guernseybass

I'd agree with Leons posts. very tricky to catch on 'pure' flies, still a learning curve i think. flies i have heard that work are : red tag, bumbles, spiders, shrimps, GRHE's, in small sizes then maggots, bread etc. with groundbait of a similar size. results are very inconsistent so far. i will be trying klinkhamers, parachutes in the near future, as i am also afflicted by this terrible curse. the most success i have heard of is by keith white in Jersey who provides the pages on chippy's site. one tip - if you so manage to hook one on a fly rod it will go ballistic - let it, don't play it too hard, they have very soft mouths and the hook will pull out. more like the UK's permit than bonefish to me !

they weredoing their job - that story is dated August 2003 !

no secret - for bright days - blue and white for lower light - chartreuse and white for night - black. all with a bit of flash. GB

was that the the national or local news pugs ? hope it was the national. they didn't mention anything about Gordon Ramsey did they - he admitted taking undersize bass in the times online on saturday ! heres the link : http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,43...1199959,00.html BASS and UKSWFF are taking this up with the Times. personally, i feel also that Frank Shaws boat the catamaran 'The Carrick Lee II' and Glyn Hutchinsons tackle shop both in newhaven i believe, should be boycotted until they both apologise too - as 'professionals ' they should know better. :mad: :mad: :mad: GB

Pugs, good call, they probably didn't have a large enough fly to interest the larger bass, that or they didn't have enough movement or the right colour - the same dilemmas for all FF As long as you enjoy your fishing, nothing (within reason) is cheating. the most successful flies seem to be those with blue or green backs with white bellys - same as baitfish / sandeels. saying that, a couple of SWFFers i know are now experimenting with red or orange flies with some success, based on the ideas that rapalas and large salmon flies in those colours all catch fish. i have used plugs before but lost heart due to the cost mainly (£9 for a rapala). In really skinny water - less than a foot, i don't think you can really beat a fly, even in weedy water you can use mono to make a weedguard to avoid fouling the hook. as to casting, well as i mentioned sometimes its just about getting 10 yards out in a slight blow. a good cast for me is between 20-25 yards (60-70ft). on a calm day i can almost get the full line out - 32yards, but its not very often necessary. reading the water is much more important. before you get any tackle, i advise at least one lesson with an APGAI/ STANIC instructor who should provide with the loan of a rod, it will be the best £30-50 you'll ever spend. Artful - glad you liked the book, exploring is a very great part of the fun of SWFF for me. Its amazing what you can see once someone has told you how to look ! Mark

I have to come down on Chevins side here. 1. Peter collins has done a lot for angling in the last 50 years. 2. Zander are a parasite, sorry - they are a beautiful fish, great fight, sometimes hard to catch but they are inroduced in most rivers ( the severn ?), they killed our perch and pike fishing on the mid Thames in the '70's. i think we should listen to nature for this one -Peters just hurrying it along.

i really like this idea, we have loads of inshore reefs that would be perfect for the fly. you want delicate presentation in clear water ? ahem . i emailed ocean's distributers in the UK to ask how i could get one to guernsey and never got a reply. anglersafloat is a top site BTW. GB

Norrie, am pleased to say they raised £590, which compared to BASS's revenue's of £7,000 pa is a sizeable chunk. what they have achieved on their budget is mind boggling. if anyone reading this is not a member then shame on you - give them 15 quid, they really really need your money, and they are fighting for all of us. remember - strength comes from unity. Mark

Alan, a sage piece of advice there. if you are within a couple of hours drive of an APGAI instructor, its well worth the trip. i only had 2 days tuition with a 15ft DH spey rod with a chap called Doug Lock in Ireland and 5 years later what he taught me i never forgot. to any trout fishers reading this - try it, it gives you loads of ideas as to what you can do with a 8ft or 9ft trout rod. it improved my fishing no end. fishing on the sea, as i said is about being able to get 15yards out in a F5. but only sometimes thankfully, we live by the tides and the times......when they're good we fish. >:-D my best fish incidentally is 7.25lbs, caught 3 yards out in 18 inches of water. it fought like a 12lb salmon or a 15lb over wintered rainbow. its a shame that we commercially kill them for a price per lb less than mackerel. its a funny old world sometimes, huh ? Mark

