August

The Princess reminded me that we hadn’t spent a night at the Valley for two whole years and with a dry, warm forecast coupled with us having coinciding time off for a change it was too good an opportunity to miss.  Though to be honest I was considering suggesting an evening on the beach instead…  But for the first time since April the car trundled down the dusty track

I had a couple of rods out by 1800; double fake corn on the left and a pop up on a chod to the right.  Both were fished close in, just short of thick weed and the area had been baited with a load of hemp, a kilo or so of pellets and a few boilies.  Despite having a look around I’d found no clues so I was basically fishing blind, bait a spot and hope something finds the food.  This approach has never ever worked here before (well to be fair it almost did once…) but with a dramatically increased stock of fish I felt I was in with a chance.  I had several liners through the evening but these could well have been from the masses of Rudd that would have swarmed the hemp.  I couldn’t help but wish I was sitting on a beach, staring up at tips and listening to the sound of waves on shingle.

The conditions were pleasant for sitting staring at water, the light fell out of the sky and the stars began to pierce through.  Unfortunately the mosquitos were a permanent fixture and in the end they did for us and we sought sanctuary in a zipped up bivvy.  There we stayed through the dark hours, a liner woke me with light in the sky but I didn’t hurry out of bed.

I was up by about 0830 and started ringing the changes, which is just another way of saying ‘trying to catch something’.  I float fished corn for a while, in the hope of a Tench though quite why I’d expect to catch anything other than Rudd is beyond me.  The fish I caught were golden and beautiful, perfect livebait size too, now I’m thinking ahead.  I soon became bored of the Rudd so sat behind buzzers while I cooked breakfast, the smell of sausages lured the Princess out of bed and we sat in the sun for a while, breathing mozzie free air for a change.  Nothing fishy happened so we departed when the test match called.

Early (ish) on a Saturday morning, the car is slipping through quiet country roads…  Which sounds like a hideous C&W song but rest assured ‘Idles’ were blasting out of my stereo.  I arrived at yet another ‘new’ coastal car park and by 0830 I was fishing on another stretch of Suffolk shingle, staring out at the open expanse of the North Sea in front of me.  The morning was cool and mostly cloudy with light winds from the south east.  High tide was due around 1130, I would have preferred to fish this evening into darkness but the forecast was shit and I didn’t fancy sitting so exposed through rain and storms. 

Today my bait was squid, squid and more squid fished either whole or in strips of various sizes.  This was mounted on my usual set ups and fished at various ranges throughout the morning.  With everything sorted I sat on my comfortable chair and watched two stationary rod tips.  Unfortunately the tips stayed fairly still all morning; I had a couple of rattles ninety minutes or so before high tide and another couple ninety minutes after but nothing developed and I didn’t manage to bring a fish up the beach.  Maybe if I’d brought Ragworm with me things would have been different?  I did see a Seal, several Oyster catchers and a Ringed Plover landed close to me on the beach.  What’s more despite blanking I enjoyed myself, as I have done fishing saltwater all summer and nothing is more important than that.