As summer arrives there are lots of different species that turn up on the UK shores that tickle our fancy, be it the big shark species like tope and blue sharks or the tiny species that can be picked up on the LRF tackle like the beautiful dragonette. One of my personal favourites though has to be the strangely alien looking but also excellent tasting dover sole……

Solea solea or dover sole as its more commonly known is a truly amazing species, once you catch one take a good look at its face, they look like they could have come from another planet (maybe they do), and upon picking one up you will feel the power they have, these things are solid muscle and trying to stop one curling up for photographs can be a bit of a nightmare to be honest. Every year from June onwards me and my group of fishing buddies turn our attention to fishing for these, I really like it when sole season starts as it normally means that we will be fishing long summer nights on a clean ground beach scaling down to super light tactics. We have a few favourite sole beaches local to us and we will be doing a few sessions on these beaches this summer for the Sole Hunt Series on the website and maybe we will even throw an Addicted2Angling sole video together at some point.

Tactics wise for sole I will always try and use one of 2 methods, either weighted booms or a trailing rig off an urfe (take a look at my PORTUGEEZER piece on the website to see all about urfe rigs), this how I’ve fished for them for years and it has always worked for me but maybe you have your own method which produces the goods, its all about personal choice and confidence. Why these two methods I hear you ask, well its all down to the bait being kept pinned to the bottom, sole in my eyes are a lazy flatfish, not like their cousins plaice or dabs who will readily chase a bit down as it trundles past in the tide and with this laziness in mind I will always try and fish a static bait. If no tide run I will put on a light rolling lead whereas if the tide will have the capability to move said lead I will stick a gripper on just to make sure that bait stays where it should be. To get your best chance of catching sole my perfect session would consist of a warm muggy night with a flood tide through dusk and into darkness, sole love warm sticky nights and high pressure systems. My tackle will consist of a fixed spool, light continental style rod with the reel loaded with 8lb maximum line, all our sole fishing is done on clean ground with no worries of snagging, plus the light line means lighter leads can be used and the tide will not pull the lead as much. These light lines nowadays that are on sale are great for this, the super low diameters mean they create less drag under the water, cutting through the tide and keeping the light leads exactly where you want them. I have already mentioned the rigs I use but on the business end of these I use 6lb fluorocarbon snoods attached to a Chinu style hook in size 4 maximum but I would go as low as 10 if the bites were super finicky. Why a Chinu, well my favoured bait for sole fishing is the underrated Harbour rag or Maddies as I call them, the Chinu style gives you that little bit of gape to present a bunch of super wriggly harbours perfectly. Another thing to also remember with the sole is that they will come super close to the shoreline, sometimes within feet of the breakers, so there is no need to smash it out, try dropping one right under your feet, you will be surprised at what you catch.

With June well underway me and the gang had started pinging messages back and forth on social media about our next session, the weather wasn’t perfect for the sole but we decided on a quick hit at a mark we know at Felixstowe that has the capabilities to throw out a few flatty’s. Nipping out Saturday afternoon with the dog I went for a quick hours dig for some Harbour rag and whilst I was there I decided to grab a few Lugworm too, only managing 25 though as the Lug bed was covered in weed making digging tiresome and with the dog rolling around in this stinking weedy mess I decided enough was enough and headed home. Looking at the tides and winds we all knew we were up against it, North easterlies were not ideal at this mark and we would be fishing top of tide and down, yet again not ideal as we would rather fish the full flood and an hour down. It is what it is though and sometimes you just have to make do with what you have, fish it hard and hope for the best, normally you will be left with a rubbish session but once in a while you will be pleasantly surprised.

Arriving at the mark it soon became obvious the wind was stronger than predicted, whipping up a choppy swell to the sea, not great sole conditions but there was a little bay beside the groyne that was protected so this was where I decided to focus my attention. I had only been on the beach 5 minutes when Ste and Tom came bundling over the wall and joined me on the beach, Ste as always was super excited to be fishing light tactics, its all new to him and I think he is really starting to enjoy this style of fishing. I had soon set up my rod, (I was only using one tonight and its not often you will find me fishing 2 rods), and flicked out a couple of bunches of Maddies impaled on size  4 hooks. I tidied up my area, I hate fishing messy, and then went for a chat with Ste who was setting up his rods, one to fish close in with rag and another to fish at distance with crab. Both he and Tom had other rods out just to see if something bigger was lurking but I was happy just focusing my attention on the sole and it didn’t take long for my rod tip to start tap tap tapping, I gave it a minute before reeling in to find a palm sized flounder as the culprit, lovely fish but not the target.

The wind was dropping away by the minute and high tide came and uneventfully went, it wasn’t looking good at all, the fishing was very quiet with Tom having a pout and a doggie on his crab rod and Ste having a pout close in. As for me all I had seen since the first cast was one bang on the rod tip, nothing else at all, in the back of my mind I was just thinking it was game over when I looked over at Tom who was reeling in. I could see a bend in his rod and as it go closer to the shore I saw a flash of white underbelly, it was cracking sole, yes that’s just what I needed to get myself motivated again.

Motivated I may have been but the tide was emptying out of the bay super quick and as midnight approached we all decided to call it a day, agreeing to come back to this mark once the weather and tides coincide to make it worthwhile. It was nice to see Tom get one, getting our collective tally off to a start but personally I cant wait to get a good session in on them, plans are already laid out for Volume 2 of the sole hunt but we are at the weathers mercy, hopefully him upstairs is kind to us and lets us get a perfect night after these beautifully ugly little fish soon.