THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

Bass on the drift fishing live sandeel was usually our primary aim. Unfortunately, these could be patchy
and un-predictable at times, so it paid always to have a plan B, which on the day I'm thinking of here
was to try for tope.
We had plenty of fresh mackerel onboard which we'd picked up further out in the bay, so we put the
anchor down where the slope of the bar merged in to the bay itself. And to help things along, we decided
to try a spot of 'bagging', which is a ground baiting technique we'd used for sharks over in Gambia some
time earlier.
This involves tying a big lead to the end of your reel line, dropping it into a plastic super market bag,
then tying a piece of line around the outside of the bag just above the lead to trap it in one corner. You
then fill the bag with chopped up pieces of mackerel and lower it to the sea bed using water pressure on
the drop to keep it folded around its contents.
Jigged up and down a few times at the bottom, the bag then inverts, placing its contents on the sea bed
both for scent and to be slowly dispersed by the tide. Fish supposedly then follow the trail uptide to find
your baits, which on this particular day included two very nice turbot I had in successive drops, both of
which were full of mackerel chunks.
One final boat trip I'd like to mention briefly is a week long stay on Lundy Island which myself and
Graeme Pullen did some years ago. I don't think it's possible to fish there these days, but back then the
Landmark Trust were looking to exploit the fishing, and had myself and Graeme go over for a look.
Unfortunately, the weather was awful and the tide rips at either end of the island were wild. But we
went out none the less when the islands launch was available, one day getting around the top corner to
fish a small bank that had formed there.
Typically we were catching blonde and small eyed rays. Then I hooked something which felt both
different and obviously quite a bit smaller which I jokingly announced was a turbot. In all honesty, I
had no idea what was on the end. I was just kidding along.
So when a turbot of around five pounds hit the surface, you can imagine how impressed the others were
at my abilities to identify fish by the way they reacted to being hooked.
Well, if they were willing to believe that then why not let them, though the truth of the matter is that it
could just as easily have been anything. So there it is, my guilty secret exposed, or one of them at least.
The idea behind relating this particular selection of turbot encounters is to demonstrate the different
ways in which they can be caught. But without doubt the best way is with ground coverage on the drift,
particularly in areas where turbot are known to hang out in numbers.
More importantly however, with the exception of my first turbot out from Tenby, what these catches
also very clearly demonstrate is that regardless of tactics, there is a common theme here linking in all
the other venues, that being particulate accumulations dropping out of suspension in response to reduced
tidal activity in areas where local geography temporarily accentuates tidal run.
In other words, banks made up from fine sand, coarse sand, shell grit, or even gravel. That is where
turbot are most likely to be caught deliberately when fishing out in a boat.
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