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Holiday Fishing With Mike Ladle

Mike gives a brief insite into how he prepared for a trip to Cape Cod

Mike Ladle with a striper taken on a Slug-Go

Holiday Fishing – Mike Ladle

When you go abroad there’s always the problem of whether to take fishing gear with you and exactly what it should be. Over the years I’ve learned that I should ALWAYS take the tackle or I’ll regret it. Also I have a basic set of gear that fits into my hard suitcase and allows me to fish for almost anything. Anyway, here’s a list of what I usually pack –

Two four piece spinning rods (4Surespin and 4Surepopper) and a fly rod (Surefly #8 wt), they fit (but only just) diagonally in the case. Two fixed spool reels (Stradic 4000s) loaded with 30lb braid and a fly reel with a floating line. Spools of clear Amnesia nylon from 6, 20 and 40lb for casts, a box of small hooks (sizes 12 to 6), a box of large hooks (sizes up to 8/0 circles), spools of knottable wire (15 and 30lb), swivels (40lb), split rings, assorted spare trebles, a few leads up to about 1oz and including a small tub of shot, a knife, braid scissors, split ring pliers (they double for unhooking toothy fish).

I have a small box of flies (mostly clousers, streamers and soft plastic eels) and a flat lure box containing a couple each of spoons, poppers, shallow diving plugs, shads and Slug-Gos. Depending what fish I expect to find I generally include a few (a lot!!) more lures (it’s hard to resist!). Believe it or not there’s still room for clothes and anyway they act as padding for the reels etc. My old haversack also contains clothes, camera, binoculars, sunglasses and hat(s) and carries the fishing gear after arrival. According to where I go sandals, flats boots, wellies or chest waders are added.

Amazingly the suit case usually only weighs between 18 and 22kg. On the recent trip to Cape Cod with my pals Steve and Alan, all our cases were about the same weight. We had stacks of gear and although there were one or two situations where we felt slightly ‘undergunned’ for casting very big lures long distances, we caught lots of striped bass and bluefish. Here’s a few pictures as a taster.