Hounds Abroad 9th June 2010

Sussex fishing dynamo 'Portslade Pollack' and myself headed out yesterday evening for a last attempt of the year at our 'nemesis' specie.........the elusive Stingray! Our favoured mark was just a short drive west, and we arrived at 8 p.m to find a calm sea with just a hint of weed close in. Chosen bait for the session was a selection of Mr Crabs' finest frozen peelers-rigwise,I fished a single 1/0 'Big gun' stuffed into a modified Dvice, and Andy chose a finer wire 1/0 flapper set up. We'd expected a quiet session with an outside chance of a stinger take, but the action came right from the off with Andy taking the first fish,followed shortly by my own bait being snaffled up.Not ,unfortunately ,by our chosen quarry,but worthy adversaries nonetheless in the shape of smoothounds! The action was pretty hectic initially with a bite a chuck which provided some local evening strollers with some light entertainment-Andy informing them that we were 'shark' fishing. A lull in the proceedings whilst we were 'putting the world to rights'(gassing)was punctuated by the sight of my precious AFAW surf nearly being dragged to France by a vicious take.Luckily I leaped into action and just managed to save it from a dunking...unluckily the culprit was not still attached. Note to self:When hounding,ALWAYS stand close to your rod! We had a couple more missed takes over HW slack but,apart from a LSD to my rod, that was that. We ended the session with a hat-trick of hounds each-my first from the shore this year.Sizewise,they were all upper singles with Andy taking the best,and indeed his P.B at 9 1/2lb.That double is just around the corner. Pleasure doing business with you mate!