Too windy to stand any chance of lure fishing where Matty caught his bass yesterday. The wind was still in the north and slightly stronger. I could see the white horses every time I glimpsed the sea from the coast road that winds through the chalk and carrstone villages.
On impulse I decided to go and have a bash around the new harbour, near where what I assumed was a mullet followed my lure in the other day. Maybe that's where it came from, I know there are stacks of mullet in the main harbour a mile or so inland.
Someone's already fishing the bit I fancy, working strings of mackerel feathers. There are grockles everywhere, screaming kids running around, hordes of sunbathers, water skiers and a sailing regatta in progress. Just about the only quiet bit of shoreline is by the harbour entrance, so I chuck a few around in there.
It's out of the wind, which is whipping the sea beyond the bay into a big rolling surf, so I can make the lures do what I want them to, instead of having them thrown around by the sea. I'm not sure what lures mullet like, so work my way through different-sized flashy spoons, rubber sandeels and shads.
With a bit of trial and error, I can hop a shad on a jig head along the bottom, so I decide to just practice doing that until my ticket runs out in the car park. There are sandwich terns and gulls nesting on a headland at the mouth of the harbour. Every now and then, a tern flies in with a sandeel in its beak.
One of those catamarans which service the offshore wind farms comes past. It's barely moving at a walking pace, but it leaves a foaming wake behind and the water boils and colours up after it's gone. I guess that's it for any chance of catching anything here, with the tide dropping visibly.
That's assuming there was anything to be caught out there. I start wondering whether the mullet are more likely to be under the moored boats in the basin, but can't be bothered to walk back to the car park and put another three quid in the machine to find out.
Things might look up towards the end of the week, when the wind's forecast to finally move round from the north, where it appears to have been stuck for weeks. A southerly makes me fancy the shingle for later in the week, as it should spell calmer seas as well as the wind off your back on the ridge.
I'm pleased with how the last few trips have gone, despite not catching anything. The main thing is I've arrived at a set-up which feels just about right, from the lures to the rod and reel. So roll on summer.
Focus on structure, where tide and waves wash over rocks that create some sort of obstruction. It might be a groyne, a harbour entrance, a rocky outcrop or area of shallow boulders. Just hammering out lures into an estuary on the ebb in the middle of the day will not give you much of a chance.
ReplyDeleteIf you are fishing estuaries, identify where the flow is constricted, find out when the tide is flooding hardest through this feature and fish it like a salmon pool for an entire tide. Cast the lure across the tide and let the current work it on a tight line. If the fish are there then you'll catch them.
Also slow down, most lures are better worked at a painfully slow crawl, particularly the JTS.