My two penneth : 1. its a good thing, it formally identifies us as stakeholders legally. and it puts the idea of conservation and management in the minds of some anglers who wouldn't think of it - i bet some anglers on here still take bass home ! 2. policing - how are lakes & rivers policed ? by a few officers who only turn up occasionally, but if you get caught its a £2,500 fine. it really is up to us to make this work, but we need to use our voice - i urge people to join the SACN or BASS, give them your time and money and they'll be able to lobby government for our corner. NB - i don't support the NFSA, as to qualify for their records you have to kill the fish, and most of their local competitions are still killing bass. Although they do have a Conservation group, they are not primarily a conservation group, your support is better off elsewhere i feel. GB

in which case i'd either try near the low tide or high tide line - i've never seen a totally flat beach, you'll be surprised what you see if you look closely enough. this would be similar to flats fishing, for the low tide try an hour each side of low tide at night or dawn, especially if you can find a drop off to deep water. the ripples are actually a sign of current and themselves can be a good place to fish its also worth trying any estuaries - of which i'm sure you have a few in that area, particularly where piers or jettys stick into the current, or there is a narrow channel, will give you a good chance of bass and mullet and of course sewin too! basically anywhere where you can dead drift a fly will give you a very good chance . good luck

Artful, you are not really looking for gullys as you'd usually think of them. what you are looking for are much shallower features, some may only be 18 inches deep but on a flat beach with one channel, guess where the fish will be concentrated ? this where the current will wash food which attracts the fish. same as sand bars etc. the important thing is to watch the water move - what you are looking for is current and structure. most beaches will have current ALONG the beach, so any channels may be parallel to the shore. similarily if there are any rocky or gravelly patches or spits on the beach, watch what the current does - does it speed up or become choppy ? if so thats a rip, a prime place for fish to gather. also if you have rock running out perpendicular from a beach and sand between the rock and the beach thats a another prime spot for a rip as the current has to squeeze through the gap,compresses and so speeds up. as i said before , treat the beach like a river - easier to do on calm days - watch how the current affects any feature you can see and you won't go far wrong. also I can't recommend highly enough reading Ed Mitchells "Fly Rodding the Coast" - from Amazon, you'll never look at a flat beach in the same way again. Dawn does seem to be better than dusk, although quite a few SWFFers have had very good catches after dark, and my fish on Saturday were taken at lunchtime ! As to flounders its not something we have in Guernsey but i have checked and a bottom bouncing clouser in brown n white or red and white seems to do the business - the current unofficial UKSWFF record is 2lb 8oz. best of luck GB

CJ- i have tried the okuma airframe, its a top reel. slightly pricier at £45 quid is the Danica Techno, which weighs the same but has a sealed drag.a new reel just come out is the LOOP evotec CLW which at £95 is very cheap for Loop quality. they are all Large Arbour composites. with rods - you can get great quality for £80/90, Greys GRX, fulling mill, redington all produce SW 8/9's that are well known to do the job. a number of online places now sell SWFF flies - sportsfish, English Flyfishing shop, fulling mill etc. these are based on US patterns & most SWFF flies i have bought tend to be too large and overdressed. I now tye my own which is very easy to do - i have only been tying since january & have never tied before ! i tie sandeels, clousers, blondes and deceivers in size 2 on mustad 34007 hooks. chartreuse and white and blue and white are the two combinations i mainly tye. An excellent site to learn is the US site -http://www.branhamssaltwaterflytying.com/ excellent frame by frame tying pictures in Beginners Corner, just remember the sparser the better, cut what you need then half it. i have to declare a bias here ( i regularly correspond with one of the owners) but oceanflies.com are the best i've seen - they are well tied, durable and not overdressed. they do have an online catalogue as well. hope that is of help. GB ps - had 4 pollock to 1.5lbs and 2 wrasse to 2.5lbs yesterday in a rip between two rocky areas on a local beach.

Peter, 1 - sorry my apologies, i thought you were talking to Pugs who is in Crawley in the South. Bass are indeed rare in Scotland, but becoming less so every year i believe. I do know there are a couple of Scots SWFFers around, but they mostly focus on power station outlets and as you say sea trout. As to mullet - no-one catches many so far on the fly, they now have their own fishing condition - Mullet Madness. 2 - i was actaully referring more to SWFF as practised in England, Ireland, Wales and parts of Europe ( mainly Holland/France/Italy) where methods are being adapted from US North East coast methods, rather than the 'heavy tactics' necessary in your neck of the woods and Denmark/Norway etc for coalies, codling and big pollack. 3- as to delicate, skilful or successful - i hope thats a stereotype that will be disproved over time as people become familiar with the discipline. I firmly believe that if you looked into SWFFing fully you'd find it can indeed be all three - sight fishing for bass or mullet in shallow water with light tippets (3lb) and dry flies or small nymphs can be a very delicate business. as for skilful, it takes a lot of skill to read the water well, & SW casting generally requires a fair bit of skill to attain distance in windy conditions with a single handed rod. Successful, i've already addressed - just look at the UKSWFF.com catch reports. I should let you all know where i'm coming from here -i do enjoy using a doublehanded rod to speycast on the Blackwater & Bandon in Ireland, and also C&R flyfishing on English stillwaters for brownies or rainbows. I just think that SWFF should not be considered a poor relation to Trout & Salmon fishing anymore - particularly by those who know very little about it. it would be a bit like me, a self confessed one or two-week-a-year salmon fisherman, telling someone keen to try catching a salmon on the fly - " oh don't bother, you'll need a big heavy rod, heavy lines, you'll stand all day in the river for a week and probably only catch one or two stale fish if you're lucky " not very accurate or encouraging yes ? Mark.

