
Very much a game of two halves today. Well, perhaps three. First light, last of the ebb, was not as rewarding as I hoped. Some fish East side, but not really the numbers I had hoped for. This was made up for West side, on the low and the first push of flood. Also a very interesting observation on the fly side of things. Milen and John ( a regular fly boy) were my guests for this six hour session. Milen soon had the hang of the Heddon One knocker spook, and began steadily accumulating numbers. My fly gear and very fast sink line was also doing the damage. But John, who is usually top rod on the fly, was struggling. I checked his tackle. All looked ok. We swapped rods. He began catching, I began struggling. Had to be tackle related. Was my line sinking better? Well, John snagged a couple of rocks, so he was getting down. Closer inspection showed, his tapered leaded was well worn back. To the very heavy bit. The heavy wiry nylon, was simply not allowing the fly to swim well. Adding six feet of 20lb fleuro, and suddenly, John wanted his rod back...

Finaly tally for that session was 28 bass to 4lb. Milen went away a very happy man. John went away frustrated at what might have been, and has already rebooked to regain his confidence. A very interesting session.

Evening session, really hard. I was joined by Essex boys Matt and Christian. Amazing how many people we knew between us in the fishy scene!! The banter was great, the fishing really hard. I had to search a lot for just small pockets of bait,. Way more spread out than should have been.Just 4 bass, a couple of gurnard and a mackerel.
I wonder if the very heavy watercraft traffic this beautiful afternoon might have been responsible...