Back again and what to expect? Last week’s session was the last of the ebb and into slack on a weak neap, five days on and it’s a strong spring with the last of the flood and over slack into the ebb…this time I also have a few small hardbacks and a softie gathered a few days before and a Portland rig to try a livebait with. I pull up at the top of the lane with high hopes and an hour’s sleep under my belt; Si is here already, it’s flat, low offshore wind and spitting slightly. I unload.
We park up and trolley down, I’ve never seen the water so clear here and regret not bringing any feathers to try even though I doubt there use would amount to anything. With Si on the beach I head out to the mark, dropping to the south for the tide to drift me back over it, it should be high water slack now, an hour on from the top of the tide. I drift further south…it’s still running pretty hard. Si joins me and drops down nearby. The large softie goes onto a 4/0 running leger, the hook passed through twice while rod two receives a size 1 triple flapper baited with a pinch of worm tipped with bluey.
Five minutes in and the flapper rod goes, up comes a whiting and it’s not a bad sized bait. I cut the rig off and pop on the Portland rig. It should now be able to swim freely a metre from the lead and with clear water and a lively fish I’m pretty hopeful for another bass; the 6/0 passes through the bottom lip and a 5oz lead finishes it off; I swing it over the side.
Ten minutes pass and my crab rod starts to twitch; I pick it up and feel for a pull which comes seconds later, I pull back and the fish pulls back as I pull it up to the surface. Up comes a small smoothound for a kiss and a look around before heading back to the bottom, 40ft down, followed by the same bait that has merely been pushed up the line during the fight.
It’s a decent bait this, nice and big, nice and firm and nice and tasty! That’s why the rod started to buck again! A better fish this time, heavy in the flow, another starry, around 5lb this time, breaks the surface handicapped in its efforts by wrapping itself in the line of the livebait rod. I bring it aboard and deal with it, unravelling and then cutting the birdsnest out of the line. Great. Holding both ends of the braid with a livebait still down I have to join the line with wet hands in a sea that’s starting to build. Till, nothing hits the whiting and I keep my fingers.
Si gets one next, I turn to watch and it’s a good fish; I’m chuffed, he might not hate me so much this week! He battles with it then, as he’s pulling it aboard something happens, the hook straightens and it’s gone. He’s not smiling anymore, that was a PB.
The wind, so slight before, has shifted more northerly and picked up, the waves have become choppier and larger and the boats are turning now as the ebb begins and starts to reverse us into the wind, a couple of hours after high water. It goes quiet for a while and then Si is in again, another smut around the 5-6lb mark and this time it make sit out of the water and onto the yak; he’s chuffed.
The tide starts to pick up and darker clouds roll over; the clarity disappears as the familiar brown soup boils up from nowhere. Si and I hold a conversation; he’s drifting slowly. He must think I’m being unsociable ten minutes later when I also start moving downtide with a tripped anchor, slowly but enough to be annoying and to make chances of a further fish unlikely for a while. I decide to reel up and head ashore. I look around to let him know and spot a familiar boat on its way towards us, Lead Us is heading our way and I call Colin up to make sure he’s seen us; he had ages ago and has slowed accordingly; last time, back in the winter, I was up and down in the swell and nowhere near as visible. We have a quick chat as he passes by and then I haul my inverted anchor up and paddle back to Si, rafting up for the turn as his is still the right way around and the pressure on the warp is considerable. We swing around, he hauls up and the sea becomes far more pleasant as we paddle in, a pleasant and respectable trip under our belts once again.
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