Pollack is another member of the cod family and is a much sought after fish by anglers fishing for the family food table. Pollack tend to be a dark brown/green colour with a white belly.
Their colour though does vary slightly with local habitat. The pollack has no barbel on its chin, and its lower jaw protrudes a lot further than the upper jaw. Pollack prefer rock and weed covered ground. The bigger specimens frequenting the many sunken wrecks in deep seas.
There are man y different methods for fishing for Pollack. Methods vary depending on port and also on the ground that you are fishing. Much of our pollack fishing tends to be over rocky ground, relatively shallow in up to 65ft in depth. Here we tend to fish on the bottom in the search for the wrasse family, whilst having a flyer 2 ft above the lead with 1 head hooked ragworm. The ragworm can account for pollack, coalfish and cod.
Wreck – drop your lure down towards the sea bed, keeping the line under continuous light pressure and thus not free falling. This will help ensure that your lure does not tangle up the main line. Once at the bottom, quickly retrieve a few turns of the reel to lift your lure off the sea bed and snags. Slowly retrieve your lure, counting up to approximately 30 to 40 turns. If you have no fish take your lure, drop back down, and start all over again. If still no take you may need to vary the speed of the retrieve or change the lure being used.
Rough ground – here you will generally be using ragworm as the lure. However lures can also be used. When fishing for pollack over rough ground, it may pay to fish a couple hooks on the bottom, gently trotting the sea bed for wrasse. A high flyer (2ft to 8ft) off the bottom can be used to entice passing pollack to your boat.
