4/8/16 Slow going on the river.

Apologies to regular blog readers (if indeed, you do actually exist) but, as I'm typing this, the calendar in front of me , is reminding me that this trip took place over two months ago, and I've failed miserably to update my entries.
In truth, I cannot actually remember exactly what was caught on this session but, I can assure the reader that it was nothing more spectacular than maybe the odd one, or two bream.
 The target species of carp and barbel haven't shown so far and, despite our very best efforts at pre baiting the swim, I fear that we just haven't been able to do enough.
This is a big water which is sparsely populated and I've been advised by those 'in the know' and who've had some proven success  mostly with barbel from the river, that the effort required, notwithstanding the financial implications, Is considerable.
Unfortunately, I haven't got the dedication to continue this campaign at the level it would probably need to succeed and also, It's early October and my mind is on other species.
I don't consider the project to be failure as we've had excellent sport with the bream but one has to be realistic and after all, we go fishing for fun, don't we.

31/7/16 Average Bassing.

 Nine pounds of Sussex 'silver' #6

I tend to prefer the bigger tides for bass fishing but , the wind speeds of late have meant that I cannot afford to be too fussy and opportunities to go afloat must be seized, or missed.
Sam Wadman had expressed an interest to come out for a day in the boat this week end and a window presented itself on the Sunday morning. The tide was, at 5.2 m not particularly spectacular but I wanted to get my mate a few nice bass so we took the chance.
The chosen mark fishes well on the ebb tide so our arrival was timed carefully with the high water slack and the mackerel feathers were sent down. They did their job very well indeed, and we soon amassed a plentiful supply of bait, both in the box, and the live tank.
The drift line was selected on past results and both of us fished a float fished live bait alongside vertically fished lures.
 Sam had brought along some home made 'bucktails' which immediately caught my attention and has since resulted in me constructing some of my own (more of which in a later entry) but most of the takes came from the usual variety of shads, including 'Fiiish' minnows, Manns etc
We took nine bass from the mark in total , some of a good size (bottom pic) but curiously, the live mackerel were left well alone.
Usually, a 'livie' will far out fish something artificial but this was not the case today, and quite why is something of a mystery, unless these bass were pre-occupied with other prey. There have been large shoals of baitfish about in the sea recently, often indicated by frantic surface activity, and I suspect that the bass, along with other predatory species are taking full advantage of the situation.
As the tide lost its strength, the bites virtually dried up and although I continued to scan the mark  , we were unable to locate any more fish.
A trip to a  bank , a few miles distant ,in an attempt to snag a turbot over a couple of long drifts proved fruitless so, as the sea breeze was by now building steadily, I opted to return again to a favourite reef mark , where bait fishing had proved so successful earlier this month. Probably because of the challenging conditions, we had the place to ourselves, which I always find preferable as it can be a popular mark with our local boats.
Mackerel on this mark were non-existent and, as we had none left wriggling in the tank, we opted to fish half baits instead.
Thankfully the wind was blowing with the tide and although it had reached well into upper double figures , we remained reasonably comfortable and were able to fish at anchor quite comfortably.
A bite off from, what I assume, was a conger (common on this mark)prompted me to upgrade my hook length to 150lb and this didn't seem to put off at least one decent bass.
The take was indeed quite 'electric', which is often the case when using big half baits at this time of year, and resulted in a fine fish coming to the net.
 By now, the quite violent rocking of the boat made accurate weighing very difficult indeed but the flickering needle on the scales didn't quite show a 'double' so I'll settle for the fish being a 'nine pounder'. Good enough for me.
That was the last fish of the session  and ,In truth, I was actually quite disappointed that I was unable to show Sam more fish but my crew seemed suitably impressed with the day so that's all that really matters.

 The best one of the day to a lure.#49

28-29/7/16 Two river sessions.

