30th March, A.M.

Marina Squid Hunt

Mick (aka Mick the Fish) and Tompot Blenny

With perfect squid conditions, it was time to venture out and see if the tentacled ones had arrived. I met up with George, the proprietor of Tronix Tackle, as we were off to give his range of jigs a thorough working over. We got there just on the top of the tide, and started at the inshore marks. After an hour or so, with no joy, we wandered out to the end, up by the rocks. Still no joy, it was at this point Mick walked up to say hello. HAving been following the diaries, he and his friend Kevin had driven all the way down from London to see what the marina would offer. I had predicted amazing thigs with this weekends big tides, but they had failed to materialise, indeed, the previous day many of the marina veterans blanked completely in a Palace Pier club competition. But with these guys having come down as a result of my musings, I felt obligated to assist them in at least not blanking. I wandered up to their tackle, and got Mick fishing down the wall for pretty things. I then instructed Kevin on the best way to use his herring feathers. End result, Mick got this male tompot blenny, and then went on to catch a succession of wee things, and Kevin managed to catch a solitary but cracking herring in the 8oz bracket!

Mick and Kevin with Herring

We carried on searching for squid, but I was getting restless. Rocko, one of the marina wardens came around, and I asked him if he had any herring feathers. He did, so I purchased a set from him and began bouncing the bottom looking for my own herring. Bite, fish on, but something didnt seem quite right. I couldnt believe my eyes as I swung in a prime, lively sandeel!! Quickly transferring it into water, I got back in to see if it was just a fluke, or if there was more to it. two casts later, a second sandeel, although sadly mortally wounded by being foul hooked. I will do a little work on this patch of gorund to see if there is an optimum time, and to see if these sandeels are a regular thing or if I was just extremely lucky. If I can find a good stock of live sandeel, I thnk my daylight beach fishing for bass will become incredibly productive, as with the combination of the DVice, I can effect preentation previously impossible. All very exciting stuff!! So exciting in fact that I had forgotten all about my squid rod, which was fishing itself down a V. Marina regular young Richard spotted it hooped over, and ran to pick up the rod. Passing it over, I bought to the surface the first squid I have seen this year, which is a huge relief as there are a lot of people interested to attend this years squid competition. Unfortunately, I failed to listen to my own advice. Instead of deploying the dropnet, as the squid was pretty small I attempted to lift it out. It of course fell off as soon as I got its bulk out of the water. So, no squid landed, but positive confirmation of their presence!!

My sandeel's

30th March p.m.

The biggest of the session, returned

Headed down to the bait beds to extract some fresh outs for another low water bassing session. Bait was plentiful, and when Steve came and joined me we headed over to where another couple of anglers were fishing. The surf was dying (dead?) and as a result they had caught more rockling than bass. The presence of rockling indicates to me that there arent many decent bass around, as they would be high on the menu at this time of year! With this in mind, we headed further West to check out some of the structures donw that way. A good decision as it turned out, and another bagging session began. Fast and furious the fish came up, everyone scrapping way outside what it should be capable of. I love bass. Best fish fell to me at probably 2.5lb. Steve got well inot them as well, which excised the demons of his last trip down here, and at the final tally he had caught eight fish. I managed 22, befor it all went a bit quiet and we retired for the evening. Another local was fishing squid next to us, and didnt have a touch. When he put on a freshout, he was straight away into fish. We left him our remaining bait and headed off, as I was really tired, and my back killing me from all the recent pumping!!

Steve and bass