27th February - Prospecting for bass

Steve stares at motionless rods

Normally by the end of February, it is worth fishing again. In 2009, I was catching good bags of codling further east in heavy weather, and plenty of herrings on the marina in clear weather. This year, possibly as a result of the much colder and longer period of weather the UK has just experienced, the seas are pretty sterile, apart from the ever obliging rockling. But the fish have to turn up one of these days, and it was with this in mind that Steve and myself headed off for a bit of pumping and low water surf fishing. The SE wind had put a nice surf on, which was encouraging, and beautifuly in the early months of the year, there was no weed either (remember last years weed? Please god, not this year.......)

Steve with Rockling.......

The pumping was reasonably good, so we had plenty of perfect fresh out worms. But despite fishing the flood right up to the beach, the only fish came as the water deepended and the surf eased off, and was of course a rockling. Had there been any bass about, all self respecting rockling would have cleared the area, so, rather than do battle with slugs, we retired. They must show soon though!!