................and difficult ones at that. Actually, in truth, the second was more of an exploratory session and proved to be quite useful.
We've yet to encounter our intended target species from the baited swim and , although the bream have proved entertaining, I'm ready to give it a rest for a while and move on to something new whilst continuing to bait the swim when convenient.
Our approach thus far has been with feed that will attract all sizes of fish in the hope that 'activity' of any kind will draw in the carp and barbel. We're now considering a different approach baiting with bigger samples-pellets and boilies. Whether it'll make a difference remains to be seen but I personally think it'll still require some serious rod hours to winkle out what we want.
In the meantime, my attention has turned to trying to catch the river's pike on lures-something we've rarely succeeded with so far.
A friend and angling author has however, done very well catching predators on 'artificials' from the river although, it must be said that much of his success was realised during the warmer months.
I'm not averse to a bit of summer pike fishing especially with lures so decided to give it a try by visiting the area of river where I had my winter pike on baits.
A couple of aborted takes, and a dropped pike, proved that they were about and willing but only one tiny pike actually came to the boat. I also had a rather ambitious perch follow a shad that was his equal in dimensions from a swim that both Dave and me had thought might contain these stripey thugs.
Back at the baited swim however,  a pike did follow my lure rejecting it finally at the boat and, whilst bait fishing, a similar sized pike once again found my sweet corn hook bait attractive enough to seize on the retrieve. Sadly, after some aerial acrobatics the pike managed to free itself of the hook and escape but I think that it's highly likely that it was the same fish I landed a few weeks ago on the same 'method'.
The bream fishing was very slow with just a couple of fish over the two days perhaps because we've slightly neglected the feeding regime. I'm sure they'll return.

 

26/7/16 The Mackerel Have Arrived

A 4-30a.m start at the boat secured enough 'light wind ' time to fish  until it all kicked off about lunch time. I spent the ebb on the drift at mark 49 before heading in and finding mackerel in good numbers on #2 over slack many of which found their way into the bait tank. The early flood was fished  at #6 at anchor and wasn't too bad with wind and tide on my bow but it soon built up enough to drag out my grapnel. I finished with a brief few drifts at 'Charlie's' which produced a trio of small bass but in all seriousness, it was getting far too bumpy for comfort so I was back on the mooring by 2-00p.m.

Nineteen  bass were taken on lures and bait of various sizes but no 'lunkers.'This one took a 'livie' at anchor....something I rarely do nowadays.

 Strange shaped bass again-on a live bait.

 Finally they've arrived and I can get 'smokin' again....delicious. Had about twenty in a very short space of time and the sea seemed alive with them- a great sight indeed.

22/7/16 Bonito

Ashort inshore bass lure session (Charlie's) with Alex joining me on 'Jupiter' and what must surely be the most unusual fish to ever grace it's decks- An Atlantic Bonito.
Quite what it was doing up here off Littlehampton is anyone's guess but, I've been informed that water temperatures are unseasonably high and the sea is teeming with bait fish at the moment.
As well as the 'nito' we tempted twenty odd bass to about three pounds, but they were tricky to snag on our 'huge' 120mm Fiish minnows . It was obvious that they were pre occupied and something smaller in the lure department would have been far more appropriate- a fly fishing outfit would have been very useful on this occasion especially as so much feeding activity took place on the surface.

17/7/16 Tope n' Hounds

Always a good laugh fishing with Brian.

Brian's tope which was  a new p.b.

 Woof!

A trip out with marina buddy Brian in his trusty old Orkney-definitely the smartest, most organised boat on the moorings.(sic)
 Brian wanted to show me a hound mark but we were distracted initially by the prospect of a few tope at Mark 41.
Sport wasn't hectic (when has it been on the tope front this year) but we did pick up a few up to perhaps 30lb and when the tide started to run a switch to uptide tactics made the fishing far more pleasant -the usual pound plus leads being switched for 8oz grippers.
Eventually we hit the target mark and within minutes, I had a hard scrapping hound on(a good lower double), followed shortly after by one for my mate.
 I love hounds-proper sporting fish especially from a boat on light gear. I can't help but think if our shore angling friends scaled down to something like a bass rod, they'd have far more fun with these fish.

10,12,16,20,23/7/16 Bream, bream and more bream.

