Gold-ribbed crab's ear, Hisc, Lefty's wossname and Greenwell's nightmare; an evocative catalogue indeed!
"Just a minute", did I hear you say? "Evocative of what?". You mean you've never heard of them? Maybe I'd better let you into the mystery.
They're British sea-fishing flies, well, lures really, all proven patterns around the south coasts of England and Ireland.
Fancy giving some of 'em a try?
Don't expect to do very well on a sandy beach in daylight, you'll do much better in rocky areas and along the edges of deeper channels. The beach will only be worthwhile if mackerel or bass have trapped a shoal of small fry, or seaweed maggots are being lifted from the strand line.
There's food and shelter amongst the kelp, that's where you should look for your fish. On a warm sunny evening work over graunchy mixtures of sand and rock, or try areas where the kelp almost reaches the surface. Let your lure flicker along six inches above the weed strands, small bass and pollack may explode right out of the surface when they hit, and the pollack will probably be right back amongst it before you can react at first. Larger pollack will snatch a white Hisc in the same places at dusk.
Work a leaded Greenwell's nightmare around the edge of deep water rocks; you might need a sinking line for this. Wrasse will spring from ambush and wrench the rod right over as they dive for cover.
Mullet may follow within inches of the shore at high tide, or they may not.
Mackerel and garfish will swarm within casting distance once or twice every summer. Usually you'll only get one or two before someone else turns up and scares the shoal with a lump of lead, but you'll have more fun. Mackerel are hard to land by the way, they often tear themselves off the hook unless the point is in bone. Garfish are just plain hard to hook, and they rough up the last few inches of the leader with their bill full of teeth so that you have to change your point rather frequently.
Can't see any signs of fish? tease a gold-ribbed crab's ear along the drop off of a channel and you never know what might happen.
At night scad, pollack, coalies, garfish, bass and even mackerel will swarm in the fast water under the lights of an estuary bridge. If you can find a place where food coming off sand and mud flats is concentrated by the outgoing tidal flow then you can take fish after fish on a suitable imitation, either of a shrimp, prawn, or small fish. At night they'll take lures that are actually causing a wake they're so close to the surface, and there's no messing about either, just a savage slash and a violent pull. White, silver and black are the lure colours to use at night.
Generally on the open coast a rising tide is best, it gives the fish confidence. They can come into very shallow water without risk of being stranded, and there is an appetising supply of freshly covered food for the firstcomers.
How shallow is very shallow? Some fish require only enough water to cover their backs. Flounders only need two inches! Big mullet and bass will forage in water that's less than knee deep, mackerel scad and pollack need no more than a couple of feet of water at dusk, wrasse pouting and whiting prefer five feet or more, and many other species will cruise within casting range as long as you keep quiet. I find that I rarely need to cast more than about twenty yards to find fish, and often I'm casting to fish that I can see already.
How big do they go? I have to confess that they're rarely spectacular. It's probably the size of the lures that govern the likely size of the catch, but they average over a pound and very few fish are less than twelve ounces in weight. On one evening eight of the three dozen scad I caught were of specimen size...
Your freshwater outfit will do to begin with 'though the coast is rough on tackle and if you're going to be a regular sea fisher you'll want to select equipment to suit. Reels are more likely to suffer than rods, the sea is not kind to unprotected metals, and sand, shell and grit are bad news too. Unless you are willing to stick to a rigorous routine of stripping, washing and re-lubricating your reels after every sea trip you would be wise to buy a cheap plastic or graphite reel for the job.
It's usually pretty windy on the coast so you'll need at least a #6 line, I generally use #7 - #8, in really grotty conditions I'll go as far as #11 and a salmon rod. You don't have to go out in bad weather, I once went out, successfully, on a rainy night in a force 8, I've proved my point and I shan't do it again. I've also caught fish on a #4 brook rod; it bent double in the process, but chances to use such light tackle are rare.
Depending on conditions, lines can range from floaters to lead-cored express sinkers: Most often an ordinary sinker is used 'though in shallow water a neutral density line or a floater may be needed. Quite often the back cast is restricted so it helps to be able to roll-cast which requires a double tapered line, at other times a weight forward line is a better bet. Ordinary leaders are O.K., I usually use a point of 8lb - 12lb nylon, anything lighter will lose a lot of flies in tough seaweed fronds.
Hook sizes vary enormously, it's rare to go smaller than a size 10, though I have heard of 14s being used. Most flies are tied on size 6 to size 2 hooks, 2/0 hooks are by no means unreasonable. Often tandems are used to imitate long thin baitfish like sandeels and smelt. Clearly the fly and leader need to be matched sensibly with the rest of the tackle, don't even try to cast a weighted 4 inch long size 1 tandem on a #4 line!
Lures need to be pretty tough. In the early days we used to use dog-nobblers and damsel-nymph variations, lots of pretty marabou and silvery tinsel. After a few fish they generally fell to bits, shredded by needle sharp teeth and general rough handling. These days we use hair, tough mylar and loads of varnish. When hackles are used they're tied on top of wet varnish which helps glue them on, but still they generally last only one trip.
At least threequarters of my sea fly-rodding is now done at night, like night-time seatrout fishing this needs practice. Catches at night tend to be more predictable and more numerous and the fish are not so easily scared, but there are loads of fish to be caught in the daytime. A newcomer to the sport would be wise to fish in daylight until all the novel problems of the sea have been mastered.
Like any other aspect of the sport sea fly-rodding has to be learned, sea fish can be just as finicky as those in freshwater. They can be very choosy about fly size and colour, they can come short, or they can ignore anything that doesn't behave quite as they expect. Sooner or later though, the effort will pay off. It's rare these days for my fly-rodding pals and I to have a blank trip, it's usual to take home at least one family sized meal. Three or four times a year we'll go home with rod-arms trembling with fatigue having returned threequarters of our catch, and still having fifteen pounds of prime fish to prepare for the freezer.