Bling for plaice... what works best?

[Andy135]

What beads/sequins/spoons do the Outlaws find effective? I've used black and green beads, occasionally with small plastic spoons/flashers but I'm interested to see if I could be using something better.

[Andy135]

Just now, JonC said:

You know what beads @GPSguruuses.

Pfft - let's keep it clean please. I'm genuinely interested in improving my catch rate for plaice and I'm keen to hear from others on this subject.

[jonnyswamp]

I've used luminous green/black out of Weymouth and orange/yellow on the Skerries

Both on the skippers recommendation and green/black out fished orange/yellow in Weymouth and vice versa for Skerries

I think the pea mussels that they feed on around Weymouth are better matched with the green/black combo, when the mussel beds vanished a few years ago the plaice fishing dropped off considerably

There were various opinions on why they disappeared, but last time we were there, there was evidence of mussels on the sea bed again, so hope they make a comeback as it really is excellent sport

 

[GPSguru]

1 hour ago, Andy135 said:

What beads/sequins/spoons do the Outlaws find effective? I've used black and green beads, occasionally with small plastic spoons/flashers but I'm interested to see if I could be using something better.

 

You often find plaice feeding on mussel beds, which is the habitat of the Eulalia viridis (Greenleaf Worm), the favourite food of Plaice.

So, if I am fishing mussel beds, then I generally go for Green / Black beads as that imitates the Eulalia viridis.

However, when fishing the Skerries, I have tried all sorts of colour combinations, and they all seem to work about the same.

Plaice are sight feeders and definitely respond to 'puffing' of the sand, so we always use a watch lead and try to fish it so that the lead continually bounces on the sand rather than being dragged across it. If no watch leads are to hand, then I use an Aquapedo.

Other bling I use are Holographic attractor blades (Sakuma). The trace generally has 5 red / yellow beads, then an attractor blade, then 5 black green beads. Normally the hook is a Sakuma 560 size 1 or 1/0, however, last year I tried Sakuma 440 circles and the number of swallowed hooks was far less.

Bait is pretty important, we rarely use worm, and have found a sliver of Mack, or Sandeel, tipped with prawn produces more fish. The killer bait for the skerries is frozen prawn tipped with squid. The advantage of using fish baits is the possibility of hooking up with a Turbot or Ray, and avoiding the smaller plaice / weevers

A few hours on the Skerries will normally yield about 20 - 30 keepers between 2 or 3 of us, once we have enough, then I usually go to the outer edge of the banks and anchor for Blond Rays...........

[GPSguru]

1 hour ago, JonC said:

You know what beads @GPSguruuses.

🖕

Do you know what plaice look like ? 🙄 They are sight feeders so your chances of finding them in the swamps of the Thames estuary is zero ........ 🤣

[jonnyswamp]

8 minutes ago, GPSguru said:

 

You often find plaice feeding on mussel beds, which is the habitat of the Eulalia viridis (Greenleaf Worm), the favourite food of Plaice.

So, if I am fishing mussel beds, then I generally go for Green / Black beads as that imitates the Eulalia viridis.

However, when fishing the Skerries, I have tried all sorts of colour combinations, and they all seem to work about the same.

Plaice are sight feeders and definitely respond to 'puffing' of the sand, so we always use a watch lead and try to fish it so that the lead continually bounces on the sand rather than being dragged across it. If no watch leads are to hand, then I use an Aquapedo.

Other bling I use are Holographic attractor blades (Sakuma). The trace generally has 5 red / yellow beads, then an attractor blade, then 5 black green beads. Normally the hook is a Sakuma 560 size 1 or 1/0, however, last year I tried Sakuma 440 circles and the number of swallowed hooks was far less.

Bait is pretty important, we rarely use worm, and have found a sliver of Mack, or Sandeel, tipped with prawn produces more fish. The killer bait for the skerries is frozen prawn tipped with squid. The advantage of using fish baits is the possibility of hooking up with a Turbot or Ray, and avoiding the smaller plaice / weevers

A few hours on the Skerries will normally yield about 20 - 30 keepers between 2 or 3 of us, once we have enough, then I usually go to the outer edge of the banks and anchor for Blond Rays...........

Nice info, when are the best months on the Skerries

Hoping to book a few trips this May and June

[GPSguru]

6 minutes ago, jonnyswamp said:

Nice info, when are the best months on the Skerries

Hoping to book a few trips this May and June

 

From pretty much now until November .....

I always find it fishes better on neap tides and there is less flow, so the drift speed is ideal. My first trip will be the next nice day that we get, it is about a 20mile steam for me (40 mins).

[Saintly Fish]

Last weekend I fished with two rigs. One was a bling rig with red, orange, green and yellow beads. This produced nothing. 
The second was a two hook rig utilising a french boom. The bottom hook had a spinner spoon and orange beads, the boom hook had nothing, just a hook. It was the plain hook length that caught the fish not the spinner bling. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[JDP]

Painted nails works well!!!!