A series of trips to the river with bream to over 7lbs, along with pound plus roach. My best solo outing so far has been fourteen bream for a total weight of 68lb 6oz in a session where I didn't start fishing until 4p.m when the tide had turned to ebb. Copious rafts of debris made the flooding tide completely impossible to fish.

Pound plus roach were a very welcome surprise and, on this particular day, Dave and me had three between us with Dave accidentally dropping his best over the side before weighing.  We guessed it was about a pound and twelve ounces- the largest roach either of us have ever seen in the river. It was certainly bigger than the two we weighed that day at 1lb 5oz, and 1lb 7oz.Bait was small boilie or single fake sweet corn but still fished on the method feeder bolt rig.

 Seven pounds plus and in fine condition. Most of the bream we're catching are in pretty good shape but occasionally, a really beaten up specimen appears. We've even had some with  serious wounds . Pike or cormorant attack perhaps, although the 'black death' are a rare sight on the river.

Two at once. As I was unhooking one fish, the other bait runner went 'Garrity' giving me the chance to get this double shot. Both fish were over 5lb.

One day it pelted down filling the boat up very quickly but the bream continued to feed-one just seconds after this picture was taken. I managed to play it in (yes these river bream scrap to a certain degree) whilst still sitting under the cuddy.

A river sunset on a late evening session .

Dave at the helm. Our scruffy old Orkney really is a very attractive little craft.

 An errant pike 

 that took a shine to a retrieved sweet corn hook bait. We'd suspected he/she might be in the swim as there had been some odd fry activity and also, on an earlier trip, when I put down my underwater camera, a pike briefly showed up in the murky water.

Our quest for an elusive carp or barbel from the swim continues although we may change our pre baiting tactics in an attempt to avoid the bream. Somehow, I think that's going to be a big ask and we'll need a stroke of luck, and some serious rod hours to achieve our goal.

6/7/16 Al's Shark

My good mate and marina neighbour Alan asked me several months ago if he could join me on a shark fishing trip sometime this season. Actually finding some days when the winds haven't been blowing has been very difficult so when I spotted a window in the weather, I jumped at the opportunity and asked him to tag along.

Initially there were two consecutive days of light winds but unfortunately, as often happens, we only managed to get out on one day before the numbers increased.

Penzance was, once again the chosen location and having arrived after an early start, but very easy run down from Sussex, we pitched our tents at the camp site, and checked out the harbour facilities for the following morning.

More by luck than judgement the tides proved to be convenient for an early morning launch, and evening recovery, as the harbour dries completely at low water. Conditions were near perfect as was the drift speed and direction so my confidence was high but, as the day wore on, and the shark failed to appear, I became quietly concerned.

 Finally when the Penn connected to the far set float screamed like a mad thing I felt a great sense of relief and, as was pre arranged, it was to be Al's fish.

The shark, a good six foot 'plusser', fought very well indeed which pleased me no end, and my crew mate commented that it was the best battle he'd had with any fish, ever. As usual the circle hook connected cleanly and was easily released but not before I'd secured a few shots to capture the moment.

Unfortunately that was to be the only take of a particularly slow day so I didn't get a 'go ' myself but that doesn't matter as the satisfaction of getting a mate a shark goes much further than catching one myself.

To cap off an enjoyable day afloat, a large pod of common dolphin made an appearance on the run home swimming right underneath the boat and giving us a spectacular view of these stunning creatures.

The following day, the wind had increased too much for comfort so we decided to head for home having just had the one day afloat.

 The whole trip was made much easier due to a new acquisition to my 'fleet'. The rather 'long in the tooth' Isuzu Trooper in the pictures, recently purchased from my son Jack, towed the boat effortlessly and made life on the slipway completely stress free. It's only drawback, is that it's not a campervan, hence the use of tents however, it performed so well that it's here to stay and  my trusty old VW van can finally breathe a sigh of relief.

 'The Tug' doing what it does best.

