Jason Inskip

Hi Richard Unless you are staying on one of the 'Out Islands', you should definitely go out on a charter boat. Shore fishing on the main holiday islands (Mahe, La Digue and Praslin) is quite hard work, although especially on an incoming tide in the morning, where sand meets rock and weed, there is still plenty of fun to be had. On Praslin, there are some bonefish flats, and the fish are big (6-8lbs ave), but very few and far between. On a boat, expect to catch loads of excellent pelagic species, but don't hestitate to ask if the skipper can get you onto a spot where the trevallies hang out, so that you can chum them up and fish with light-ish tackle. I say light-ish, but the giant trevally gets up to over a 100lbs! Others, like blue trevally and golden trevally are much smaller, but fantastic sport on spinning gear. I think they are about the best pound-for-pound fighting fish anywhere. If you can get to one of the out islands, like Desroches or Alphonse, you may still have to get on a boat, but you can wander off for a walk and still catch great fish. By the way, the Seychelles are just as gorgeous as people say they are and the photographs you see in brochures are true to nature. Be careful though, the Government keeps changing its collective mind about use of foreign currency. Check in advance if you can use american dollars in shops, restaurants and so on. Otherwise you'll need to buy lots (and lots) of Seychelles rupees. Also, don't be shocked by the prices! They have a deliberate policy to over-price, so that visitor numbers will be low (and less damaging to the environment), but profitable to the economy. Strangely, a friend of mine says that the result has been a huge increase in the number of rich Russian visitors. Anyway, let me know if you have more questions. Cheers Jason

Sunburned, bitten to death by mozzies and hung-over, but happy as Larry. Between two of us, we caught six tench with three over 5lbs (best 5lbs 10oz) as well as six perch, best two weighing 2lbs 2oz and 2lbs 6oz and a couple of lovely rudd (best 1lb 15oz). The tench were fizzing like crazy. Hasta la vista Jason

I will be staying in Lyme Regis for a few days in July, mostly sea fishing, but I was also wondering about coarse fishing opportunities inland. Does anyone have any good advice for rivers (I have chub/barbel in mind) or lakes (tench or perch especially)? I'm guessing there'll probably be day ticket waters that would be fun to visit for the day? Best wishes to all for the new season Jason [ 09. June 2003, 12:50 PM: Message edited by: Jason Inskip ]

I think I'd probably drag the swim first, groundait quite heavily and wait for the fish to come in. It won't take long, sometimes almost immediately. I'm not sure if maggots would be my first choice anyway, because I catch more tench on worms and bread than anything else. An air-injected lob worm, a couple of inches off the bottom, can be deadly. Bread crust might be a better bet still. If you really think that popped up maggots are the answer, you can use a small piece of cork and superglue as many as you like onto it. It turns into a writhing Medusa's head, although it is a pain to bait up. All the best Jason

I'm sure a lot of you will be thinking about tench and those wonderful fizzy bubbles at the moment, but after all this filthy weather, I haven't seen any evidence of tinca spawning where I live in Hampshire. Has anyone seen any sign that the tench have begun to spawn? Jason

Agree with all the above plus...dendros and... What about pre-baiting for a couple of days to wean them off the natural foods, with an easy alternative? Dead maggots are good and they stay visible, frozen to kill them and defrosted in cold water so they come out plump and firm again. Tench do seem to like curry-flavoured dead maggots (my god, if there's anything that puts me off eating curry, this is it), then you can fish live ones on the hook as an eye-catching wriggly attraction. Weed raking on the pre-baited swim can help sometimes, but if the substrate is black smelly silt, I'd leave the rake at home. Also, if there are any swan or zebra mussels in the lake, I know a couple of anglers who say the swan ones can make the difference, but to be honest I've only tried them a few times and not with much success. If you can't prebait, I'd go for dendros on the hook and make a ground bait of simple bread crumb and chopped worms. I really do believe that freshly cut worm juice is a real turn on for just about every freshwater fish that swims, but for some reason we all get obsessed with 'alien' flavours (me too). I vaguely remember that there was a study many years back on the essences that stimulate feeding among juvenile carp and worm juice was at the top of the table. Buggered if I can remember the rest though. All the best Jason

Hi Glenn! PW is being typicaly anal about finishing reels, so it's taking forever. So I suspect we'll be a while yet. They are lovely though. By the way, on the crucians again: Some of the best days we had were in absolutely filthy weather, pouring down and windy to boot. On more than one very wet day, we caught crucians all day. Also, in 'normal' summer conditions the commons and mirror carp went off the feed at dusk, when the crucians moved in. One minute we were catching commons, the next crucians and that's how it stayed until we packed up and went home. One night Peter Wheat came as a guest and stayed all night. He sat like a heron the whole time with a dim-ish torch light on the float and eventually landed 36. Bearing in mind that each bite took ages to develop, he must have been having indications pretty much from dusk till dawn. Peter reckons that crucians aren't bothered by the torch, even though he was moving it around all the time to follow the float. Maybe it was an attraction as it can sometimes be with big roach in stillwaters? I'm not sure about cloud bait, we never tried it, partly because we didn't want too many little rudd in the swim and we were using light lines and small hooks and bait, but also because I can't imagine crucians will come up the water column very readily, so we'd would have lost most of the attraction anyway. Having said that, why not try and see what happens? I'd love to hear if it works. Finally, I wonder if crucians are easily put off by other species in the swim? When the carp or tench were feeding actively, the crucians were nowhere to be found. But as soon as they had the swim to themselves, we caught one after the other. Whatever, they are tricky little blighters. Cheers Jason

Hi folks I had some great success with crucians a couple of years ago on an old estate lake near Petersfield, until the place was sold to a complete idiot who has set about removing the coarse fish. I'm not sure this will help, because your water may be totally different, but... A few observations: Although we did catch some up to 2.5lbs during the day, they really only came on the prod at night. Small cocktail baits worked best, with red worm and corn favourite. After much trial and error, we found the best float rig to sort out the frustrating dithery bites was adapted from a normal very light tench waggler, with black and white bands painted all the way along the antenna. A single large shot two inches from the hook was enough to cock the float, but only just past the body, with the entire antenna clear of the water. We didn't strike unless the float was being drawn steadily down, right to the orange tip. For some reason, this trebled the success rate, although to be honest, this still left a lot of missed takes. Also, too much ground bait was a mistake, I guess because the fish didn't have to move far for the next morsel and the bites were even more tentative. Hope this helps a bit and good luck. Jason