Shoreham fishing session

10 08 2009

Saturday night fishing with John and Malc combined many ingredients for the perfect nights fishing from Brighton – the venue, the Norfolk Groyne, the high tide, a 6+ metre, at around 1am, clear skies and a calm sea. I envisioned catching numerous Sole, Bass, Mackerel, Eel and Bream, with potential for Smoothhound, Plaice and Thornback Rays – superb.

However, I’d gone no fewer than 6 weekends without having been clubbing, so had arranged a night out with Duncs instead!

I took it fairly easy on the vodka that night, and although I write this during my lunch break at work, *completely* knackered after a busy weekend which also involved an imprompu 9 mile run along the sea front, I felt pretty much fine on Sunday morning. It was a nice day, and I was really feeling withdrawals knowing that the fishing would have been so good on Saturday night (I’ve yet to get a report), so took a trip to Lagoon Bait to get a few packs of King. Whilst there, I bought two neoprene protective multiplier cases, and a reel bag for my Elites; a new filleting knife, some Breakaway Fast Clips and some size 2 Kamasan B940’s.

Filleting Knife

Filleting Knife

I then rode back home, collected my gear, and rode back down to the beach. Being that it was a nice day, with a high potential for sunbathers, I thought I’d avoid Brighton and Hove, and head along towards Shoreham. I didn’t go to Kingston as I’ve overdone it as a venue recently and wanted to opt for a change of scenery. So I headed along the Basin Road South – this gave me the option of choosing one of the many beaches, or heading up on to the sea wall.

I chose to go from a beach, as I thought fishing from the sea wall would be disturbed by the boats going in and out of the harbour. I chose a beach about 10 minutes walk from the car park, and started setting up the gear. I was fishing with King Rag as the sole bait, and using one of my favourite rigs, a 2 hook sliding leger. For a change, I boshed a few beads on the hooklengths to attract inquisitive species such a Flounder and Plaice.

I’d got to the venue with only about 1.5 hours to high tide, so not ideal – I prefer 3 hours – but OK considering it was a fairly last minute decision.

I used both rods, casting my main rod out as far as possible, and the secondary rod slightly shorter. There were a few other fisherman around – a few spinning from the rocks, and some casting out Mackerel feathers (and reeling in with the multiplier upside down!).

Waiting for bites enabled me to check out my new purchases and take some photos – uploads to come. The filleting knife looks a good purchase – it has a short, stumpy, but incredibly strong blade, with a serrated edge on one side. My last knife was one of the items that didn’t stand up too well to several years of usage followed by 10 years of non-usage!

About half an hour before the high tide, I got  strong bite on my main rod (I set the reel on free spool with the ratchet on), so wound down to get a tight line between the rod and the weight, and struck firmly, then started reeling.

I thought I could feel a little kick as I reeled in, but wasn’t sure whether it was the weight bouncing over the sand. As I got the terminal tackle up to the waters edge, however, I realised that I’d hooked a double shot of Black Bream – sweet!

Shoreham Bream, 9.8.2009

Shoreham Bream, 9.8.2009

However, one of them fell off the hook before I was able to get them far enough away from the water to avoid losing them if they did fall off – clearly I didn’t strike hard enough! The remaining Bream, however, was quite a sizeable fish, very plump. I took some photos before throwing him back to let him fight another day. wasn’t too sure about the size of the one that got away, but he was smaller. I got the hooks baited and cast out again as soon as possible, hoping that the shoal was still around.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t, and I didn’t get any more bites. I was pretty pleased to have picked up the Bream though – my biggest fish of the year (OK, OK, I’ve only been fishing again for about a month!). I started packing up my gear at about 14:45, giving myself enough time to get home for an Ebay auction I wanted to bid on (for an original Abu 6500 CT ; ) but had pretty much run out of bait anyway.

All in all, a good session in the bright sunshine, but one which highlighted again the reasons why I prefer night fishing.


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*Another* Kingston Beach session 1.8.2009

2 08 2009
Flounder to King Rag, 1.8.2009

Flounder to King Rag, 1.8.2009

We were saved by Kingston Beach as a venue yet again on Saturday – the sheer amount of weed on the open beach promised to make fishing conditions difficult. Kingston offers great shelter from the wind and rough seas, so makes fishing much more comfortable.

The downside to the venue is that the available species are more limited than a standard beach venue – the most common species to catch are those associated with brackish water. Bass, Flounder, Eels are the mainstay, with a few other species, including Red Mullet and Gurnard, thrown in for good measure. That’s not to say it’s impossible to catch other species, it’s just that these are most prevalent. The best bait tends to be Red Rag, with King performing well on its’ day, and Peeler also often proving a killer bait. Black Lug and fish baits tend not to perform too well.

Malc, John, Nige and myself arrived at the beach at around 17:30, with high tide due at around 20:30, and started setting up. We had a good selection of bait, comprising Peeler Crab, King Rag, Red Rag, with some Black Lug  thrown in for good measure.

