Wight Water Angling: Spring Plaice

With the bigger boat now at our disposal our plan this year is to explore more distant and new marks that previously would have been too much for us. Today then, we were heading east on the hunt for one of my favourite fish - Plaice! The weather was spot on - it had to be for a trip like this and we were soon cruising along at 25knots (the boat is capable of 36 knots at W.O.T!) following the path laid out for us on the plotter.
We started to slow up around 40 minutes later as we neared the mark and had a good look around before putting in the hook.
The flood tide soon swang us round as we busied ourselves setting the rods up and in no time at all we were both sat back in anticipation.
The first fish on the scene came in the form of palm sized dabs, they were down there in numbers and for the next 45 minutes we shared a dozen or more along with a few ballan wrasse.

Fishing through the small dabs and wrasse we started to find the plaice with us both taking a fish each before we upped anchor for some drift fishing.

It took a while to locate the fish on the drift but once we found them we had a ball. With a fish or two a drift we were all smiles and in amongst them were some quality specimens. I managed to find the best one of the day at 6lb...a real nice fish...love it!

The second biggest fish was huge in profile but very skinny and out of condition. This went 5lb but could have been a PB in top condition....felt funny putting a 5lb plaice back but there was no meat on him and maybe I'll catch him again when he has had a chance to feed up.