Right place wrong rig?

[MrCat]

I'm wondering if there is such a thing as right place wrong rig, besides the obvious. ('obvious' for me being a mackie rig v's everything else I haven't had experience with yet) but there must be for different rigs to exit and be effective. Or maybe I was just in the wrong place!

I recently looked into different baits online and purchased some 'berkleys power bait'! Sounds great doesn't it "The fish bite and won't let go" ha ha...hmm. So I got me some mud worm things that look like large lug worms, brown bodies with a flappy yellow tail (and apparently super scented), and also some 'sand eels' on a whim. I only realy shore fish and I don't know if sand eels are for much deeper waters.

Anyway, I went to my fave mackie spot off the breakwater round here where one can reach some deep water pretty close in and set up the beach rod with some of said bait on it, said mud work things (it does at least stay on the hook real good). I thought given the season I might at least get one of the supposed pollock that apparently hang about here. Nothing.

I had my mackie rod too incase I got bored ha ha and managed to reel in a few nice ones so I was vaguely happy, but still despirate for just a different fish! Anything will do! So I wondered about the rig its self and technique.

I started on the beach rod with this thing;



Then I got bored and switched to a random rig with no description on it that I picked up for the hell of it;



...to no avail. I then kicked myself because I had just bought some 'rock hopper rigs' which I discovered I'd left at home; the main line attaching to a three way swivel with the weight on it and coming out opposite the main line a three foot trace...these ones actually have writing to accompany them and say they're idea for spinning for pollack from deep water rock ledges (a reasonably close description of my location! typical)

I guess the question is, if the fish were there, would they really have avoided my first two rigs like the plague, but gone for the rock hopper had I had any on me?

Any thoughts?

[geejayy]

if indeed it were the right place and there was more about than the mackerel
the rigs look ok ,

top
looks to be a clipped down pulley pennel, which is one of my faves ,
it can be fished with 2 baits as shown but more often is used with 1 'long ' bait with the slideing hook moved to present a hook at both ends of the bait.

bottom
good ole 2 hook flapper, this one with floating beads and blades .
the floating beads raise the bait just off the bottom an the blade spins as an attractor.

both rigs are usually fished static or rolling gently along the bottom with baits.

imho , berkley gulp, is another matter, they don't seem to get good reveiws in this country with most anglers refering to it as 'crap'.
, despite being advertised as otherwize they're more of a sight bait than a scent bait.

let me put it this way- if you were starved and someone waved what looked like a big mac in front you you'd snatch it.
but if you found the same on a table and had time to see that in fact its a plastic replia, you wouldn't bother picking it up.

if i could be bothered, i'd fish glup baits as a lure and give them some movement,

but i'd sooner use fresh or frozen baits, ragworm, lugworm, mackerel , squid etc.

you can catch your own mackies at the moment , so next time you feather some up , cut a fillet into strips about 1 inch x 2 inches or so and bait the static rigs.

( were the sandeel berkley or the real thing)

[MrCat]

Ha, oh well, I've plenty of mackies in the freezer, last time I tried that it was snapped up in two seconds by more mackerel! So I wondered if it were the bait, just me, or the fact there really were nothing but mackies about the place so far as I can cast, but it's a known deeper spot close to shore and it seems likely there's something else to be caught there sometime. I believe this is the right time of year for some nice big pollack or something.

The sand eel things are the same fake bate, in their own little sealey bag with some liquidy stuff, which is presumably some of the liquid scent attractor stuff they also sell.

Yea I'll try these worms on the 'rockhopper' spinning rig next time.

[Fishaman08]

My fav rig is pennel pully rig although quite a few times when i've fished i've had nothing on the pennel pully rig and others have had fish on a one up, one down rig which was odd lol.
I've never tried the artifical bait/worms before,might do sometime soon though.

[MrCat]

Don't bother...the artificial bait is rubbish, unless I really am in the wrong place which it maybe could be but it's reeeeeal proper deep water in a prime locaton with mackeral coming out of your ears, so who knows. I'm mystified but maybe I just need to purseveer tho. The days I go mackeral fishing which is quite a few I never come home with nothing, but I haven't caught a single other fish yet and not for want of trying. Grrr.

[geejayy]

Originally Posted by MrCat

Don't bother...the artificial bait is rubbish, unless I really am in the wrong place which it maybe could be but it's reeeeeal proper deep water in a prime locaton with mackeral coming out of your ears, so who knows. I'm mystified but maybe I just need to purseveer tho. The days I go mackeral fishing which is quite a few I never come home with nothing, but I haven't caught a single other fish yet and not for want of trying. Grrr.

what time of dat do you fish ? have you tried night fishing those marks?

[MrCat]

During the day time or after work, latest I've ever quit the spot is 7pm ish probably. Haven't tried nigh fishing atall yet but I did buy a rig a while ago jut because it had some luminous beads on it ha ha...I have some luminous paint not sure it'd stay on anything too long tho :).

Is it true some fish can be attracted by torch light?

Thought about getting a tent and going out sometime...some fish feed more at night?

Went out again the other day with my simple spinner rig and tried the rubber power worms and then broke out the fake sand eels (they really did stink!)...nada tho again.

I was even really cruel to myself and just took 'bigger fish kit' out, no mackeral stuff ha ha, it was a wopper huge massive 4.1m tide so I thought "Brilliant, surely can't be better?"...

At the last second of boredom I dug in my pockets and found a cheapo mackie rig and at least caught one huge fat mackie at the last second before they stopped biting.

So far I've acertained that the mackies only bite when the water is moving fastest, and nothing else bites atall! There is talk of big conger eel, pollack and even salmon and maybe trout tho let alone whatever else you can get from the shore. I did also try a new spot just down from my regular one I saw some other people at, it seems it's great depth for a nice stretch of the coast there.

[geejayy]

local knowledge is a big key, but i'm affraid i cant help there.

most shore marks fish better at night when larger fish feel more comfortable and move inshore.
a riseing tide is most productive for most but not all venues.

lights on the water will attract bait fish but the predators ain't daft and a new light in an unusual place tends to make them wary , especially bass those who target bass at short range take trouble not to let any light shine on the water,
however on peirs/docks etc where every night light shines onto the water this bait attracting feature often gets used by the bass / pollock etc, if the lights are there all the time the bigger fish loose their caution about it to feed on the fry that are attracted.

[MrCat]

Any comments on luminous beads?

[geejayy]

dunno, never used 'em.