Saturday late afternoon I headed down to the quay to head out and hunt some bait, and I wasn't disappointed. Within a couple of hours I had plenty to keep me going all day, so I headed back to the van and made my way to my overnight stop.
05:00 the alarms rang. I leapt out of bed, smashed down a coffee and bacon butty, and headed off to the quay.
I was soon joined by some of my regular fishing buddies. We set up and were on the water at 06:00.
We first paddled out to a sandbank that produces fish on the ebb tide.
Disaster. The whole sandbank was covered in lobster pots, which meant we had to keep a safe distance to avoid losing any potential fish on the pot mooring lines.
Not ideal, but we made do.
A couple of hours passed. We'd had a steady trickle of dogfish, mostly disappointing but I wasn't worried as it was the second mark that I had originally earmarked as 'THE SPOT' prior to arriving.
This is where the fish are best on the flooding tide.
I picked a spot carefully, and dropped anchor in 80ft of water.
An hour later the tide started to run and so the fish started to bite.
A steady stream of Dogfish and Bullhuss (monster Dogfish) came our way. These were hammering the bait, but as a fairly regular supply of fresh mackerel were running through we were picking up fresh live bait on demand.
I stuck a live one down. Then I heard that burring sound I'd been waiting for.
I tightened the clutch and set the hook, then 7- 8 minutes later, after much sweat and grunting, sat in my lap was a stunning but angry male fish.
My target was accomplished, and I was one happie chappie on the drive home.
