet covered pier wall and a bed of eel grass. I’d dropped countless tiddlers on barbless hooks throughout the day, but thankfully the coveted Goldsinny clung on… And I’m glad it did, for it was a one and done affair. I was soon on my way for home, happy to leave the hot and heavy bustle of the harbour behind!
It took some casts, but a pot of gold eventually made an appearance.
We’ve a six week old baby at home – our first – so my days roving around the South Coast in search of big ballan wrasse are on somewhat of a hiatus for now.
… A hiatus, for now!
All things considered, I’ve been incredibly lucky to manage two days fishing this month. Instead of the usual roaming around remote and rocky stretches of the coast I’ve been keeping close to the car, and making sure I’ve had reliable phone signal at all times! I’m not complaining though, and the light rock fishing (LRF) for tiddlers that I’ve been enjoying around Dorset’s harbours and piers has been really rewarding – and just the light relief needed with the intensity of things at home.
Somewhere in the blurry midsts of the last few weeks I hatched a plan to attempt to catch all six of the UK wrasse species from the shore. A wrasse Grand Slam, if you will… I’m thinking it must have been the effects of sleep deprivation! These next couple of posts are my first attempts at making a dent in that challenge. Ballan, Baillon’s, Corkwing, Cuckoo, Goldsinny and Rock Cook – I’ve been lucky enough to catch two of these to date; the ballan and the corkwing. I suspect one of the remaining wrasse will prove trickier to catch from the shore than the others, but in the weird and wacky world of LRF you never know what’s around the corner…
