Tara's first bass...

First sailing was a whole boat charter, with a family group. David, and his son and daughter in law, Cameron and Tara. The previous day, there had been colour pushed in on the stiff WNW winds, and it was still evident as we exited the marina. I pushed west, to try and get "uptide" of it. When we arrived at the mark, viz was far from perfect, but definitely better than at the Brighton end. We began to fish. Almost first cast, I hit what was to be the best fish of the day, a nice bronzy fish of around 4.5lb, which fell to a white 40gm HTO Arctic eel. But takes were few and far between, with the bass counter not nearly clicking often enough.

We have seen this before on the biggest tides, (6.7 meter today) although I feel the viz had something to do with it as well. But baitfish was very hard to find today. Much fewer marks than in recent trips. And wherever the baitfish goes, the bass tend to follow. And it can all change in a single tide. But slow was the way of the day for this lovely family. Everyone did catch having said that, and I think we had recorded 7 bass by the time we returned to port.

2nd sailing, was with friends Garry and John onboard, and a last minute booking from Barry, who happily lives right on the marina, so a great location for last minute bookings, I popped to my little hole, but it wasnt playing. I popped further west, which played a little bit. I popped to the outer rocks (I really expected one set to produce, but it was barren) so I popped back inshore. John lost a beast of a fish, which managed to take, and scream down into the reef. Could have been anyone of a number of suspects at this time of year on this mark. But we were struggling. Just the very occasional click. Gurnard and horse mackerel assisted the fish count, but on returning, very close to dark, the bass counter had recorded just 15 bass for the two sailings.

Next sailings looking likely to be on Thursday. Full availabilty on both sailing, and a smaller tide to play with. Fingers crossed we get back to the catches we were experiencing last week ... 07970 112774 to get on board.