24/6,28/6,1/7 High Quality Bream

 Dawn bream

1lb 5oz roach

 7lb 9oz-a personal best

Three consecutive sessions fishing the baited swim  and, once again, the sport proved to be very consistent, although bream are not specifically what I'm hoping for.
The 24th was an all night foray, which is something I rarely undertake these days, but served to remind me of the fun I had when night fishing in my youth, and was thoroughly enjoyable. In those days tiredness didn't really affect me and I wish that were still true today,as It's certainly the best time to be out fishing.
The river seemed to come alive in the small hours, and I caught bream of 4-14,5-07,6-02,6-04 and 6-05 on a mixture of pellet, boilie and corn baits whilst,scaling down briefly to a running feeder (usually I'm fishing a semi-fixed 'bolt rig') produced a welcome roach of 1-05.
Three days later and I was back for a short afternoon session which produced a 6-04, and a new personal best of 7-09, both taking two grains of fake corn popped up on a very short hook length.
Finally, on July 1st, my tally increased with fish of 5-12, 6-11, 5-11 and 5-10 all on big halibut pellet and switching to a light rod, running feeder and worm bait gave me a nice fish of 7-00 but the outfit didn't really feel 'beefy' enough and, should I be lucky enough to hook either a carp or a barbel, would probably be hopelessly under gunned in the strong tide flows.
The scaling down exercise involved lighter line and smaller hooks and was something of an experiment. The bolt feeder attracts almost continuous attention from, what I suspect, are smaller fish nipping at the ground bait particles but using big hook baits prevents their capture.
I'm hoping their presence, and the consequent activity in the swim will eventually attract either a carp, or a barbel as well as the bream, but this remains to be seen.
It's curious that these fish are all of a similar size indicating that perhaps they shoal up with others of their like and. although we're unable to continually feed the swim, it would seem that they're staying put, at least for the time being.
I'm fairly sure, as many of them have very distinctive markings, that we're not getting many recaptures but, I try to photograph every fish I catch so that in time we might be able to identify any individuals that turn up more than once.
Whatever the case , It's enjoyable coarse fishing and, as strong winds have prevented me going to sea, a welcome change.

22/6/16 A Dozen Bass

 

Today was one of those days when I had to search very hard for my fish despite sticking to just one mark.
 I left the mooring at lunchtime with the intention of fishing the ebb tide before having to return in time to catch enough water depth over the river bar. I had about three hours fishing  on the mark and the method of choice was vertically fished , soft plastic lures- 60g Fiiish Minnows.
The first dozen or so drifts produced, apart from a bitten lure tail (wrasse), absolutely nothing but I was convinced that the bass were holed up somewhere and it was merely a question of patience and methodically scanning the area.
Eventually, my stubborn determination paid off and I successfully hit a fish on a new drift line-a 3lb bass.
 Glancing at the sounder, when the take occurred, I saw what I thought  was a very prominent rock on the screen and immediately hit the waypoint button so I could locate it again.
With almost no wind to hamper my drift I returned to exactly the same line and again, took a fish within a few feet of the 'rock'.
This was how it was to continue on almost every drift and I finished up with a dozen bass before having to call it a day-no monsters but all reasonable fish with a best of 5lb on the nose.
Interestingly quite the best method to hook these fish was to retrieve the lure steadily after feeling the initial 'knock' which seemed to occur in most cases, rather than an instant take. In some ways I felt that they were actually being quite finicky  but cannot explain why.
There were very few boats out today ,  I had 'my' mark all to myself, but my good mate, and marina neighbour Tony had been out fishing a few wrecks before dropping the pick to do a bit of breaming f. He did catch a few of the 'intended' but one of his small squid baits was taken by a truly stunning bass of 14lb 11oz-well done that man.
Of course he returned the fish and its nice to know that its still down there swimming around.......somewhere.

