As the Autumnal evenings draw in to their Technicolor conclusion, there are sometimes fish on the top chasing the shoals of immature Pollack, sprats and mackerel, when casting plugs and silver spinners can give some fantastic sport in the quiet of an Autumn evening.

But as a youngster it was being afloat an hour before daylight trolling home made lures and rigged sandeel’s that provided the sights and sounds which are indelibly imprinted in memory. It was the advent of the inshore Gill nets that spoilt this idyllic fishery, these vicious nets often left for weeks by part timers full of rotting fish and a danger to boaters, divers, surfers and swimmers which altered the behaviour patterns of the big inshore fish. Pavlov’s Dog, but this time it is fish that were having their behaviour altered, our planets last truly wild creatures.

In recent years nearly everyone carries a mobile phone at sea and a phone call(s) to the EA will occasionally result in a prosecution for the illegal setting of nets. Believe it or not, this has resulted in making some of these inshore reefs fishable again. Whether or not we will ever see the fish on the top, browsing or chasing again, remains to be seen.

It is that quiet, often fish rich band of water, out of range of the average beachcaster, but too close inshore to warrant the attention of the charter boats which is the exclusive province of the small boat owners who are savvy enough to realise the wealth of opportunity which is there for the taking.

It doesn’t matter if you are using electronic or paper charts, what it takes is a hour or two of study, picking out the undersea reefs which continue out to sea from a desolate headland, miles from anywhere, or patches of weed covered rock which broach the surface on low Springs, the broken ground and rocky patches to which estuarial Bass will retreat when the tide is well into the ebb, especially if there are sandeel holding banks close by.

Watch out for areas which the beachcasters favour and study the charts to find out what they are fishing, see if there is a hole which acts like a bait dustbin, look out for other holes, rocks, banks, and freshwater springs that will be beyond the reach of even the most talented of casters, because this will be the holding ground which the fish will use for their forays into the shallower water.

Use your echo sounder to check out the contours and find holding areas which might not be marked on the charts. If you find that there are fish in these areas, particularly if you are Bassing, ensure you have a good fix on the position, put an icon in place or make it a waypoint, then turn your sounder off, except for an occasional looksee. I have argued with the makers of several brands of sounders who insist that the high intensity pinging makes no difference to the fish. I beg to differ, I believe that it does, particularly with Bass in shallow water.

If you then put the plotters coloured "trail" facility on, you will be able to see the direction of your drift and whether the wind or the tide is going to have the most effect on the boats direction of drift. Once you see which way your boat is going to drift, you can position yourself to drift the icon or waypoint, so that your bait or lure tracks through the right area where you saw the fish on the sounder.

Once you have caught a few fish from such mark, keep a record of what the tide was doing, whether it was a Spring or Neap tide and any other information which might have a bearing on repeating your catch in future years, because not surprisingly fish are creatures of habit.

We have one spot from which we have caught a goodly number of Bass over several decades, including just a few double figure fish. This spot only fishes the last two hours of the ebb tide, as soon as the water stops moving the fish are gone.

We find them again two miles down to the west on the first few hours of the flood tide, but despite our best efforts we have never been able to locate where they go on the top of the tide. It might be that they go into open water looking for shoals of sandeel or mackerel, we just don’t know.

But keeping a rough log of where and when you caught the fish will sometimes reveal the most unlikely of patterns, but a pattern it will be. Even if sometimes it takes a year or ten for the penny to drop. Without the records it will be virtually impossible to understand what the fish are doing and why they are doing it.

My favourite rig for fishing over the low lying rock which continues out to sea from a headland, is the simplest rig of all time, just a hook tied to the end of your line and the sandeel or mackerel bait allowed to swim away downtide.

Let fifty yards or more out and fish with your thumb on the spool so that when you feel a bite you can "drop back" a few more yards of line, so that the bait continues to act in a natural manner after having been hit by the predator.

What happens is that a Bass will hit the bait quite hard, then turn the stunned bait to gulp it down headfirst, so that any sharp fins do not come erect as it is swallowed.

Using large baits like Mackerel at such long range a Circle hook will give a more certain hookup, providing you remember to reel up the slack line rather than striking. With smaller baits such as sandeel and smelt a short shank needle sharp live bait hook will give the most secure hookup. If Seagull’s start to show an interest in your bait then a small ball weight 20 feet from the bait will take it down that few feet more. This is a patient, stalking method of fishing which will often produce surprising results.

Fishing a sliding float which can be cast into areas where you would be mad to take your boat is fascinating and highly effective method of presenting a bait. A Sandeel can be drifted down the tide and even gently lobbed for twenty or thirty yards, particularly if you have anchored the boat if it would be risky to drift your boat close to a knobbly bit of rock.

Baits such as crab, worm and fish strip can be fished on a conventional sliding float and fished into difficult to get at areas allowing you to prospect likely fish holding spots.

A little used method is one that goes back into the mists of time for me, which is fishing a whole mackerel bait under a large float. Years ago it used to be a painted cork net float but nowadays there are some excellent large sliding floats, made for fishing for Catfish, which will allow you to put a Mackerel bait into hard to reach places where big fish think they are safe. I use a Daiwa Catfish rod and a beachcaster size fixed spool loaded with 30lb Power Pro line, because this can sometimes be a real old fashioned tug ‘o war!!

Another old time technique which has been lost to modern day anglers is "Float Spinning". A simple technique which involves setting up a sliding float with a long strip of mackerel like you would use for deep water boat fishing, usually with a small Mepps type blade spinner up front to make noise and attract fish to the bait. A metal Toby type spinner can also be used, this can sometimes be very effective when fishing over the top of a kelp bed. The float keeps the spinner at a reasonably constant depth preventing it from dropping into the kelp forest below. This is also a deadly method of tripping a sandeel just over the top of the weed, fishing with a slow retrieve against the current.

Fishing Sandeel, or a Mackerel for that matter, inshore on a Flowing Trace is simply a matter of fishing a long leader behind a ball weight, because there is no need for the boom in shallow water. Let the bait to stream away in the tide before allowing the sinker to enter the water, this is akin to Driftlining because sometimes the sinker needs to be no more than a quarter ounce. On other occasions when the tide is ripping through and the fish are hugging the bottom, the ball could be a monster of two or even three ounces, it does not have to hold bottom, the sinker just has to hold the bait near the bottom when trotting down tide or slow retrieving uptide.

On most occasions the sinker needs to be just heavy enough to trip the bottom now and again. Another time when I prefer a hi-speed reel, because there is often a fair amount of slack line to be made up before the strike becomes effective. If you are using a big bait, a Circle hook will catch fish that you might otherwise lose.