First sailing, regulars Max, Simon, Nick and Mick returning. To what actually turned out to be a great session, and a very informative one also. Seagulls gave us all we wanted, although the seagulls were exactly where I expected them to be. The bait in this area is mostly juvenile sandeel, and there is a hell of a lot of it. The sandeel is often swept along by the tide, but it appears to me there are a couple of places where they like to drop into holes, to get out of the tide and not be swept along by it. Both the bass and I know where this happens.
And this time the shoal stayed the duration of the session, as the session was all on the strongest run of the tide. It was only after fish ninety nine, that we lost the flow, and the fish. And it took a while to find the final fish of the session, number one hundred exactly. From that, we killed five fish, which were clearly returned from spawning. A lot of fun, and a lot of action, while we await the main flow of fish coming inshore after their breeding interactions.
Which, seemed to be on the ebb tide. Second sailing, I had returnees Brian and Duncan, alongside Raymond, a BIF1 virgin, although an enthusiastic kayak angler.
We headed to go back to the hole where we had been having fun on the first sailing, but were distracted en route by birds.
Checking them out, was a good idea. Less fish, considerably, than the morning session, but quality was more prevalent, lending credence to the possibility that the spawning is finishing. Those boats fishing the spawning aggregations will know about it. Perhaps today was the first day they showed up to find the masses of fish there just yesterday, are no longer there today. Time will tell. However, from the twenty five fish landed, four were killed, and another two were over the BIF1 limit of 59cm for bass death, the biggest at 62cm, likely around the 5-5.5lb mark, to Brian. Does this sudden increase in percentage of post spawn fish in the final tally mean they have finished spawning? It is certainly a fact that cannot be ignored.
Third sailing, and now that daylight allows, weekday third sailings are 1730, in case you want to work your lunch and have a bass bash after your working day is done. Joining me were all regulars, Dicky, Andy, Tim and Steve. And a bit of a crisis initially. A bit of a SW breeze had put a little swell on, and the bait fish did not like this at all. We picked a few bass out, but it was a long way from what we had experienced earlier. Time to hunt.
We hunted far and wide, and slowly put a bag together. I think we were on about 20 with an hour to run, when Tim spotted some birds very tight to the shore. On investigation, it was exactly what we were looking for and we managed to stay with them until about the last ten minutes of the session. Final tally for this session, fourty eight, with four killed. Total on the day, one hundred and seventy three bass to 5.5lb. Quite a lot of fun.
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