Those bait balls still holding. And with Mark winning the weather lottery once again, and both sailings to boot, it was always going to be a hundred plus day. The gulls confirmed it all as we cleared the marina . Slid to a halt, and bagged eight fish in less than six minutes. But size small. This was to be the challenge of the day. Back to hunting, but not for fish, as usual, but among all the fish, we were looking for the more mature ones.
With the fish distinctly favouring sand over rock at the moment, the seagulls are a great guide to the herring shoals, and with a real lot of bass around, most herring shoals have attendant bass eating them. Whiting also, another fish that is happier on sand than rock. It became literally a case of bouncing around, cast, hook a couple of fish. If small, move on. This seemed to work, as I would say we hit a 50/50 final tally of under 42 to over 42. And unusually, we both took a brace, as we both have culinary plans with rule of six back to play on Wednesday.
One great thing though. At one of the sandy spots, we knobbled a coddie, just the 18th of the year. I would normally hunt these on rocky ground, but when these huge bait balls happen, pretty much everything starts tracking them around until the next storm smashes them up. Strange stuff can happen. Mark reminded me it was a year to the day since I hooked an unseen, extremely fast beast of a fish on a sand bank just a mile off. I love this time of year.
And we both simultaneously hooked squid, at a spot which is a scrubby bottomed hole just below a sand bank. A classic squid holding area. Still time for people to book a squid session, with still a few slots available before BIF1 shuts down for an extended Christmas break.
