14th March

Daytime - Hayling Island

A gorgeous day, if a little fishless!!

Turned out for anohter forum meet, and was very happy to be travelling west, with my mate Nick on board, to fish with angling coach and journalist Adrian Farley. What that guy doesnt know about fishing the Eastern solent isnt worth knowing. A lifelong resident of the area, he has fished during some of the best shore plaice fishing times ever, with huge catches just yards from his home, 20 years ago. But the tragedy is he also gets to see how the plaice fishing has been destroyed, reckoned due to enviromental destruction of the mussel beds that were once a prominent feature of this coast. Nowadays, the plaice are few and far between. We were all targetting them, about fifteen or so anglers, and we all failed to catch one. Still, the sun shone, and life was good!!

Night-time Brighton Beaches

We took at least tne of these technically legal but released cos they were tiny Bass.....!!

After a hard days fishing, and with a bucket of most excellent pumped lugworm that Nick and I had collected the previous night, and that had remained hardly used during the day, I suggested we pop down to one of the local "bankers" for an early bass or two. I must admit I wasnt quite expecting the volume of fish that we found. On arrival, another friend Steve was fishing there. He had been fishing for a couple of hours, with a very nice sized flounder to show for his efforts, to wrapped black lug. We set up a simple and light link ledger, threaded our whole juicy lug, and proceeded to fish. No big casting here, the fish on the late ebb are only fifteen to twenty yards out. I engaged the bail arm, and began chatting to Steve. Didnt get more than three words out when "BANG" the rod was being ripped from my arm. A nice bass of 38cm did its best to get off the hook, and fought like a fish twice its size, in the strong flow that this mark produces.

Nick gets in on the Spikey action

To say the fishing was frantic was an understatement, as the bites were fast and furious. Nick and myself fell into competitive mode. I got to ten fish, and I think Nick was on about six or seven at that point, when I couldnt bare the look on Steve's face any longer. We had already persuaded him to change his rig, and to share our bait, but he still hadnt managed to hook one of these bass. I swapped rods with him, and it was the kiss of death for my fishing. Strangely, Steve didnt get a bite on my rod, I didnt get a hint of a fish on his rod, whilst Nick was still banging fish after fish. Steve had to leave, and we gutted his flounder. Rammed to the gills with small sandeels!! Explained why so many bass were around!! I dropped even shorter with the new tide and managed to find a few more fish, but Nick had gone way in front. The final tally was Nick 19 bass, myself 13. At least ten of the fish were in the "techincally legal" bracket, but the reality is that these unspawned fish should only be taken in extreme hunger situations!!