The fishing continues to improve as the rot continues to die and rise to the surface. Good news. First sailing today, did not go, as nobody wanted to play. 2nd sailing, heading out on the top of the tide I was joined by regular Duncan, and new to BIF1 and relatively new to Brighton, Sam. Sam's move to Brighton was in part to get involved in utilising its free food bank, that neptune tends to provide on a daily basis. It was a good morning to have him on board.
The reason the fishing inshore has suddenly improved so much is purely down to the stage the rot has reached. It has gone from being hardly noticeable single cells of algae, that begins appearing as early as February some years. It has gone through the reproductive stage, where all the single cells co-join, and then to protect themselves, secrete a jelly like substance. This is the "urrrgh" phase, where the rockpools all fill with slime, and beach fishing becomes almost impossible even with bait and heavy leads. as the thick water puts pressure on the line as it is pushed by the tide.
Now we are reaching the mortality stage. Nature seems to manage the timing of the bait fish breeding to account for this. So, suddenly, we have billions of newly hatched smelt, herring, sprat and sand eel, all high in the water getting fat fast on natures version of spirolina. Massive clouds of them. So of course, bass are also upon them. But what sizes you get, varies from bait cloud to bait cloud.
Duncan was straight into them, as he is a very regular biffer. But Sam was not far behind considering it was all new to him. And today the fish were a little more ready to open their mouths, which was a great result. Half way through the session, we had 23 bass landed. The problem was, none were for tea. We spent the rest of the session looking for the bigger fish. And we did manage to find a table fish each for the guys, but only just at 43cm stamp. But 25 bass between two guys in three hours, still isnt a bad session. A lot of fun, and of course, banter, and friendships made.
Next up, another very regular, who I do also consider a friend, Kas. And, because he likes to see me work hard, two of his friends, who have not fished before, Rusti and Sherril. Heading down to the area where the shoal of small bass were seemed ideal, and we were not very far along before we found a big flock of seagulls, and the screen filled with the tell tail dust on the sounder that was brit eating the algae. Stacks of brighter marks among it all showed bass were among it all. A quick demo of vertical shadding, and rods were bending. And very quickly, we were at max kill with table fish being returned often. The shoal age had changed.
My angling virgins were ticking all the boxes with listening and following advice, which is all you really need to do on BIF1. I thought I would step up the anti, and show them how to cast. They nailed it within ten minutes, and this increased the catch rate further as now we were able to search all levels of the water column. It was becoming a great session.
About two hours in I lost the shoal. Popped out to see if it had gone deep, but only found big bream shoals on the sounder. Coming back in again, the rain began to get quite heavy. With 35 bass landed and a max kills, the guys asked for an early bath, which means you get an early catch report. A very good day.
Wind shutting me down tomorrow and Thursday but Friday through to Tuesday lunch time looking very good. And far too many spaces on my boat, considering it is a bank holiday weekend. Check out the availability ticker on the home page and if you see a slot you like, send a message to 07970 112774
Comments