Hi..

This has been another great but hectic week. First off, let me congratulate Kevin who got married earlier today (July 1st) and of course, no fishing today but it did sort of leak into the early hours this morning.

If you remember in the last article, our hookup rate was suffering on weightless or internally weighted soft drifted, swung or bounced lures. It was borderline diabolical in fact. So, rather than accept it, I set about a series of trials to change it.

I did a series of tests pulling hooks through lures. Many didn't pull right through, some snagged, some folded..and some just plain didn't work rigged weedless. No wonder we wern't getting clean strikes.

I have had prevoius experience swinging 'needlefish lures' through current and one of the primary pre-requisites for a great needle is level sinking. Level sinking OTD lures just seem to catch more fish. I knew of one soft lure that would emulate that level sink. Of course, that lure is the Senko. Basically a stick bait designed by Gary Yamamoto for Large and Small-mouthed Bass.

It also weighs enough to be very castable and it has a great sink rate. A 4" Senko weighs in a 7g or 1/4oz and a 5" weighs in at 10g or close to 3/8oz. You can rig Senko's on jigheads but they work best weightless and weedless.

Before we move along, there are some fantastic Senko articles out there so there is little point in me repeating alot of it here. I recommend wading through this though and reading more of Russ Bassdozer's stuff. See this Senko article HERE.

Anyway, cutting a long story short, I soon figured that I could swing Senko's for Bass in the sea. It works great. After 3 hours in daylight rigging, playing with the feel and knowing what size lure, weight, hook and rigging to use I ventured out later that night to fish a shallow ebbtibe gutter with both 4 and 5" Senko's. I was upto my armpits in water swinging them at 5 -- 6 rod lengths. 7 Bass to 4lb. Great start for the Senko and with 1 notable change. Nearly a 100% hookup ratio. I did miss a few takes but I wasn't quite used to how the senko corrects itself and turns at 12 o'clock yet so I forgave myself.

We'd also hit a few North coast marks for the rockfish, Mackerel, Snipe etc..

Kevin with a nice Pollack. 1 of quite a few actually from deep, extra clean water. Can it get any cleaner ?

We haven't seen this stamp of fish for a while. Again, darker lures, 2 -3" long, 5 - 7g heads on LRF rods. Great sport.

Mackerel to an Emeraude Xlayer. We had some really big ones on the evening tide, some well over a pound. We really try NOT to handle these fish as reasearch shows human handling kills them so C&R is pointless unless you de-barb and shake them off.

This Bass took 'Jig & Pig' deep down under the bait it was harrassing. Jig and Pig is 'Bucktail Jig + Porkrind Trailer'. Very effective at times and we make all our own Jigs and use Pork from 'Uncle Josh' (Bass Strip no#50 'White' and 240S red/white being favourites) and 'Super Pork'. ( I like the Pork Frogs..)

Just inside and under the top lip. The 'Jig & Pig' is barbless, easily removed and from a C&R perspective, what could be better ?

I did another 90 minutes on a run into the early hours of July 1st. 4 Bass with 2 on drifted Senko's. However, once the current started to die the Senko couldn't operate. I had to switch to something else.

Based on the hookup rate previously experienced with the DOA CAL 3 weedless I decided there was no point in retreading old paths. Do the same thing, get the same results. So...

I tried the DOA lure rigged Carolina, 3ft away from a 10g tungsten sinker and glass bead, 16lb FC leader. But, I used a 'hitch hiker' and a wacky rig hook in size 2. Basically, this rig, known in the USA as the 'Stoopid Rig' should use a circle hook but, I used a wide gape wacky hook instead. You screw the hitch-hiker into the nose of the shad and clip the other end around the bend of the hook. Not exactly weedless but with a nylon guard hair added it wouldn't be impossible to get a weedless presentation.

A hitch hiker is essentially a wire coil with a clip. Useful for shaky rigging too so get some. AGM Lures sells them now, thanks Allan.

It's too new for me to make any statements regards the effectiveness of the 'Stoopid Rig' but it did take the other 2 fish last night. If it keeps working we'll discuss it in a further article. I'll expand with the Senko stuff too when I get some rigging photo's etc...

So, to summarise:

Since the last article, maybe another dozen or so Bass, 50 or 60 Pollack, dozens of Mackerel but.....strangely...

Not 1 Wrasse ?

What has happened I don't know but, in 3 locations we've not had so much as a sniff from a rockfish. Conditions have been weird though with high pressure and dense fog. I just won't speculate as yet, it's not happened before.

Anyway...

Until next time....

Thanks for reading.