20/6/15 Hounding

I'm a big smoothound fan. These fish provided me with endless entertainment a few years ago when I spent quite a bit of time in the spring and early summer , chasing them on our local beaches. They're actually one of the few species, regularly encountered, that can put a bend in your average beach casting 'pole'.
I remember one very calm August night tide in 2008 when I was joined on the beach at the back of my house by  a colleague from work , and Brighton sea angling guide Rob Howard.
In a hectic session, we put together a catch of thirty good hounds to mid teen size making for some very entertaining fishing- a feat I've not been able to repeat in recent years.
Hounds featured also quite a bit in my early boat trips-general bottom fishing forays to inshore mixed ground marks.
On a light boat rod, such as a 12 or 20lb class 'stick' , a smoothound can really show its mettle, and I always thoroughly enjoyed their arrival. Many anglers revere the ever popular bass but, dare I say it, in my opinion, the smoothound is a much more sporting fish with even a single figure fish giving the angler a run for his money.
Snobbery can be quite common amongst anglers, and often certain species can be derided in favour of more fashionable quarry. The humble hound does receive  bad press from some anglers, most often, in my experience from the shore bass angling fraternity. Quite why this is so personally, I fail to understand , but then to me, virtually all fish are worth the catching.
With shark fishing on my mind today's trip was spent trying to gather some invaluable mackerel hook baits, of which I managed to find a few, before settling on 'Brian's mark' to sample the 'smoothies'.
They co-operated and I put together a nice bag of fish around the double figure mark before the sea state sent me packing. I'll be back for more!!