Brighton Inshore Fishing - Catch report 7th May 2025

First sailing and out with Andy, Mitch and Tonino. Calm seas with a mostly light Northerly wind, but we remained in tight as that same wind was clearly causing swell a short way off shore. And tight was good, as the fishes were in the mood to play. All three owning well trained fingers, the tally was 16 bass landed, with five fish despatched for the table. The best figures so far this year for a three hour session.

So good that Mitch decided to sail again and take the last remaining space on the 2nd sailing, joined by new to BIF1 Kevin, and regular Tim had his friend Zach visiting from Australia. Fresh from landing a 30kg Mulloway in fact, so I was worried to manage his expectations. But it turns out he lived in Hove until recent history and was familiar with the lack of 30kg plus fish we have in the UK.

This session was much more of a grueller. The wind had returned and was quite stiff, which made contact difficult, but I was not marking the same amount of fish. It seemed they had gone elsewhere, confirmed by two of our bass rod and line commercials drifting the same ground with their livebaits. These guys are very good at what they do and had there been any numbers of fish there, their rods would have been bending. They were not. Just three bass landed in the whole session, with just one creeping to the 45cm mark.