THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

Charlie Pitchers & Dave Devine, Cleveleys Plaice
Nothing like the standard we set all those years ago up around Walney Island. But those days are gone,
and by any new standards, fifty Plaice is an excellent session, particularly from an area we didn't much
see them in previously.
Contrasting with all of this is the drift fishing scene. But first a few more observations, which to an
extent overlap drift fishing and anchoring. In particular, I'd like to look at conditions above and below
the surface.
People tend to judge conditions below the waves by what is affecting them personally as they fish above
them. I've had early season plaice recently in some pretty grim conditions. Snow, biting easterly or
northerly winds, and after having had to scrape the car windscreen to get to where I'm intending to fish
from.
Currently I fish my earliest sessions out from Fleetwood in March and April, because besides the fish
being there, on an ebbing tide as the mussel banks expose, in all but a very brisk northerly wind, it can
still be fishable in a stiff breeze, protected by the banks which almost form a lagoon into which all fish
in the area must drop back into as the tide recedes.
Obviously, prolonged warm or cold air conditions will eventually affect water temperatures, particularly
where it's shallow. But not so much on a day to day basis. Much of what fish do is governed by a
combination of gradual temperature change coupled to increasing or decreasing day length, the latter
being detected by photo-receptors which in turn trigger hormonal changes such as the urge to spawn.
So don't automatically be put off by poor weather on the day.
That said, there are occasions when conditions above the waves can have a very immediate and real
effect on what happens below, and never was this better demonstrated with plaice than on a day I spent
working on a feature for Sea Angler Magazine aboard Andy Bradbury's Fleetwood based 'Blue Mink'.
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