First sailing, and lovely flat seas. With me Damo, Mike and Andy, for two hours of ebb tide, and the first of flood. Sea was again improved (and indeed got better and better mostly as the day went on, with lots of may rot dying and floating on the surface) which inspired me. And bait was easy to find.
Great right? The quality fishing ended when the green arrived. So, now its gone, back to big numbers of decent fish yes? If only it worked like that. Because it isnt only the green that is going. Rock worms are being replaced by sand eels and crabs, and it all needs working out again. One thing for sure, half hearted takes and fish dropping off are all back on the menu, as we hope and pray for fast growing micro fry, to grow even faster.
Both bait and bass were not so hard to find. Just harder to trigger. Smalls coming up, slowly. In a repeat of one of last weeks sailings, it was in the last five minutes that the best bass of the session, just fish no 7, and the only table fish, fell to Andy. And set my head off again. That's how we adjust to the changes. Thinking.
I am occasionally kind to people in life, and in my fishing universe, it often comes back to me a thousand times over with angler who might otherwise be secretive, sharing the things they too are seeing. All very useful data. A friend ashore is on the velvet crabs. Spiders also happening. And some very localised decent fish. I elected to force my next victims, Paul, Marc and James, to religiously fish a particular quite small rock, for three hours, on the promise of scant rewards, but the fish would be table fish. The other option on offer, was small fish, perhaps in bigger numbers, but not guaranteed. I thinks its the way I sell it. They wanted quality.
And with some small deviations to check things elsewhere, that was pretty much what we did. Just five bass landed, four of them decent table fish, plus two bonus small pollock. Hard going but I suspect as the green diminishes, allowing more UV light through to the crabs to enable the calcification process which hardens their shells, that many more will be shedding, and the rocks will steadily become more and more fish filled, as hungry, shagged out bass head for the nearest easy feed.
Third sailing, I was joined by friends David and Tom. Both experienced anglers, lots of room on the boat, and full bore ebb tide, I was quite hopeful. Same options offered, same option taken. But this time, perhaps because of the super strong tide, the bait and the bass were not there in numbers. A small early on for David was ominous, and soon we were on the hunt. And kept on hunting. Finding very little indeed, and with lots of orange rot tumbling through. Near panic. A small for Tom meant no blankers, but it took a drift on an old favourite for the only table fish to David. And the best fish of the day at 59.5 cm, making him cover girl today :)
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