All Sea Fishing

Had a bit of a change this year and along with many other new things that have happened I have given up smoking.
All my spare time is now spent repairing the years of damage caused by smoking and that means a lot of mountain biking and gym work. So the fishing has taken a back seat.

Will have a go next year.

Normaly during the summer months I fish local and have a few trips down to Hampshire and Dorset, but this year I deceided to check out a few marks along the Medway river.

Me and Chris started this off with a trip to Horrid Hill at 01:00 and produced four bass. Two days later I returned to the same spot, but at a low tide so I could see what I was casting into. Managed to collect six peelers and set myself up for the in-coming tide, which proved succesful with a catch of eleven bass.

I returned to this spot and a few others along the medway during the summer and was rewarded with 55 bass and a decent sized dab.

Am now planning on exploring more of the river next year and finding some new marks.

Notes:
Start of the season: Fish up, fish down, even in shallow water.
Mid season: Fish up, stop up on high for an hour and then fish down to shallow water.
Late season: Fish up to high and then pack up and go home.

Met up at Scotts bait and Tackle at just gone 16:00 (09-01-10) said the hello’s and off we all went in different directions.

This was one time I wished I had a 4X4 vehicle as the roads were covered in snow and ice up to 4-6 inches deep, along with the blizzard and F6 to F7 winds. Made my way (slowly) to the point and had one of those stupid moments by trying to drive up the ramp onto the shingle, only to come back down again backwards in 1st.

Drove back towards the entrance to Bartons and had my second stupid idea as I drove up onto the kerb and then on the grass. Got out and walked up the shingle, it was absolutely evil. Horizontal snow, massive breakers. It was perfect.

Got back in car and got stuck and spent 10 minutes spinning and rocking back and forth. In the end I got a shot at the old seawall, drove up it, snatched it into reverse and shot out onto the road like I was on some new action movie.

Right I remember I was going fishing.

So parked up at the bottom of the steps, opposite Bartons and spent the next 20 minutes sorting my gear out and trying to get into my floatation suit, which I eventually managed when a gust of wind knocked me over and both feet popped out the right holes in the suit.

Set up in the corner of Bartons and first thing up was the windbreak, followed by the Igloo which considering the wind strength, went up without any ballast on the skirt and was followed by the tripod and as it was a one rod, two hook comp I choose the Penn 15ft 9in rod and a Penn fast retrieve fixed spool reel.

Rig used to start with was a two hook flapper rig, using size 1/0 circle hooks, which were loaded up with big juicy lug, rag and tipped with a sliver of bluey.

This got a thump out, but judging from the wind, probably did not go far.

The weed became a nightmare (as if the blizzard was not already) and seeing a bite was impossible. When reeled in both baits were intact, so more was added and out it went again.

This carried on for a few hours in the end I managed to catch two branches, a bikini on a branch and around 500lbs of weed. It was now getting on for 20:15 and I decided that enough is enough and called it a day.

Just about got the car onto the road and drove back at 15 – 20mph.

Got to Scotts Tackle just after 21:30 and was greeted by a nice steaming cup of tea and one by one the others returned. All with roughly the same story of weed, weed and baits untouched. Craig had a flounder, but it was just under sized and did not count.

The prize money was split into three amounts of £50 and every one’s name was dropped into a bag. First out the bag was Geordie who then pulled my name out and then I pulled Kev’s name out. Every one also put a £ into the RNLI boat and a name was pulled from the hat, which I think was won by Paul, who won a set of digital scales.

All in all it was one mental comp and something I would think twice about doing again (OK perhaps just once then) but was a good crack and every one in the shop had a good laugh.

Well done to Scott and family for organizing this comp, supplying the bait and to every one else mad enough to go and fish it.

Here’s to the next one.

Braved the ice covered roads on Sunday (20-12-09) and was going to fish along from the jetty, but the slope leading up to the beach was covered with ice and I’d left my crampons at home.

So off to the point it was and set up in the corner with 2 rods. One armed with a size 4 hook and the other using a 2 hook flapper, with a 3/0 and 4/0 Baits used were frozen lug and squid.

Another angler turned up around half hour after I got there and came over for a chat. He had bought up some old pallets the day before and placed these in the rocks for anyone to use on those long cold nights. Nice one George.

So got a small fire going and set about catching something for dinner. To say it was slow, would be an understatement, knotty and feather weed was a bit of a problem and put bends into both rods, which made bite detection almost impossible.

George had a couple of pin whiting and after warming his feet up for 20 minutes, left.

I packed up 1 rod and left the 2 hook flapper out for a little while longer. After about 35 minutes the bivy and other bits and pieces went away and I decided to call it a day, so bought in the last rod, only to find a nice plump dab wiggling on the end of a 4/0 hook.

Oh well a small dinner it will be.