19/6/16 The River

Over the past few weeks Dave and me have been prebaiting a swim on the river in readiness for the new season, our intention being, to attract either a carp or a barbel- both relatively rare captures on the venue.
The first few days of the season, I was otherwise engaged, allowing Dave to fish the swim solo and hopefully reap the benefits of our hard work, which he certainly did.
We're under no illusions that our intended quarry are going to be easy to catch and it will require some considerable 'rod hours' many in darkness, and no small amount of luck to succeed in their capture but , we know that it can be done.
In the meantime, as expected, we've been entertained by one of the river's legendary bream shoals and they're no 'tiddlers' either. Over three consecutive days fishing Dave took roughly twenty good sized bream, among others, with fish to 7lb 11oz-the most consistent general coarse fishing that we've experienced on this most challenging of venues.
Today I managed to join my mate, in less than ideal weather conditions (wet and windy) and experience some of the action for myself.
Our 'pre-bait' comprises ; mixed seeds, including hemp, which must be soaked and boiled before using, 'Vitalin' dry dog food and a bulk supply of 'donkey choker' 22mm Halibut pellets.
Our gear is basically our river pike outfits (2.5lb T.C rods) with big method feeders and a mix of pellet, boilie (flavour irrelevant)and fake corn as hook bait fished on a hair rig.
The heavy gear may not be necessary for the bream but if one of our 'intended' does put in an appearance at least we will be properly equipped to deal with them in the sometimes extremely strong tide flows.
Today I caught four bream, two at 4-11, and two more at 6-03 and in contrast to the rather lacklustre battle a bream puts up in still waters, these 'tideway dustbins' display a reasonable turn of speed using their broad flanks to advantage in the current. In short, I didn't feel over gunned.
There was constant activity in the swim all day long and our rod tips were rarely still for any length of time-mostly line bites and activity on the feeder from smaller fish we would assume. I did at one point briefly put my underwater 'Water wolf' camera down and , despite very murky conditions, big bream could clearly be seen and quite startlingly, at one point a sizable pike came into view. Food for thought indeed.
As darkness fell the bream bites faded somewhat and we continued to fish into the small hours but with little success this time around however, it's early days yet.
We both intend to continue 'grooming' this swim throughout the season ahead and it'll be fascinating to see how it all pans out. If nothing else, we'll catch some really good quality bream and personally, I've nothing against that.
.

17/6/16 Tope Fishing With Clive

 15lb Undulate

 9lb Thornback

My good friend and marina neighbour Clive , along with his brother Kim, have been small boat fishing in our local 'arena' for several decades and, consequently have amassed a wealth of knowledge and understanding, and caught a few decent fish along the way too.

In my opinion, as a 'tyro', nothing is more valuable in our chosen branch of this glorious sport than 'experience' so when the opportunity to fish with someone like Clive arises, I jump at the chance , not only for the good company but for the 'snippets' of invaluable information that I tend to pick up. What Clive doesn't realise, is that when I get back home , I hastily jot things down in my little black note book which is often consulted to plan and execute subsequent forays afloat and has indeed proved to be a very useful tool.

Clive learned much of his 'trade' from one of our port's most famous anglers-Dutton Everington. Dutton was a very prominent charter skipper in the sixties and seventies often appearing in, and writing articles for contemporary magazines  such as 'Angling'- a very high quality publication which also regularly featured material by the likes of Darling, Gammon and Gibbinson and was aimed at the 'allround' angler- perhaps a more common 'specie' at that time.

Sadly,I doubt very much whether nowadays such a magazine could succeed primarily because of the internet,  which gives such convenient and instant access to the written word, but also because it appears to me that 'angling' has become a much more 'specialised' pursuit with most anglers concentrating on just one aspect of the sport. It's rare to find a carp angler who goes boat fishing at sea.

Clive however, is something of an 'all rounder' particularly in salt water, although I understand he's also quite useful with a trout fly rod, and I do have a cunning plan to one day, select a suitable hostelry, ply him 'ale' and write 'stuff' down as he says it. Watch this space!

Anyway, today's target was tope and Clive joined me for a trip to 'our' favourite deep mark somewhere 'out west'.

Three years ago I had some exceptional tope fishing from these marks but have struggled a little since then and this year has proved no different. I've had one or two reasonable fish to 35lb this time around, but generally the fish have been of a smaller average size. Today sport was 'consistent' but hardly spectacular with about fifteen tope to the boat to 'upper teen' size. Clive had a nice undulate ray of 15lb, and I had a 9lb thornback to punctuate proceedings but generally the fishing was slower in comparison to previous sessions. We moved the boat a couple of times seeking an improvement in sport,but this proved to be mostly unsuccessful.

