Twenty two knots and the engines were just beginning to exert themselves as we pointed Sushi to the Eastward. The sea was as slick as glass, the sun was shining and all was nearly right with the world.

So why were we heading up channel to the Skerries and not pointing to the South, out toward the deep water wrecks and the big stuff. The answer was simple, we had been deep a few days before, bounced from wreck to wreck.... caught a few baby ling and pollack, grubbed the bottom with bait and chuckled up some whiting and pout, but not much else. Everything is late this year, even down to the Westward on the Brendon’s, Hatt Rock and the Hand Deeps, the early run of hard fighting Spring Pollack were very scarce and I thought at the time that it would be a couple more spring tides before the fish were there in any sort of quantity.

 In little over an hour we slowed as we hit the bit of bobble on the race around Start Point, the lighthouse was still shrouded with wafting skeins of mist which was slowly being burnt off by the early warmth of the sun. Through the mist we could see several of the Dartmouth boats including a couple of charter boats drifting  the middle patch on the last of the ebb. The tide on the day was a middling tide between neaps and springs which is the sort of tide I like for fishing the Skerries, just a little more tide would have been good but that’s how it goes!

 What was really interesting was that we had treated the Lowrance to a full size electronic Gold Chart, which shows a truly amazing amount of bottom detail that was not shown on the old basic chart. We could see for the first time the sandbars, pits and gully’s clearly marked in tremendous detail. What was interesting over the last  of the ebb and the duration of the flood tide was to see where the local boats were going. The little sandbar they moved to as the flood started, then later drifting along the edges of the banks to find the slightly faster water. It was very evident that there was a lot of local knowledge being used to find the fish on what turned out to be quite a difficult day. This is all part of the learning experience and if you are not looking you will not see what’s happening, the day you stop learning is usually the day the lid gets nailed down!!

 Fishing for Plaice has changed over the decades that I have fished for these lovely little fish. To start with there are far fewer fish, anglers have had to become far more expert at finding the fish that are there and boy, does the Lowrance electronix help.

In days gone by, most anglers light rod would have been a thirty pound class rod, with monofilament curly enough to make bedsprings with, yet years ago they still caught Plaice, also in those long gone days, even a Turbot!

But there is one simple truth, as relevant today as it was in decades past, if your bait is flying ten feet off the bottom, the plaice are not going to see it and you are not going to catch any fish.

Most Plaice fishing is done in water less than fifty feet deep, but it is often fast water, sometimes very fast water on big spring tides. If the thickness of the line kites your sinker away from the bottom, you will not catch fish and that’s a fact.

Most of today's anglers might use 15 pound breaking strain line for Plaice and most of their inshore fishing. On the Skerries an angler using 15lb monofilament might have to use a six or eight ounce sinker to hold bottom, yet if 15lb superbraid is used, a 12 lb class outfit will easily cope with the three or four ounce sinker needed and be much more pleasant to fish with. If you cannot feel the sensation of the sinker dragging along the bottom, it is probably because your sinker is not on the bottom(does this make sense!!). If you lift your thumb and let some line out then feel the sinker tap the bottom, then perhaps half a minute later you lift your thumb and feel the sinker tap the bottom again. It is very likely that your sinker is floating away from the bottom and you need to try another sinker an ounce or two heavier.

 The day before, when we decided that it was going to be a trip up to the Skerries, I had a rummage around the nether regions of my garage and found my bag of Watch Lead sinkers, you know the ones, the round studded sinkers with a hole in the middle. I swear that these sinkers contribute to catching Plaice. My belief is that as they drag the bottom they kick up a storm of sand particles which in turn attract the attention of the Plaice. As the fish move up current to investigate, lo and behold there are some juicy baits for them to find…. at least that’s my theory.

Rig these sinkers with a line slider, pass your line through the slider, through a plastic bead and knot off to a swivel. For a simple trace use four or five feet of 10 to 15 pounds breaking strain monofilament or fluorocarbon, thread on four or five brightly coloured beads to a size 1/0 hook. A slightly more complex trace uses a three way swivel about a foot from this hook and another shorter snood  with its hook about two or three inches behind. When both hooks are baited up there is a big flavour emitting bait with two hooks hidden in it.

We had called Clives Bait and Tackle the day before to order a dozen peeler crabs, a box of calamari and some ragworm, so baiting up with crab and squid strip on one hook,  worm and squid strip on the other I flipped the sinker over the side, waited for the leader to straighten out in the tide and dropped away until the sinker was tripping along the bottom. With braid line the corrugations in the sand can be quite clearly felt, then there is a heavier, dragging sensation as the sinker climbs the side of an underwater sand bank then momentarily a floating sensation as the sinker clears the lip of the sand bank, I let some line out to get the sinker back on the sand. This is the prime time to expect a bite, that rat-tat-tat which is sometimes quite difficult to feel. If you even suspect a bite, remember the boat is on the drift consequently the bait is being dragged away from the fish, take your thumb off the spool and “drop back” a yard or two of line, to allow the fish to take the bait, then tighten up and feel for the weight of the fish. Despite feeling the weight of several fish, it was not my day, my pal Charles took two lovely early season Plaice before we headed back West toward the sunset to a welcome pint of Guinness and a planning and plotting session for our next trip. Will the Bass or Pollack be in or will we run up to the Skerries again. It’s a hard life but somebody’s got to do it!!

Any questions to russ@reelfoto.com

Start Point Lighthouse. The Skerries are just around the corner!!

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