23rd May a.m.
Shak attack at the marina.....
Shak with his first Ballan Wrasse
Having had about two hours sleep after returing from Lymington, it was time to be up and about, and collecting pranws for my meeting with Shak, his brother Anees and their friend Mahboob. The prawning was quite good, so it was quite a shame that the fishing didnt live up to expectations. It took a long time to ge the first fish, which fell to Shak, and was his first Ballan wrasse.
Anees with his first mackerel
It was becoming apparent that the intended bass were not coming to play with the float fished prawn. Out of desperation, I wandered down the arm and cadged a fillet of mackerel. Whilst Shak stayed true to the original quest, Anees and Mahboob switched over to hunting mackerel and garfish. Anees struck lucky on a very difficuly day, landing the decent mackerel pictured above.
If not many fish, at least much fun was had by all!!
A few more mackerel surrendered, but overall the fishing was poor. It was the same all along the arm, which was very suprising as the arm usually fishes its best on the bigger tides such as these. The chaps certainly learnt new techniques, and had some moderate success, so they werent entirely happy. But I am never happy unless I give my clients what I consider to be a good days fishing, so left the session feeling a little down.
Back on the rough....... 23rd p.m.
The smile says it all...... Ray and 7lb 10oz prime sussex spikey-returned...!!
Reeling from the earlier poor session, I truly needed a good session to restore my confidence. Enter regular clients Mike and Ray. We met in the early afternoon to go and rummage on the reef in pursuit of some Velvet peeler crabs. And were were quite succesfull, with about twenty mixed softback and peeler velvets. I then left them on the marina, with strict instructions to catch some fresh mackerel around dusk, whilst I popped back to the bungalow to eat and get a couple of hours sleep. With dusk, I returned to the marina, and we set off for the journey east to some rough gulleys castable from the shore. Mike had his young lad with him, so to minimise the disturbance in anyone area, I got them fishing, and Ray and I crept a further 500 yads along the coast. I kept in regular contact with Mike via the mobile, whilst I focused on Ray. Got him baited up, and he lobbed the twenty yards to the kill zone no problem. Regular readers of the diary might recall that when Mike and Ray came for a surf session with me, Ray missed a clonking take first cast, because I hadnt got to the bit where I describe what to do when you get a clonking take. Well, thank god that this tim Ray knew what to expect. First cast and he got a clonking take. A very spirited battle then ensued with the fishing stripping line a couple of times. No eel then.....!! I walked into the sea, and still resisting the temptation to swith on the headlamp, managed to get behind the fish and slip it up the beach. On the scales the fish weighed 7lb 10oz, and once again Ray made the decision to return the fish into the sea. A magnificent fish, and I think the photo above not only encpsulates the beauty of the fish, but how much it meant to the captor!! Well done Ray, on a magnificent personal best. That was to be the only bass take of the session however, which shows what a fickle game this fishing can be.