As I've found on past trips, once the tide flooded hard anchoring became a little difficult and we were forced to end proceedings slightly earlier than originally planned.Whatever the case it was still an enjoyable day afloat in good company and I will look forward to future runs out with Clive.

I always feel the tope 'season' passes by far too quickly and whether I'll get another crack at these worthy adversaries this year remains to be seen- I hope so because there is a very real chance of connecting with something 'special' in these waters.



 

15/6/16 At Last.......................

 

Tiny but who cares!

Simon's stinger

Undulate

I took to the shingle this evening for yet another attempt at catching a local stingray. This quest has become something of an obsession for me and I believe I've been trying for as long as the blog has been running which is about six years.
The recent spell of settled weather has brought very clear water inshore and combined with small tides , weed has also settled close to the wave line and hindered fishing which has been less than productive for my shore angling mates.
 Yesterday it 'blew' a bit, and stirred things up , which is no bad thing, and when Simon and me arrived at our chosen beach mark the wind was still  strong enough to cause a bit of of 'chop', and the water had plenty of colour.
The weed ' issue' looked , and subsequently proved to be, quite manageable and I think we were both quite confident that the evening would 'produce' the goods.
We had a wrap of rag worm each (very high quality stuff from local shop 'Hook-A-Fish') and a few spare morsels of squid which actually proved to be an inadequate bait supply.
Bites started from the 'off' with dogfish and 'schoolie' bass until a stronger pull on the rod tip gave me my prize stingray. At last the target had been achieved , although it has to be said that It's a rather modest specimen about the size of a frying pan.
Actually I couldn't have cared less by the diminutive size of the fish and was elated with my capture which was safely handled and returned none the worse for wear.
Simon also caught a better 'stinger' of about 7lb but it was the smooth hounds that provided the most fun, on one occasion toppling my tripod with their voracious take.
The hounds, which included some 'doubles', didn't seem fussy what they ate , taking both rag and squid with aplomb and demonstrating that , when they're 'having it', crab baits aren't strictly necessary.
We finished the session with just scraps of bait left as the tide  reached the foot of the shingle on the ebb, and the bites finally ceased.
 The catch included the two stingers, ten smoothounds, school bass, dogs an undulate ray, and an eel and proved to be one of the most entertaining beach sessions I've had for years.
On subsequent trips, over the past few days, the fishing has remained consistent ' especially with the smoothounds which have provided entertainment for fishing buddies Jim, Sam and Simon who also managed another small sting ray
So, the sting ray target has finally been achieved and I although I did light heartedly mention to fellow beach 'nut' Jim that once I'd reached my target I'd probably sell my beach gear, actually, I've changed my mind and my desire to catch another sting ray , preferably something larger than my first, is very strong Indeed. If not this year, then the next.......or the next.......or the next.

13/6/16 First mullet

Today's weather was far from ideal for a spot of mullet fishing from the river boat but, the tide was convenient ( we run downstream to the mullet grounds with the ebb) and , as I'd been spying quite a few skulking around the bottom of the river,  Dave and me decided to give it a crack anyway.
We headed to our favourite stretch - a shallow area just downstream of a sizable bend where the flow is very gentle allowing a delicate float trotting method to be used. Bait was the usual bread flake with 'mash' as feed.
With such a small tide however, the flow was virtually non-existent and the wind, which had developed quite considerably, was hampering our presentation .
Not only that but the swans were being a proverbial pain in the neck, which is unusual when we're afloat, so we decided to change tactics, run the boat aground and feeder fish. This proved to be a wise move.
Plenty of mullet were showing in the swim and before long bites ensued. Tentative nibbles to begin with, which is often the case but eventually the quiver tip on my outfit pulled round strongly and I hit the bite so hard , the mullet momentarily became airborn.
As usual, the scrappy little three pound thick lip had no intentions of being netted and simply darted around the boat like a mad thing.
Eventually Dave did manage to trap it in the mesh and the first mullet of the 2016 season was well and truly mine.
The scrap undoubtedly disturbed the swim sufficiently to see every other mullet off the premises so that was the sole bite in that location, and indeed of the session, as we had an appointment further upstream........................................ Hopefully, I'll be able to tell you more about that in a later entry.

