Bass Sunday

[Paul D]

As mentioned on another post myself and Gordon ventured out of Lymington on Sunday.

 

We saw Adam parking his trailer and gave him a lift back to the slipway ( I couldn;t be asked to walk all the way up the raod so paid to park in the car park ).

Adam and Paul J set off to go bassing around Freshwater Bay, we opted for a trip after the smoothhounds in the other direction and we were partnering Ultimate Chaos on their maiden voyage.

 

Since I have yet to fail to catch a smoothie from the particular mark, I was confident. We opted to go straight to the mark so as not to miss the slack water but on arrival the tide was already flooding and weed was pouring in. The tide tables had the tide about 2 hours later - spooky.

So much weed and no fish, so as I was sure Ultimate Chaos wouldnt want to blank on their first trip we moved in closer where you get small ( and I mean small ! ) bream. Sure enough - bream were had along with a small schoolie.

After an hour of this it was getting tedious and we wanted something bigger.

Persuaded Gordon that Rich had told me Seagull Island was a good spot - I couldnt see this on the plotter but recall it being near to Beaulieu River exit.

 

Steamed over to Beaulieu and anchored off there - weed city again, so we moved in close into around 10 Ft of water by a "fishy" looking slope.

 

I cast a ragworm out onto the bank using Helen's "toy" rod ( see other thread ) and blow me down a fish grabbed the bait and charged off. "Bass On!".

After a reasonable fight on the 10-20lb Solid-C rod a 3lb 8oz bass was onboard.

 

Nice one Rich

 

Then it quietened down and even the bream had stopped biting. As it was getting near to slack water ( well 3 hours from slack according to the tide table ! ) we went back to the "smoothies" mark. Fished through the slack and Ultimate Chaos had a doggie and nothing else.

 

As the tide ebbed and we were failing to get any bites decided that Will would at least want to take some fresh mackeral back up, so headed for the Sconse buoy where it was well rough ( wind now westerly against the tide ). Ultimate Chaos looked like a cheesecutter in the waves - Will was against going aroudn the island in that rough sea and I cant blame him - however, drifted the race past Hurst castle through some pretty rough water and left them to head back to the slip ( now armed with mackeral ).

 

We decided to drift the shingles bank ( from the Shingles buoy ) with a live Joey. I used my uptider with no weight on it at all ( keeping an eye out for seagulls as they will grab a mackeral which nears the top of the water ). First drift and my uptider crashes over - "Bass on!" as it charges off with my mackeral - a superb fight as I am fishing with no weight attached as well. Gordon is now saying something like "you jammy git!" - I beg to differ, I have been learning from others

 

Second drift and Gordon bags a Bass. BW then joins us but no more bass in two more drifts. Intention was to fish for stingers but I was far too tired to steam back to the stinger mark, so called it a day ).

 

Fantastic day out in the end - weather was great - two bass ( my first from this venue ) - shame about the smoothies and nice to meet Will and his friend ( whose name I forget )