First sailing, and it was all returnee's. Mitch, Paul and David. Paul we havent seen for a little while due to nappy duties, but those days are passing and I am sure he will be appearing more often once more. A beautiful, dolphin free morning, with just enough breeze to set the boat nicely.
A quick sonar scan of the close reef at Brighton, the one we all strive to reach from the shore, revealed that still no baitfish are resident, and therefore very few bass. This time last year it was heaving with both, and shore fishing was fantastic. This does rather highlight well, how very little that bass do, is set in stone. The key to good, consistent bass fishing, is flexibility and lateral thinking, combined with beach combing and water staring. It really is that simple...
Spots that this time yesterday were heaving with fish were also quite barren. I did begin to get nervous. But then a favourite mark came good. Stacks of sandeel fry and attendant predators. And the occasional obsessional bass did mess up. And the bulk of the bass were table fish, so max kill was achieved quite quickly, with the final total of 18 bass landed, plus a mackerel.
Second sailing it was my pleasure to welcome back Oliver, Alastair, Jon and Duncan. We headed back to the same spot, to find... no fish. Indeed over that way it was as if the flood tide had swept the fish away... Think about that... I headed in the direction of the tide. And eventually, we caught up with the bait.
But now, the attendant predators were youngsters. And older bass do not seem to want the competition when feeding on micro fishes. From the very respectable total of 34 bass landed, just two were table fish. Plus, two mackerel... the biggest bag of mackerel on BIF1 this year.
Third and final sailing, it was my pleasure to welcome back Nick, Helder and James. Smugly comfortable that with the last of the ebb, we would get to those better size fish of the morning, this one turned into a bit of a car crash. The dolphin was working the big fish ground hard, with the inevitable lack of big fish. And the mackerel shoals have finally arrived en masse. I really wish they hadn't. They did save my two foodies on board with a feed. But they also hit everything all the time. Quite frustrating. Anywhere there was bass food, there were mackerel. Final tally for lots of running around... 4 smalls.
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