Whimped Out! 29-11-10

 I should have been fishing today. Or yesterday. But just too cold for me. I don,t have any specialist cold weather gear and it was -5 yesterday, similar today.
I spent an hour or two on Friday last, digging worms on the beach again, as these little beauties have been resulting in the most of my bites so far. I mean, while I was there it started raining and before I left that rain was snow. Arse! Got home wet right through and very cold.
Really dissappointed that it looks like I will miss the tides this week and will now probably have to wait until 12-12-11 to try again. Ho-hum.

My First Bass 16-11-10

 Another few hours whiled away at Knightstone again today. Right from the word go I was getting lots of bites that were almost impossible to hit. A bloke along from me, the same thing. He had three rods out and I just the one (I only have one, so far!).
About an hour after high water a real decent knock resulted in my first bass ever.

To say I am pleased is an understatement. Not so many years ago bass where practically unheard of in WSM, so maybe fish stocks are better than they used to be around here. If I could pull a few more of these in (a little larger maybe) it would be great. This one measured 11 inches so went back in.

 Around an hour after that, I had a few small knocks on the rod. I had strips of mackerel on as the worm I had left was really past the point of being useful, and god did it stink! Anyway, I thought it was just  small stuff toying with the bait as they had been all day-I took a couple of very small pouting on worm earlier-and wond down onto something quite big. It was pulling slow and hard and for a few minutes I was struggling to bring it up in the water at all. Just at the point when I thought I would be able to see it the hook came out. When I got the hooks back in one of them had started to straighten out. I am fairly confident that it had been a reasonanly big conger. Next time maybe!

Success!

On the 3-11-10 I fished for a few hours with no luck at all, using just mackerel strip for bait. But last Saturday, 13-11-10, I dug a few lugworm on the beach at Weston

 and things took a change for the better. About an hour into the tide (which at knightsone you can fish for around 6 hours per tide, 3 up, 3 down) I caught my first sea fish for nearly three decades.

It was so small (six inches?) I wasn,t sure exactly what it was, codling I think. Almost on the hightide mark, one of three lads fishing along from me took a cod of 2-3 lbs which was encouraging. And within 30 minutes I had done so too!

 I left the pliers in for scale, however one of the other lads measured it for me at 42cms, practically the same size as the one they took a bit earlier. So I guess somewhere between 2-3 pounds again.
Later on I had a couple of other small pouting, so four fish in all on my second trip out. Well pleased. I missed at least three bites too.
 I am going fishing again tomorrow and taking the remainder of the lugworm I have left over, although they are starting to smell really bad. I picked up a large mackerel this afternoon incase the lug is crap, and so I can make a cocktail or two for a bait change if it is a bit slow.

So, all in all, very pleased I took up the sea fishing so far. After tomorrows trip I will look into other marks to try on the shore around here. Bye.

Sea Fishing

I have decided to take up sea fishing, and I thought I would keep a record of it here.

Now I live in Weston-s-Mare I thought it daft not to. I used to fish freshwater a lot, twenty-thirty years ago , and did have a little dabble with sea fishing too. Now I have a little more time on my hands and my freshwater gear is in storage elsewhere, I am trying the sea again.

At the moment I have a limited budget and limited transport, so I am going to start with some basic gear and keep fairly local to me.

I will update this each time I fish, and with chat about new gear and marks I have found.

Your comments are more than welcome!