Just once more

I’ve got plenty of fishy plans for the coming weeks but on Saturday afternoon I found myself home alone so figured I might as well go fishing, the question was where?  I hadn’t fished in the sea for a month and hadn’t planned to head east again this autumn but with high tide due around 1900 if fit the time slot perfectly.  So I put some gear together, rummaged in the freezer for bait and off I went.

I ended up at the Steep beach, somewhere I hadn’t fished all season and today it was purely because the fresh south westerly would be blowing over my shoulder, making the threatened heavy showers more manageable.  I usually avoid this area because it is so popular but tonight there were only a couple of anglers away to the north and a group about half a mile to the south.  I set up pretty much bang on where I’d planned, my thinking for this being it was the least taxing walk, if not the shortest.  For once I got the shelter set up first and made sure my camp was comfortable before getting the rods out.  Tonight I had pulley rigs on both with a whole squid on the heavy rod and smaller squid or strips of mackerel on the lighter rod.  I was fishing by 1515 and just got everything shipshape before the rain came and the dark skies promised it would be here for a while.  The shelter was already rustling in the wind and this was joined by the splatter of rain, add the waves smashing the shingle and there was quite a racket but sea fishing is rarely quiet in that sense.

Over an hour past, I’d recast both rods a couple of times but the baits were hardly touched so I was happy to leave them out longer than normal and so avoid the rain.  But these casts can’t last forever and I wound in the light rod for the third time after ninety minutes or so to find a Whiting attached to a lump of mackerel.  It’s about this time of year that these things can become a nuisance and I hadn’t seen anything that looked remotely like a bite.  Inland the sky looked a dark and threatening shade of grey but offshore I could see blue sky, it seemed the rain was hugging the land today.  It was another hour before the rain had passed, leaving spectacular skies in its wake but no more fish hung themselves in this time.  The wind had dropped and the evening felt warmer, the light was beginning to fade now and high tide was approaching so I was confident of catching a fish or two, maybe a Ray if I was lucky.

At 1755, an hour before high tide I saw some fishy movement on the heavy rod, was that a bite?  Maybe not…  But when I wound in a few minutes later the Pennell was tied in knots.  Over the next few minutes I kept thinking I was seeing something fishy on the tip but lets be honest, most of the time we don’t think, we know.  At 1820 I knew, the heavy rod banged over then fell slack and I was on my feet winding down as quick as I could, that had to be a fish?  Yes!  There was a decent weight on the end and whatever it was didn’t want to visit the beach, I suspected a small Ray so was pleasantly surprised when I dragged a good sized Bass up the beach!  A result that made braving the rain worthwhile.

The next casts saw the tip lights attached and as the light fell quickly the torch strapped to my head.  Shortly after getting the heavy rod out again the tip started rattling, I expected it to bang over again but this didn’t happen and when I wound in I found the Pennell in another tangle, whether this was down to fish or crustaceans I don’t know.  In the approach to high tide another hard shower swept in and this was uncomfortable for a while but thankfully soon cleared and as the clouds travelled northward I could see flashes of lightning.  But this was the only moving light show I did see as the tip lights weren’t moving in any kind of fishy fashion.  Despite this I was catching Whiting regularly, I couldn’t see the bites but I was winding one in on every cast, no matter how big my baits were.  After an hour of this I’d had enough, I didn’t think my baits were unmolested for long enough for a serious fish to find them so I packed up.  Both rods had Whiting attached when I wound them in for the last time.  It had been an enjoyable few hours but that will certainly be my last casts in the sea this year.