Dan Sissons

About Dan Sissons

Dan Sissons has been fishing since the late 80s. Growing up by the sea in his home town of Portsmouth, Dan was introduced to sea fishing by his father, Bob Sissons. As an active, junior member of Southsea Sea Angling Club, Dan developed his angling career from both boat and shore. It was at SSAC that Dan and Adam Kirby first met and consequently fished and competed together. Life long friendships were forged. Dan, Adam and a third SSAC member and friend, Pete Baker were proud owners of 'Drifter', a Raider 18, fast-fisher boat, fishing the surrounding area, out of Langstone Harbour. Most recently, Dan has become smitten with modern lure fishing techniques and has an ethos to maximise the enjoyment from all species - big and small. While predominantly still a saltwater angler, Dan's fascination with lure angling has seen his skills transition over to the freshwater competition scene, culminating in second place in the grand final of the 2015 British Lure Angling Championships, fished by 60 of the country's best lure anglers. Dan has also won the coveted Species Hunt section of the Cornish Lure Festival. Along with Adam (previously), Dan is a contributor to the UK's largest sea angling publication, Sea Angler.

Posts by Dan Sissons:

17th June, 2012

Catching up – LRF

First of all I should explain my absence over the past few weeks. A combination of no internet and a ton of work to be finished at home have stopped me getting online to update the blog, but I have managed to get fishing now and again. I have been concentrating on LRF from the shore in an attempt to boost my species count but at the same time keeping half an eye open for Bass.

7th May, 2012

LRF’in Away From Home

Despite being kept away from the boat due to the weather it has not stopped me nipping out now and again with a bag of plastics to see what I can find.

7th May, 2012

Black Bream Fishing With Lures

I have mentioned before how much I look forward to my Bream fishing, the fine weather and flat seas compliment the hard fighting, colourful fish well and can signal the start of ‘proper boat fishing’. However with the wind not doing what its supposed to, combined with the wettest drought on record, the Bream’in has suffered a bit of a false start this year for me which is frustrating. However with a ton of lures and techniques to try using both LRF and HRF this year we are determined to make the most of what time the weather allows us to get out and yesterday (6/5/12) was an opportunity to do just that.

17th April, 2012

LRF for Mini Species

Aside from getting out in the boat I still find time to indulge in an hours LRF a few evenings a week. As with most of the fishing in my part of the world it is still early for the host of mini-species available to the LRF angler at this time of the year but nevertheless I can’t help myself and with rod, reel and a small amount of lure I will wander around the harbours trying to add to my yearly species tally.

17th April, 2012

Wrasse Fishing Afloat

I am in limbo a bit at the moment. After some good Plaice fishing a few weeks ago I find April a funny month to fish on the boat so I often find myself fishing without any real aim or target. This is not a problem, provided I am fishing I am happy but a few very quiet sessions do knock the confidence a bit and no more so than when I am lure fishing. Not that it is all bad, we have seen a few fish on the boat and maybe more importantly we are fine tuning how to present certain lures in certain ways from a boat in readiness for some more productive fishing. Even so, its nice to get a take and put a bend in the rod so we have been fishing some inshore marks where there is always a variety of fish to catch.

One of the better Wrasse so far on the boat fell to Pete on an X-layer and gave a good account of itself on light tackle.

3rd April, 2012

LRF Plymouth Style

During a recent visit to catch up with the good people at Art of Fishing in Plymouth we had to have a little dabble in the excellent LRF that Plymouth and the surrounding area has to offer. Not though before we had spent plenty of time and maybe a few pennies in the new lure only shop the Ben and Jo along with Matt have created. Now I have not been given cake in a tackle shop before but then I have not attended an opening day of a tackle shop before so it may be the etiquette, either way the cake/fishing tackle combo is one that works for me!

3rd April, 2012

Mullet on LRF

What I love about LRF is just how versatile it can be, last summer I would often nip out of an evening with just a rod, reel and my shoulder bag and squeeze an hours fishing in and more often than not be rewarded with a couple of species for my efforts. So far this year I have not had so much luck, it has been a slow LRF year for me and the mini species I love to catch are taking way too much time to become active for my liking, so, out of desperation (and buzzed by a new LRF rod purchase!) I thought I would try for one of my long-term targets, an LRF Mullet.

3rd April, 2012

Lure Fishing For Plaice

I admit to doing flatfish a disservice over the years, traditionally Plaice fishing in my part of the world was a wait and see affair. Yes I would decorate traces with beads and sequins and yes I would use huge spoons to attract a fish to my worm baits but I never considered them true predators, this as it turns out could not be further from the truth. Of course these were the thoughts of my pre-lure days and now soft plastics have turned sea angling on its head Plaice along with most other species are a very real target and this spring fresh from a very long winter we were ready for our first real assault on the red-spots.

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