OTT start to April.

 Went out on the 1st of April hoping to see some more surface action from the coalies that have extended their stay this year. Usually we'd get plenty over winter but then they'd go quiet around March time until we hit May. Not this year though as it appears that they and the pollock are in and in feeding mode. 

Started the day on a shallow mark and sure enough the Autowalker 83S found the coalies. Definitely had a couple pollock swat it too but hooking the fish was another matter. Despite the numerous blow ups, it took some tweaking to get them hooked. Again the slower retrieve whilst connected on the middle ring of the lure gave the most positive bites. Saying that, towards the end of the day the fish became more aggressive and the normal way of rigging had more success. Even made a wee vid for old times sake...

Ravenous skinny coalies!

After changing spot and  having enough of the light game, I switched to the heavy setup looking for some bigger fish. They were very positive towards my soft plastics with red being the preferred colour, though they got even more fired up when the A-rig came out! I love power fishing for them like this around spawning time and this is definitely a presentation that seems to deter the smaller fish.

Love how they get a subtle purple colour this time of year.

A-rig doing the damage.

The action only seemed to be getting better as the day got on but I felt very satisfied with the fishing and decided to call it a day. I'm fairly sure that I have now had a fish on topwaters every month of the year! Who needs tropical predators when you have coalies... Hopefully we'll get some more settled weather and the fishing continues like this, water temperature has risen half a degree in the past couple weeks to 8.5C so I suppose it's only gonna get warmer now. Its amazing to see that even with all that snow and ice, it barely got below 8C this year and already rising...

Tight lines.

March opener.

 We had a week of great weather last week but as I was very busy at work, I only got time for a last minute session on Saturday. There was a wee swell running and a slight chop at times but good enough for a session this time of year. Got the boat loaded and headed down the slip. No particular plan on the day but I was hoping that the coalies would've stuck around so that I could have a go with the topwater again. Madness to be talking about topwaters this time of year but a man can hope...

I narrowly missed the best tide state for the first mark but decided to stick around as it was the most sheltered spot in the area. Surely some coalies would still be around... As in last time, I moved slowly just with the trolling motor and started with soft plastics. Not much was happening and it seemed that I missed the pollock breakfast time. I did get a few sharp bites though meaning the coalies were around. On went the Autowalker 83s though this time  I clipped the snap at the middle of the lure (where the hook is on the larger model). I saw this trick from seabass angler George Boukis and really liked the very lazy s action on very slow retrieve of the Autowalker 83s. The downsides to using it this way are the reduced casting distance and the need for flat calm conditions. I started casting around and after getting the speed right, it wasn't long till I started getting some hits. Most of the fish were coalies as expected but I'm sure I had a couple pollock going for it as well in their usual airborne way...  After a few missed hits I soon had the first fish coming up and it was such great fun on my light eging (squid fishing rod). It's a  Savage Gear Salt Egi  8'2 6-12g that I got mainly for sea trout and other light game with hard baits. 

Warrior coalfish OTT 

Plenty of decent Pollock 

After a few fish I'd clip the lure from the front again just to see if I'd get the same reaction from the fish. It was evident that they really wanted the slower, more pronounced action though as I only got a fraction of the strikes this way.  March is probably the last month I'd expect to get action on topwaters anyway and it felt slower than last time, with the fish being far more finicky. Nevertheless, they still came up as long as the lure was worked slower whilst keeping a good action. 

I fished this spot until the bite died and then hit the deeper marks.  Soft plastics did the damage there and had a steady stream of pollock and a few coalies before moving again to a more exposed spot. Here the fish weren't really up for it but a change in colour (from chartreuse to pink) unlocked them and I had a couple more fish to finish off the day.

It's been a weird winter to say the least. Quite frustrating that it's been consistently bad weather to get out but quite productive when I did manage to go. I really hope I get a couple chances to target the big females before they spawn  although time is running out...

Tight lines!