Jims Sea Angling Diary – Fishing in Brighton, Sussex

Tub Gurnard, Kingston Beach, 27.7.2009

After riding 100 miles off-road on my mountain bike for the British Heart Foundation on Saturday, I’d booked a day off of work for recovery on Monday. Although I spent much of Sunday in bed (I’d woken at 4:45am on Saturday, got to bed at 1:00am on Sunday, and had ridden a bike for 14 hours in between, so definitely needed the rest!), as this was the third year I’d entered the event, I knew an extra day would come in handy.

I’d already checked and found the tide to be suitable, so just needed to get some bait and get to a venue. The day had looked pretty changeable throughout the morning, but it didn’t look too windy out. As I got nearer the seafront, on my 50cc scooter, with rather large rod bag and tackle bag on my back, I began to realise that it was incredibly windy, and probably unfishable on the open beach. I bought two packs of King Rag from Lagoon Bait and Tackle, and decided there and then to go to Kingston Beach, which is largely sheltered from the weather / sea conditions outside the harbour.

Due to my having left slightly late, I arrived at the beach with about two hours to the high tide, at 13:00 – meaning just over an hour fishing the tide up, once the gear was set up. My preference is to fish the tide up for three hours, but as I was using this as an excuse to get out in the sun and relax, I wasn’t too fussed.

As the session length was restricted by the amount of tide I could fish up, I set up a second rod shortly after the first cast with my main rod, using my freshly tuned Abu Elites on each – they were a true joy to use.

I fished a slider rig on both rods initially, with two hooks per rod, and just King as bait. Fishing was incredibly slow, and I wasn’t even bothering to check for bites, as the wind was bouncing the rod tips up and down manically. Instead, I spent the time preparing a two-up Paternoster rig for a little variation, and also making a list of all the new tackle I wanted to buy come pay day!

Set up on Kingston Beach

It was just before high tide when I struck the rod to break out the grappling weight, and realised there may be a fish on the line – it was heavier and kicking slightly on the retrieve.. I got the terminal tackle in, but had to clear the weed from the leader knot before beaching the fish. I could see it swimming around in the shallows, just over the wooden sea defence on the beach. Luckily I was able to get it in without losing it. It was a well hooked Tub Gurnard, my third in a month. I observed that this one was slightly less colourful than the others I’d caught – there were no blue fringes to the pectoral fins, but it was a pretty fish all the same.

I unhooked him and watched as he swam off in to the depths, rebaited and cast out again. I then reeled in the other rod, and as slack tide was approaching, decided to swap over to the freshly built paternoster rig, and a plain weight instead of a grap. I hoped that this mix of tactics might help eke out a few more fish, but was unsuccessful. I snapped off the rig on my main rod after getting snagged and being too confident that I could free it without changing the angle too much. So I boshed one more lot of bait on the other rod and blasted it out while I started packing the other gear away.

Final result, one Tub Gurnard to King. Conditions were pretty rough for Kingston, with a larger than usual amount of weed, but there was plenty of white water on the waves outside the harbour so I was grateful of the shelter offered by this venue. All in all a good chance to relax and catch some sun, with a bonus fish thrown in!