 

 

11/6/16 Breamfest At Brian's

A phone call to Simon shortly before lunchtime was enough to tempt him out for an afternoon's bream fishing even though he'd spent most of the previous night fishing the 'shingle'. You have to admire the man's dedication.
'Brian's' was the mark of choice and, as a little experiment, I decided to bring along a bucket of boiled rice to try as ground bait.
The method of dispensing the rice is fiendishly clever and was shown to me by one of our well known charter skippers. A suitably heavy lead with some heavy mono attached is trapped in the bottom of a stout plastic bag using a cable tie.
 Main line of a 30lb outfit is connected to the mono by a swivel and the bag filled with a lump of rice about the size of a grapefruit. This is quickly lowered off the stern, the contents  being held in place on the way down  by water pressure. Once the sea bed is felt the rod is raised sharply inverting the bag and spilling the contents just where you want them.
Adjusting the lead size effects where the bait will land so keeping the 'attraction' in the take zone
Whether it improved the catch rate ,or not, is difficult to say for sure but we certainly amassed a very good bag of bream with 44 fish to just under 3lb  in just 3 hours fishing.
Some of the fish regurgitated the rice at the surface so they'd obviously found it appealing. My learned friend Clive tells me that the rice is a close imitation of cuttlefish eggs which they tend to feed heavily on at this time of year.
Interestingly sport didn't slow down noticeably over the slack water period which is usually the case so perhaps this 'ground bait' lark warrants further investigation.
We had hoped to break the 'half century' but sadly a call from a nearby boat in trouble resulted in us having to quit early and facilitate a tow back to port before the ebb tide had built up too much.
Result.

10/6/16 The Bass Comp.

We had a bit of fun this afternoon on father and son team, Brian and Martin's boat, 'Blueprint' with 'The Elders'(myself and Brian), taking on 'The Nippers' (Martin and Pete) in a hotly contested lure fishing competition.
The bass weren't exactly easy to catch , perhaps because of the reduced size of tide, but I suppose we had about twenty over the side in total with a few 'goodns' in the mix.
Naturally there was a good deal of banter being thrown around but sadly for us (the more mature contingent), 'the kids' showed us the way(trounced us to be fair) but I don't think we showed ourselves up and indeed were perhaps a little unlucky by losing about four good fish.
I suspect there'll be a rematch sometime in the near future.

6/6/16 Top Bassin'

Inspired by yesterday's run out with Martin I decided  to go 'solo' today and explore some relatively new ground in the hope of a bass or two. Setting off at midday with just a spinning outfit on board (no bait) my intention was to fish as much of the ebb tide as was possible before having to return to port to catch the river bar.
This gave me about three hours maximum to fish so I set out to concentrate solely on one mark, and thoroughly scan it repeatedly with my drifts. If I managed to catch, then all well and good but if not, then at least I'd have learned something about the geography of the place.
The first few drifts in still 'slackish' water proved fruitless and nothing at all was showing up on the fish finder but, I was committed and the easterly wind was less than forecasted so not hampering my drift speeds. In short I was fishing efficiently and was confident that if bass were present they would take.
As the speed of the tide gathered the bass 'switched on' and it was a 'hit' on almost every drift-all fish of a reasonable size and all taking vertically fished soft plastics. It's probably best to just list the fish in order of capture for the sake of simplicity and in addition, I dropped three more fish too.
The '4's are estimated so fall in the 4-5lb bracket.
here's the list; 5-00, 8-12, 5-12, 7-08, 4-00, 5-04, 7-12, 6-06, 4-00
Sadly, at the prescribed time I had to leave the shoal and head for home and it was indeed a difficult thing to do but it had been a most enjoyable session and time will tell whether the mark can produce consistently.

 8-12...the best fish