Wednesday 8 June 2011

8/6/11 A Beautiful Brace...............West Bank.

With my recent enthusiasm for Inshore boat fishing, I've rather neglected the mullet fishing on the river so far this summer.Today however, with winds reaching 30 mph on the anemometer, and some pretty spectacular seas out back, there was absolutely no chance of playing Captain Pugwash so, I decided to nip up the river for a bank session, having finished my extra work around lunch time.( I've now got to find the money for the mooring fees)
The tide was bottoming out, and the water was showing quite a thick 'mustardy' colour with low visibility which is just how I like it. Parking up at the marina (goes with the mooring) I walked up the west bank which was quite sheltered from the strong south westerly wind. Peering into the murky water , I just managed to glimpse one fish in the shallows.
That was enough evidence for me. They were there and I'd been given the mark.
Within minutes of the mash working it's magic, I'd hooked a small mullet which was on for just a few seconds leaving a  scale on the otherwise bare hook.I hadn't disturbed the swim, so in with a spoonful of mash which was immediately followed by a sizable whelm indicating that they were still around.
Ten minutes later ,after a positive bite, I was in again and this one was not going to break free.The mullet put a nice bend in the 'Preston' and quickly took me out to the centre of the river, but as the tide was only just beginning to flood and there was barely any noticable flow , this wasn't too much of a problem and I soon gained control and beached a nice fish at 4-06.
I'm finding beaching  far less dicey than netting, and am doing it a lot with recent mullet.As long as the margins are relatively snag free, and there is a comfortable surface on which to drag the fish it beats messing around with a landing net which is only really needed to weigh the fish.
As time was limited ,and once again the fish was played away from the take zone, I decided to stick it out in the same spot. This was to pay off in twenty minutes or so but the next bite was hardly a bite at all.The float barely moved, and then stayed partially submerged for a few seconds before I decide to strike and hit home run.
Another spirited fight ensued but it was obvious that this was a slightly more powerful mullet. It came in at 5-02 and rounded off the session nicely.Another beautiful fish  in pristine, scale perfect condition as can be seen if you open up the pic.
 The flood proper kicked in , I was hungry so called it a day.I'd only been fishing for an hour.Wouldn't it be nice If mulleting was always like this.

3 comments:

  1. Very pleasant day out by the sound of it Jeff. I'm a beaching fan too.

    On a different tack - a bit of a pity all this quality writing goes relatively unnoticed over here. How about pasting together three or four mullet-related blog entries over the summer for Simon for GG?

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  2. Nice one Jeff. The location looks very pleasant.

    How are you finding the Preston ?

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  3. It's the best mullet float rod that I've used so far,by far.The action feels just right for my needs though I admit, that I've only ever used the 15ft version once. 13ft is more than adequate.

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