First sailing, and regulars Max and Jon joined me, to head out on flat calm seas. I of course returned to the scene of yesterday's fun, but. the missing factor was tide. We had the last hour and a half of ebb to deal with, before the new flood would hopefully bring some movement and some fish. So, what to do for that first hour and a half? Go find fish of course. It isn't that the whole sea switches off when the tide slackens. It simply means that you have to go fish in those places where the fish tend to gather as the tide slackens. Which is what we did.
It took two jumps to find some fish happy to feed, but when we did, we began sticking hooks in fish. Although... When I say we, I actually mean the fishing machine that is Jon. I actually failed to catch a fish. Max did slightly better, nailing another codlet, bringing our total for the season to 3 so far. But Jon was unstoppable, with five fish before finally the flood tide was pushing us along enough to go have another look at the other spot.
Here I faired no better. Max did manage two bass, and Jon bought his tally up to nine. A really amazing, and unexplainable, result. Oh, and a pollock to Jon also. Only his second pollack ever, his first being caught from Cornish shores last week. A really great display of getting everything right.
Back in for coffee, and then out again, with a complete crew change. Now, it was new to BIF1 John, along with occasional visitor (his wife's birthday present to him) James. I had warned them that the session would likely start ok, but that the wind would build and there was some chance the session would be cut short. And this is exactly how it came together.
We got two hours on the good bass mark, which the guys did really well on nailing six bass in total. Then the wind and swell increased significantly. We elected to try for a cod, as the mark is much closer to the marina should the sea get very nasty. However, by the time we arrived at the spot, the sea WAS really nasty. One drift confirmed that the fishing was virtually impossible, and so, I called the session at two hours in. A shame, especially for those with the 3rd sailing booked, as the forecast had looked dreamy until just a couple of days ago.
