Plymouth Sound - Seeing Red!

The Ocean Kayak Classic Kayak Fishing competition is being held at Plymouth on the 13th June. A practice session was arranged with Mark and Martin and it would be my first time kayak fishing at Plymouth. After a quick bait-stop at Seaview Angling were headed off to Mountbatten to launch for an afternoons fishing. Time to see what we could catch....

As none of us have fished the area before we had little idea where to try first so began to paddle towards the breakwater to look for promising ground on the fish finder. Every so often a shoal of fish would show up. I dropped sabikis down on the next shoal that showed to find out what they were......rattle, rattle...fish on! A bizarre fight ensued and i wasn't quite sure what would arrive at the surface. Bright red!! It was a Red Band Fish! 

What a beautiful fish, and a first for me. Bright red with pink/purple edging to the fins....stunning! Mark had paddled on and found himself a red band fish too. We headed on to the breakwater to see what it would throw up.  A few patches of fish showed near the rocks and i soon found the culprit....small pollack.

I headed for the Breakwater Fort in the hope of finding some wrasse and although i had plenty of bites they were from little fish and proved frustrating to hook. I left them be and went for a paddle along the breakwater to see what i could find. 

The breakwater is approx. 2nmi from the slipway, further than first anticipated!

I found a few more Pollack, as had Mark, and Martin was getting amongst a few small wrasse.

We decided to try and find some more Red Band Fish as Martin still needed to catch one. It didn't take too long before we found them....

They really are stunning!

This was quite a big one too....60cm long! The British rod caught record is 7oz, i don't think this one was too far off

Martin found his first Red Band Fish, Mark had a double shot, then so did i.... this was fun!

Then something a little different found the bait - a Grey Gurnard

Shortly followed by another good-sized Red Band Fish

It was now time to head back in, we spotted some shoals of fish midwater on the way back so couldn't resist a quick go....eventually a lonely Mackerel jumped on the hook

We headed back to the slipway all having caught the bizarre Red Band Fish. A fun afternoon on the water, not loads of fish caught but the new species by far made up for it... happy days!