The forecast the previous day, was for a stiff Westerly wind to be there in the morning, gradually dropping off as the day progressed, to leave a flat calm evening. Which is why, I found myself cancelling the sold out first session, and not booking for the rest of the day, until the evening session, which I had friends joining me on. So, when I awoke to a windless monday morning I was, to say the least, a little peeved. Determined not to make it a complete loss, I decided to single hand BIF1 with the fly rod. I cleared the harbour mouth, and regretted it immediately. Huge swells from the SW. At least 1.5m. I pushed half way to the pier, to see if they were just the usual disturbances that haunt the mouth of the marina on a big tide such as this. But no, it was generally still the energy in the sea from the big blow of the previous couple of days. I turned round, and rode the swell back to the marina.

Fish on...

About 2 hours later my friend Dave rang, to see if I was going out. I said I would if he was up for it, and so, about 11:00, I pushed BIF1's nose out for the 2nd time that day. Now, the swells were much less, only around 1 meter. Good enough. With the tide being right at its peak, I headed very inshore. And it was a very good move. In the next two hours, I managed 18 bass to 3lb. Dave, holding out for a beast with a slow deep retrieve, as opposed to my fast, rapidly ascending fish replication, managed four, and sadly no big ones.

My new UV mask...

Then it was back in, home for food and a shower, and meet with my friends Sarah and Anne. A much tougher session, in the brief amount of time we were fishing, before an extra early dusk caused by the gloomy low grey cloud, sent us into the pub ahead of expected session ending time. Just five bass landed, the biggest perhaps 4lb.

Two non Blondes...