Mal, as i said,i'm sure your words were well meaning of course i can't comment on those marks, but a guess would be that they are places where fish are caught and suggested initially by pluggers or bait fishers rather than actual experienced SW Flyfishers. If you read the plethora of works by American writers such as Tabory, Kreh, Don Phillips or Ed Mitchell, rock marks or shingle beaches feature very little, the focus is on current and structure instead. as to the yellow thing - its actually weed on the line ! the fish was caught with a sparse sandeel pattern of my own design, certainly no bigger than a waddington or tube fly. in regard to the crabs/ shrimps, yes they do work, but as you say thats ' in your ( limited) experience' - my brackets. a newbie to SWFF is much better trying baitfish/eel patterns which is proven to be far more effective in the UK. My general point is that UKSWFF has now over 200 members who are out there every week, using methods and tactics quite alien to your comments, but very similar to my suggestions. i know, i am one of them - if there is a 'book' on UK SWFF the members are literally currently writing it. i'm very pleased you were lucky enough to have a fine salmon on your first trip, but i'd guess you had a good ghillie or someone who knew what they were doing, or had a very good book ( falkus ?) to help you out pugs i figure doesn't. Finally, i'd say that i hope my advice will help you too and maybe with more experience and knowledge you may one day realise that Saltwater Flyfishing has a lot more in common with river trouting than you thought. And to anyone else reading this thread doubting the efficay of SWFF in the UK, several SWFFers i have had the pleasure of meeting (and who post on UKSWFF.com) have had over a 100 wild bass already this year - how many people do you know that have had a 100 truly wild trout or salmon this season ? think about it. then think about how much your fishing costs you.then think about how much it costs them. good luck to all. GB [ 26. July 2004, 11:20 PM: Message edited by: guernseybass ]

Pugs, - the advice given so far re tackle is pretty sound. any old rod will do, as will any floater of 7 or above or an intermediate line. these should be weight forward. sandeel patterns are easy to tye just some bucktail and flash on a mustad 34007 saltwater hook. very few bass are caught on crab patterns. as well as the UKSWFF site check out www.oceanflies.com for fly Selections. for advice on casting checkout www.sexyloops.com . as to mullet - they are almost impossible to catch sometimes. you are much more likely to catch bass, mackerel and pollack. I would completely ignore Malcolm & peterthefish as they have given you very bad advice ( although probably well meant) for the following reasons - 1. how is SWFF NOT like river trouting then ? you cast out an imitation of the fish's main diet into the current, let it fish down and round, mending the line , let it hang then retrieve or pick it up and cast again, moving along the bank a pace each time. it IS just like river trouting, the sea has currents and structure which create eddys, rips and seams which concentrates food ie baitfish and shrimps, crustaceans for the fish. find the food find the fish. it has very little in common with spinning if you do it properly, as decribed above, treat the sea like a river and you'll suceed very quickly. 2. the best marks are not necessarily the rocks, more likely to be your flat shallow beaches. look for channels, sand bars and rips at first light, or even dusk. be mobile, watch the sea birds and if you don't have any luck change your fly. 3. peter & nick says they're unconvinced of the efficacy of SWFF - well like any other type of FF you have to learn first. Nick to his great credit, actually makes a brilliant point - "The real skill of fly fishing, as with all methods is understanding the water and the fish. What is generally known as watercraft. Get that right and you can catch any fish willing to feed (or have a go) that is in the vicinity of your hook." thats it in a nutshell, you wouldn't expect to catch salmon or trout on your first trip would you chaps ? to underline my point, here are two pictures of bass caught in Guernsey, & Dorset ( when there was 25 of us out - everyone caught fish) this year. both caught in rips on flat sandy beaches at first light guernsey, 6 pounder : dorset 4 3/4 pounder : finally, if you're targeting bass please join BASS (ukbass.com)and C&R, especially any fish over 5lb - they will be at least 11 years old and very likely female. tightlines to you all. Mark [ 25. July 2004, 10:14 PM: Message edited by: guernseybass ]