First sailing, and out with Ben, Ollie, Harry and Aiden. Lovely flat seas, and still some nice ebb tide to play with. I was quite excited. For the last couple of weeks, although that strong NE wind was not good for lure fishing afloat, it bought advantages and disadvantages for shore fishing. But enough advantages for me to put my shore guide hat on and go do some work on the shingle. Guiding from the shore is underpaid, and extremely physically demanding. One of the disadvantages of the wind is seas are tapwater clear. The Mediterranean sea is positively cloudy compared to Brighton Shingle at the moment.
To beat that, punishing early starts are in order, as soon after sunrise, the bait loses its secure feeling in the edges and seems to head to deeper water, taking the predators with it. Great for BIF1, terrible for fishyrob. As such, all sessions were short, and just two clients each day, that they both get the information and attention they are paying for. The advantages of that big wind is solely distance. And distance is critical in super clear seas, mostly. I say mostly, because one morning I nipped ten out off the back of the wave. Had I had my fly gear with me, that would have been far more, as my shads cant imitate the tiny eels as well as a fly can. Other mornings we made 20 plus between two of us. Including keepers. Really great fishing. But yesterday morning a hard earned 13 between three of us.
Why am I saying all this? Well, those posts certainly created some interest. I counted 40 anglers between the marina and the banjo jetty. And there were plenty more from the banjo to the pier. And I love it. I am a firm believer in fishing being for all. Might not just be the social media posts. Might also be due to the dire fishing on the marina at the moment. Bait fishing is very under the control of the mass of spider crabs. Each year more, and the season gets longer. However, from what I saw on the sounder, and from the birds, or lack of them, the little eels had mostly left the building. Later confirmed by a very good angler who was on the shingle, who yesterday nailed 22, today managed just 3 small. So, my cunning plan had been to tack on to that shoal as it headed for deeper waters. Its just, the shoal had other plans.
Indeed, the session was looking like it would bomb. The bait wasnt anywhere it had been up until now. Lots of running around. And then, for the final hour, I finally found them. The guys really enjoyed the action, which was quite frantic, which is a great arena for understanding the tactics fast. Nineteen the final score, with six taken for the table. A lot of fun, in the end. Well, actually it was all fun, its just fishing is a lot MORE fun if fish are involved.
Second sailing, and Swapnil came back to play, dragging along friends Dimitry, Zorro and Yaroslav. Here, we were ahead of the game, knowing where the fishes were located. But, and I did explain this might be, the slack tide made the fish quite finicky and hard to hit. But with the new flood, the bites became more positive and we bumped the tally up to 21. Just two for the table from this tally though.
Third sailing, and it was my pleasure to welcome aboard stag Alex, with friends James, Darren and Max. This sailing was quite straight forward. We had the tide, we had the location. What we didnt allow for was the huge sea that came with no good reason at two hours into the session. We were ticking along nicely with fifteen (2 killed) when although the wind didnt get very strong at all, something was stirring in mid channel and forcing in energy. White horses appeared over the back. Got closer. And suddenly it was horribly bumpy. I tried a move closer to the marina in case it got worse, when it got worse. Only one option. Abandon and cancel fourth and final sailing.
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