I’ve hardly done any conger fishing this winter, just the one half-a****d session to be precise 
, but after a few increasingly quiet outings on the beaches lately, I fancied a change this week. It wasn’t to be purely a conger hunt though, as after lots of research I decided to try and catch a species which has always eluded me, the mysterious tadpole fish.
Now you’re probably thinking that given the length of time I’ve been unsuccessfully chasing a 20lb conger that I’m a glutton for punishment in choosing to target something else, which is possibly even more difficult to catch, but I do like a challenge, so it was worth a go 
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My chosen venue has produced several tadpole fish in the past and though I’ve fished there many times and never seen one myself, I’ve never fished specifically for them. My normal 2 and 3 hook rigs, armed with 1/0s and cast out to distance, are usually in doggy, whiting and pollack territory, but this time I would be fishing smaller baits, closer in, where I hoped my quarry would be lurking 
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Now it was a breezy night to begin with, and the wind was forecast to increase further through the evening, gusting up to 38mph by midnight, but I hoped to be sheltered at my chosen ledge. As it happened though, I arrived to find that the wind was more Westerly than promised. It was still perfectly safe to fish, so I set up base camp behind a rocky outcrop, to at least get some shelter for my gear.
First rig out was a running ledger, consisting of a 200lb mono snood and armed with a Varivas 8/0, which I baited with a mackerel and squid cocktail, this was then lobbed out 20 meters or so. Once this rod was set in the tripod, I set up a second rod for the tadpole fish, this was rigged with a 1 up 1 down paternoster with size 4 hooks, which were baited with mackerel on one hook and black lug tipped with mackerel on the other. I then resisted the urge to whack it out and instead I flicked it underarm, only a few meters out from the rock face.
Though conger fishing is a waiting game, I was hoping for plenty of action on the small baits but it didn’t start that way. The first 20 minutes were quiet, before I had a rattle on the conger bait, but sadly it didn’t come to anything. On the next cast I baited it with a whole squid instead, which was lobbed a similar distance to the first cast.
While I waited for congerzilla to find my offering, I searched the area in front of me with the small baits, hoping to find where the tadpoles might be hiding, but the baits remained completely untouched.
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15 minutes or so after I cast it out, I spotted another rattle on the conger bait, but this time it slowly developed into something more positive. I gave it 5 minutes before I reeled in and though it wasn’t very big, I had at least caught one of my target species, a small strap of around 2.5lb in weight 
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With my confidence boosted, I baited up again and cast out a little further than before, in the hope of finding something a little bigger.
The next hour was quiet again, but eventually I had some more interest in my conger bait. It started off as a couple of small pulls, but then suddenly things got a lot more serious. I was sitting on the rocks directly behind my gear when the tip of the conger rod started to pull over, then as I started to get up to grab the rod, it just kept on going. By the time I reached the rods, the back leg of the tripod was starting to lift off the ground and the whole lot was heading over the front of the ledge! 
Thankfully I got there just in time and as soon as I picked the rod up, I felt a series of massive pulls. Sadly it wasn’t to be though and before I could settle in to the fight, the rod tip sprang back up as the hook pulled! 
I was gutted to have lost what felt like a very decent fish but there was no point in dwelling on it, so quickly re-baiting with mackerel I got the rig back out with the minimum of fuss.
The next hour was quiet again but eventually I had another small bite on the conger rod, typically it wasn’t anywhere near as big as the one I lost, but I was still happy with my second strap of the night, a slightly bigger eel than the first at around the 3.5lb mark 
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Unfortunately that was the last of the conger action, and the rest of the session passed by without incident. I could only manage a solitary dog on the conger bait, while the small baits remained completely unmolested for the whole evening 
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So that’s another conger session without sight of the 20 and my hunt for a tadpole hadn’t got off to the best of starts either, but I’ve got a few weeks left to put that right, before the lure season begins all over again .