Schoolie Bass, 1.8.2009

Schoolie Bass, 1.8.2009

The tide was around the 5m mark, so quite far from my preference of a 6m+. It had been raining as I left the house, and this continued for about half of the session. Fortunately, I was pretty well prepared, using extensive layering for warmth, and waterproof jacket and trousers. 

First fish, a Flounder,  fell to me on my second cast – I guess distance was about 100 yards. Bait was King Rag tipped with a few Red on a size one Kamasan B940, the rig being a two hook slider rig with wishbone.

About half way through the session, I set up a second rod, fished with a single hook on a long flowing trace. Whilst I was hammering the main rod as far as I could, I chose to plonk this one only about 10-15 yards out, in an effort to find the fish.

The session proved difficult, producing a Schoolie Bass each for M and J, and a further Schoolie Bass and an Eel to myself. Red Rag performed well, but I found that the King Rag was pretty effective. This took my Flounder and Eel, whilst my Bass fell to Peeler Crab. The Schoolie and Eel were both caught on the close-in rod, whilst the Flounder was further out on my main rod.

J’s Bass and my Eel were both produced on the ebbing tide; we fished the tide down for much longer than usual, with the session ending around 12:30. The combination of the weather and the small tide made for a difficult session, but once the rain stopped we were left with a clear, crisp night, and I found the session pretty enjoyable. The darkness defeated my modest camera phone, so I wasn’t able to get a picture of my Eel, but here are pics of my Flounder and Bass.


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More Kingston Beach Fishing

28 07 2009
gurnard_kingston

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

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!


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Norfolk Groyne session

24 07 2009

Duncs and I headed out for a session on the Norfolk Groyne, Hove at the beginning of the month. We had shop bought Black and King as bait, and the high tide was at around 20:00.

With Duncs only having had a few fishing sessions at this point in his short fishing career, I was confident that this, my favourite venue, could produce some good results for us.

Thornback Ray, Norfolk Groyne, July 2009

Thornback Ray, Norfolk Groyne, July 2009

We got to the venue at about 17:30, giving plenty of time to get set up. I set up a slider rig on my rod, and for some reason, chose to rig up Duncs with a clip on the end of his line, on to which I clipped a hooklength and a weight. This ended up being a blessing, when after being in the water for a short time, the shoals of Mackerel materialised on the surface, on a feeding frenzy, chasing the whitebait. The slider rig isn’t the most flexible when it comes to swapping rigs, but the rig on Duncs’ rod enabled us to switch straight over to feathers.

Mackerel feathers clipped on, I cast them in to the shoal, and Duncs reeled in, hooking our biggest Mackerel of the night straight away, and a new species for Duncs. Sweet. Another cast resulted in two Joey Mackerel; all went back to swim another day. At this point, the shoal moved on and we went back to fishing a standard baited rig each. We did switch back to feathers several more times during the evening, catching one more Mackerel.

This proved a good start to a productive night.. the next fish was one of my favourite species to catch – a Thornback Ray, albeit a rather small one! Brilliant fish to catch, although it didn’t fight as much as the others I’ve caught – I thought it was a flatty before it came to the surface. So it was a pleasant surprise, especially as it was on Black Lug – I’ve only ever caught them on Peeler Crab before.

It was dark by this time, so in our efforts to get some good photos on our camera phones (poor show), we neglected to get anything in the photo that helped show the scale of the fish – it really was  about as small as a Thornie can get though ; ) 

During the session I also caught an Eel (which didn’t snarl up my rig!) and a Pouting, with Duncs getting a Pouting in the same cast. Duncs also had a Bream from one cast, and another Mackerel.

Overall, we had 9 fish between us, including 5 species – a great session for the variety of species caught, great weather, and some enjoyable Mackerel bashing!


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Lagoon and Kingston Beaches

23 07 2009
Black Bream, Lagoon Beach, July 09
Black Bream, Lagoon Beach, July 09

This is a Black Bream I caught on a trip recently with Duncs and, later, Paul. Conditions were quite rough, and we didn’t realise just how much weed there was until on the first cast, our rigs were dragged right across the beach by the sheer amount of weed that’d accumulated on the line. I reeled in to find this pretty little Bream on the end of the line. They seem to be much more prolific this year than they were around 10 years ago, the last time I fished on a regular basis. Needless to say, he went straight back in after posing for this photo.

There was so much weed that by the time we’d reeled in and cleared it all from our lines we were well and truly ready to change venues. Paul turned up and gave us a hand clearing off the weed, and we packed up and moved to Kingston Beach, in Southwick. A great venue for being fishable when the open beach isn’t.
Paul caught the next fish, a Schoolie Bass (a picture of this currently forms the header image of this web site!) and I caught a Gurnard. Duncs blanked for the first time in three sessions, pretty good going for a newbie. My Gurnard also got popped back in. Bait was the leftover King Rag from the night before, write up soon. We left about 10:00, when the tide started to recede – being a Sunday we all had work to look forward to the next day. Not a great session, what with the move in the prime part of the tide, but we made the best of the situation and got a few fish out of it.

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