Finally I’ve managed to get out and have a chuck, for anyone who does enjoy reading this blog I can only apologise for taking so long to update it. Apparently when you have 5 weeks off work to go gallivanting around Ireland doing nothing but fishing you have to return and there is no choice but to work, A LOT. Anyway to the fishing, for weeks now my mate Steven Neely from Fish on Lures has been banging on about these Molix soft plastic lures. Telling me and showing me that he is slaying wrasse on them and the odd big rock Pollock. So being that I love fishing for wrasse myself I’ve been dying to get my hands on some of them for a while now. Last week I got the message from Steve to say that they were now in stock so that night I was straight onto the site to order some. I think I pretty much ordered one of each type. Well I would say it’s the best way to find out what you like and feel comfortable with. Buy them all and whittle it down to the few that you find work best for yourself. I can imagine these lures will turn themselves to most tasks presented as well. There are a few smaller lures like the Freaky Rock 2” and the RA Shad 3” which I would imagine will work well for the LRF side of things. Then the RA Shad 4.5” and the Sligone 5.5” would work well rigged weedless or with a belly weight fished over shallow reefy ground for the bass. So whatever it is you fish for id say it’s worth having a few packs of the Molix soft plastics in the bag.

It’s the first time I have been out in about a month and there was certainly freshness to the breeze, but this was the least of my worries. For starters with such a long time away from the coast I didn’t know what the clarity was going to be like or if it was weedy and most of all if the wrasse were still playing ball. I decided to visit a mark that I haven’t really fished an awful lot, this not being the lack of fish there but the ridiculous price of £7.50 for parking in the summer. So I make the walk down to the rocks and start chucking, I was fishing the last couple hours of the ebb hoping for a bit of sport before slack tide. The idea was to get stuck in and try and use all the new lures I had and try my best to catch on them all and see which I favoured. I had also got myself some 10g bomb weights and split rings for the purpose of fishing the lure on a jika rig, again this was advised to me by Steven and was keen to see how it stood up to my usual Texas rig. It started slow which wasn’t filling me with hope; I worked my way down to the next gully with the Molix Sligozzo 4” where I was welcomed by the unmissable bite of a wrasse. I didn’t hook up but that one little knock is what you need to put a grin on the face and confidence in the cast. The Sligozzo is a strange looking lure with a big thick rugby ball body with a big beaver tail on the end, and it’s all ribbed so it will be sending out plenty of vibrations and movement in the water. A few casts later and I hit into my first of the session, it’s such a good feeling having a fish on the line after so long without fishing, even with it being not so big, that wasn’t a problem; the fish had some awesome colouring on it as well, worthy of a picture.

I carried on fishing and was loving it, they weren’t throwing themselves on the line and I certainly had to work a bit harder for the fish but they kept coming slowly but surely. After a couple more better sized fish it started to approach slack water and the bites dried up a bit, so the plan was to head over to another mark further down the coast. The sun was out and the fish were biting so I intended to fish until dark when the wrasse would obviously cease hitting the lures. This mark I headed to is some serious looking ground with big deep holes and gulley’s filled with kelp and big ledges dropping off into the water, it just screams wrasse at you. First chuck with the Sligone bouncing it back along the bottom and bang, no warning, straight into a diving wrasse. Certainly a better fight and resulted in a better fish, all these wrasse were wicked looking fish with different colours and patterns. I kept hitting this same gulley and I kept pulling fish out all around the same size and all punching above their weight when it came to fighting. They were all dead set on hitting their hole. Unfortunately for them they were banging into a solid reel with no drag allowed, no chance I was getting taken to ground. As it was my first session out for a while I wanted to try and get some cool pics and I also took my go pro to get some footage. I’ve put together a little video of the session with some underwater footage of the wrasse, nothing professional but personally I love watching people in the UK fishing and enjoying themselves so here’s me having a blast.

As far as the Molix soft plastics go there is no doubt in my mind that the wrasse nail them, I caught on all of them but for me the 2 I liked fishing the most were the Sligozzo and the Sligone. That’s just personal preference but I just liked the way they looked and they caught me fish. Another thing, if you fish for wrasse you’re going to fully aware that they trash soft plastics for a past time, but these Molix lures actually seemed to stand up better than others. I can’t lie they aren’t indestructible. But throughout the day I don’t remember having to change the lure due to damage which in my books is a success. I think I’d be happy to go out wrassing with a couple different Molix lures and a Packet of Z-Man Punch Crawz and be very confident in catching wrasse!

I mentioned I tried using the Jika rig for the first time in this session, it certainly worked and to be fair I almost forgot it was anything different while fishing. It still had the great sensitivity I want when wrassing. It worked as well as the Texas rig for me and I think that it would be good for using if there is a bit more swell running and you need to hammer that lure on the bottom during the retrieve. Also when using the Texas rig because it has the running cone weight sometimes it can rub a bit on the end of the flouro making it weaker, this is something you would not get from the Jika Rig. At the moment I don’t think I can make a solid conclusion as to which is better as I said I think they might both have their advantages. So I will keep using them side by side to try and find where they best apply. I think that’s about everything I wanted to get of the brain; I hope everyone else’s fishing is going well. Please comment below if there are any questions on the gear or technique’s I use and I would love to try and help. Even better let me know how you’re all getting on, either in the comment box or on my FB group. I will post the video on my videos page. Tight Lines