16th March

Brighton Marina - West Arm

A most beautiful day!

Arent we being spoilt by the weather at the moment?? During the nastiness of Winter, I will only fish the tides and conditions most likely to produce the fish. But when the first signs of spring come, its just nice being out there. And so on this day, having worked most of the morning, I popped down to the marina in the afternoon to catch the ebb tide. I decided to fish the West arm, in the hope of an early mackerel, but was quite suprised to find the water still very coloured, although displaying the clouds of silt that are the last stage of the sea clearing. It did rather put paid to my thoughts of early season Mackerel, so instead the plaice rigs went out again, in the hope that I might persuade something out. Boredom soon set in though, so I set up the float rod and trotted small ragworm baits aroun the wall, fishing close to the bottom.

Scorpion Fish - They get very coloured up for breeding at this time of year.

This at least yielded some bites. First up was a pouting, followed by this rather pretty Short Spined Sea Scorpion.

Wrasse are back!! A very nice indicator of the seasonal changes.

As the tide dropped lower, a succession of small wrasse fell to the ragworm baits. Always a welcome sight at this time of year, it finally feels like Summer is happening!

Marina regular Richard fishes into the sunset.