Brighton Inshore Fishing - Catch report 10th July 2025

First sailing, and with me regular Richard, David who caught the big gypsy barbel on the fly in Portugal, plus Davids friends Clive and John. No fly rods involved this morning, although they would have worked very well indeed, as there were a lot of fish around this morning. And a lot of them were brown, and big...

Well, big compared to Junes schoolie curse. 25 fish landed, maximum 8 killed, and plenty of other take homes released. Biggest fish was to Richard, around 57cm. Other things of interest. Mackerel galore, with mostly mediums and jumbos on todays tide. And many many mullet just sitting torpid on the surface. Another annual event that must have some purpose. I use them as an early warning system of a bass shoal moving. By watching the spooked mullet jump, you can work out which direction and at what pace the bass are moving.

I was of course hoping that such good fishing was going to be happening all day. But of course, life isnt like that. Today was very bright, small cloud cover. Seas, very clear. And fish, became very hard to find on the second sailing. And such a shame as I was welcoming back Gareth and his friends Mark, Alan and Pete. Just mackerel, and 3 small bass was the best we could manage, on suddenly sterile seas. Where curtains of bait had been hanging just 1.5 hours before, now was nothing.

Final sailing, and I welcomed back Fred and Lee, and Adam bought his friend, fairly new to fishing, Will with him. A few little tricks and Will was firing lures like a pro. And had there been lots of bass around, he would have filled up. But... Actually, I did find a motherload of bait and mackerel, but not many bass were with it. We were on 3 smalls with 2 minutes to run. And thats when Lee's rod made the zzzzzzzzzzzz sound. A 5lb fish came along, to take fish of the day and nock Richard off the cover girl spot.