A very interesting day. It began with again waking to the forecast winds, although perhaps a little stronger than the prediction, the direction was firmly back to the North. This meant Paul, Sam, Simon and Ray, all had lovely flat seas to play in. With just a short period of no flow, then all good flood, it should have been a straightforward session.
Nothing could have been further from the truth. It was a very hard session indeed. Nowhere fish had been yesterday had fish today. I commented, frequently, that something had happened. One of my guys spotted something crash out in the far distance. "Was that a tuna? " they asked. "Maybe" I answered, while mentally putting it down to one of the resident three bottle nosed dolphins.
By the end of the session, we had just three fish landed, and a single fish killed. Some jig work meant some squid also, so lunches were served, but overall, puzzling. Back in, and I popped home and grabbed some super smalll shads also, wondering if that could break the problem.
Back out, now with Win, Ben, Nick and Andy. Back to the rocks, with two hours of flood due to run. Wasnt too much run though. Win was first off the mark with Mackerel, but then it was quiet for a long time. A trip out to deeper water, saw a gurnard landed, and I managed a starry smooth hound hooked exactly on the tip of the nose. The strangeness continued. Then, "SPLASH". A dolphin breached? Phones came out and recording began.
SPLASH... 200lb of Bluefin tuna snatched something off the surface. SMASH... Now 30 feet from the boat, heading away. The speed of these are amazing. I can see how slower boats fishing for these out of Brighton are struggling so much to intercept them. Next time, three leaps in succession, and already 300 meters away.
This excited me a lot. I cannot wait to crew for Greg Bishop on KRAKEN once he has permissions. This purpose built tuna boat has the speed required with its twin 300 outboards able to propel it fast enough to get ahead of such a feeding tuna. I am also awaiting some adjustments to the electronics, and then we will be wrecking. But no flying collars and boring ten turns on these trips. These will be Fishyrob hosted. And fishyrob trips are all about enjoying the fishing. Rods that bend are the order of the day. And three fish a drift, by employing choreographed genius. If you would like to be a part of all of this, please text YOUR NAME and KRAKEN to 07711 231804 to be added to a Whatsapp group, where trips are assigned.
On seeing the tuna a lot was explained. I have been chatting a bit with Littlehampton bass legend Martin Donald and one thing we both agreed on, when the tuna are around, the bass are not. So, I kicked off on a lengthy cruise to put distance between us and they. And it paid off a treat. Finally we got into fish, landing seventeen before final whistle. Everyone took a fish home. Win took two, and her mackerel. A few squid as well for a short period. A nice foody haul, and happy customers. On the way back, I spotted a yellow jet ski cruising slowly, towing something. Except it wasnt. The something was a dolphin stalking the jet ski. Then more. Phones again emerged, and I put BIF1 into a slow circle. After a little while, the dolphins came to inspect us. I will hopefully have tuna and dolphin videos as reels on my facebook shortly.
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