First sailing, regulars Lee, David an Mark were joined by BIF1 virgin Henry, who is also quite new to lure fishing, and to date had not been successful. Normally the perfect place to sort that out is BIF1 but this morning was very hardcore for September, and more annoying, I cannot really say why.
Bait fish were everywhere, but predators few and far between. Even the mackerel were not that prolific considering how much sprat and Anchovy was around. Surface lures bought 4 bass to the boat, but shads thereafter only bought the tally to 7. One coddie to Mark, but the only fish killed were a few mackerel. A surprisingly tough session for September. A stiff N wind came up which did make things more difficult, but even so, hardcore.
Which left me nervous about the next sailing. However, it had perhaps more of a foodie orientation which helped, as although the bass were playing hardball, we had been banged about by squid a fair bit. And where the squid are, are often bass. With me, new to BIF1 Mark, but all returnees surrounded him, with H, Paul and Nick back to play.
Squid were actually in crazy hungry mood. Now the swells that they hate so much had died down, they were even chasing the shads back to the surface in bright sunlight. Perhaps twice as hungry as it had been quite bouncy out there yesterday evening. Only Paul and H fished them, and they had 22 in an hour between them. Meanwhile... we were also finding bass.
Again seven landed this session, but the difference was three of them were table fish, which, with the food oriented trip was a welcome addition. And just a single mackerel as well. We finished off on the surface lures, but perhaps the water had not quite dropped enough as just the one fish came to have a look. Did look like a good one.
And then a trip I was very much looking forward to. Just the 3rd dedicated trip of the season for squid. The first one, we caught 75 squid plus cuttle. 2nd one we caught 45 squid plus cuttle. Not bad for 3 hours with 4 anglers on a little tiny tub. And after the quite fast and furious action earlier, I was very excited to see what would happen, with Armando, John, Marc and Nick joining me.
But even in squid world, earlier is then, and now is now, and all quite different. We found a squid at each location initially, but by hour 2 we were only on 8 squid. Really quite poor. And then we found a patch happy to feed, so by the tine of the final whistle we had 27 squid landed, plus just a single cuttle. Significantly slower catch rate than at 1100 in the morning in bright sunshine. And its been bugging me why since I waved the guys off. And writing this, I realise exactly why, and will be timing the next dedicated squid trip accordingly to get back in the big numbers. Weight wise though, 27 of todays squid weight roughly was 75 squid did a month ago. Such is the speed of their growth. They will soon be monsters.
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