SHORE SPECIES SPOTLIGHT
How, when and where to catch these tough, fish-eating bruisers of the rough ground
The focus falls on the bull huss.
SHORE HUSS are a year-round fish and the only time when they thin out a little is roughly six weeks between late February and mid-April during breeding. Through late spring and summer, numbers build inshore, the autumn period is a good time for overall catches, but it’s often December, January and February when the biggest fish are caught from the deep-water rock ledges in Devon, Cornwall, Wales, the Scottish west coast, and from the south and west coast of Ireland.
WHEN AND WHERE
Smaller neap tides are a good starting point when fishing off the rock ledges. Huss like a little run in the tide, but not too much. They feed well for the first two hours of the new flood, then intermittently through the faster mid-tide period. Slack water periods are less consistent.
On bigger tides, they seek out areas away from the main tide run, such as coves and small bays. They also like a sea with some ground swell, so light onshore winds are ideal.
Huss tend to quarter the ground looking to scavenge and scare up live food, but use the ground cover and their tapered body shape to work between rocks, overhangs and through kelp beds. Other good spots are rough ground on the slacker downtide side of a rocky headland or outcrop. Areas of rising rock pinnacles and the base of cliffs where boulders and rock slabs have slid down into deep water are also good holding areas
Huss will feed in daylight and sometimes in numbers too, if there is some cloud cover to reduce the light, but if you have the choice, night tides will usually give the best fishing. Depth is not overly critical, but off the rocks, look for 20ft-plus for the bigger fish, and the deeper the better generally.
TACKLE
The rough sometimes unforgiving ground huss like dictates that you use a powerful, fast-tapered beachcaster around 13ft in length and rated to cast 5-6oz.
Reels need good gearing and to hold around 250 yards or more of 30lb mono. Older models, such as the Penn 535 (now no longer available), the Daiwa Slosh and reels of equal standing are still the norm for serious rock huss anglers. On lighter ground, reels like the Penn 525 loaded with 22lb line are adequate, but much depends on the rocks and weed you need to pull big fish through.
Only one rig is needed – a pulley. Use a 5ft section of 60/80lb mono, and at one end tie on a Gemini Lead/Bait Clip. Slide on a 5mm bead, a pulley rig bead and another 5mm bead. Now tie in a figure-of-eight knot leaving 24 inches below the knot as the hook trace. On to the hook trace slide on a rig crimp, a 3mm rig bead and an 8mm bead to form the bait stop. Finish the main rig by tying on a size 6/0 Mustad Viking 79515 hook and crimp the bait stop in place just above the hook.
If you want a sacrificial lead for the rough ground, tie an inverted Gemini Lead/ Bait Clip on to the end of the rig body, tie 6in of light 15lb mono to the eye of the clip. Now tie the tag end of this to the eye of the lead weight. Hang the eye of the lead in the upturned tag end of the inverted clip. This will fall free as the weight hits the water to fish the weight on the weak link of line.
TOP BAIT
Huss are fish eaters. Sections of mackerel fillet bound to the hook with bait elastic are the most used bait, but you’ll find better success mixing baits, so try mackerel and squid or Bluey and squid.
If crabs and small bait fish are an issue, try a full squid body, load small bits of mackerel into
the inner body of the squid, then bind it all with elastic thread. Smaller species take time to chew through the squid, so the scent from the bait has longer to attract a huss.
Top bait for huss has to be the sandeel. A good presentation is to cut off the heads and tails of two sandeels, slide one head end first fully around the hook and up the shank and then lay a second sandeel head down behind it. Now bind the whole lot together for security. A sandeel and squid is also a good combination bait. Natural baits, such as a fillet of rockling, pout, poor cod and whiting, are also good.
BEST TACTICS
Inevitably, rock anglers will usually have to contend with lobster pot buoys in front or near them, but this is no bad thing. Try to gauge where the actual pots are by looking at the pull on the marker buoys and the direction they lay on the surface. The bait in the pots, and small fish activity around them, will draw in any passing huss to investigate. Baits placed here are in a hotspot, especially if the pots are freshly baited.
Another thing to look for are surface boils that signify rising rock pinnacles, clumps of bigger boulders or any other rising seabed feature. These will be downtide of where the actual surface boil appears. Cast uptide to where you think the feature sits until you feel you’ve found it, and again this is a spot that huss will always visit.
They are also creatures of habit and if you catch a huss from one spot of ground, it’s a guarantee that sooner or later other huss will visit the same spot.
Use the full ground in front of you, don’t just keep casting to the same spot all the time. Seek out the hotspots. Think of a fan shape in front of you and fan your casts out in an arc, left to right, and to different distances to find those areas the huss visit.
Being from the shark family, huss have a brilliant sense of smell, so it often pays to leave a bait intended for huss for up to 30 minutes, giving them time to follow a scent trail up from some distance away.
Huss bite by first tapping the rod tip, then slowly pulling it over as they swim away. Lift the rod, fully tighten the line until you feel the weight of the fish, and then keep the pressure on the fish to pull the hook home.
The huss has a tough mouth and will sometimes just hold a bait and then let go. To minimise this, your hooks should be ultra-sharp at all times, and ensure that hook hits home and keep the pressure on. ■