Joined
·
932 Posts
I'm going to bore you anyway :-D. A very bizarre morning for me.
Set my alarm for 3.55 and for the life of me I was sure I only hit the snooze button once but I finally came to at 4.50am. Lifted the blind and..... b0ll0cks. It's fully light I can just see the top of the sun on the horizon and not a trace of wind. It was too late to go to the mark I wanted so I just went local.
Because the sun was already up I took my time, had a cuppa and got my gear out the car. Casually walked to a particular place I hardly plug, clipped on a lure and aimlessly chucked it out still kicking myself for falling back to sleep. Third cast in a mate turned up and chewed my ear for half an hour so no fishing was done. He left and I thought to myself "oh well I'm here now, might as well practice with a plug I've never really used"
It's about 7.30am, sun is very bright & high in the sky. I'm in shorts/hoody, gentle-ish wind is coming from the East, it's slack water and the current under the surface is moving right to left quite quickly. Clipped the plug on, let it sink for 5 seconds and started to retrieve very slowly with a gentle twitch every 3 - 6 turns. Two plucks, lift slowly in to the fish and land a 2 and half pound pollack with more ease than I liked. Hooked in the eye socket, but I somehow managed to get the treble out without damage and the fish swam off eventually to fight another day. Forgot my camera though. What a ninny but feeling a lot more confident now. 3rd cast in, bigger bang and I guess this pollack was closer to 4 pounds and gave me a much better scrap. 7th cast in I had a bass just shy of 2lbs. 8th cast and another school bass! What's going on here I thought? I hate this spot as I've only had one fish to show for easily more than 20 hours of plugging. Perhaps maybe my 11th cast a little tap so I gently lifted the rod and reeled in what I thought was another pollack.... Nope! It was my first ever squid kicking out all manner of black puffy farts! Lifted it over the sea wall and my phone started to ring... Forgot about my phone cam. Doh! Busied the call took a quick pic and put it back. On my very next cast something happened to me that has never happened before. Probably happened to lots on here a few times though. Retrieving again nice and slow still thinking about the squid when my reel made "that" sound that gives us all a knee trembler.... Lifted in to the fish and the reel is now having a proper fit for a good 5 more seconds, I drop the rod by no more than a foot whilst reeling hard, lifted the rod again and nothing, nada, zilch, zip! Perhaps I've just been very lucky with the bass I've caught but I've never experienced losing a big fish like that without making any mistakes. Would have given a lot to have seen that fish. Had to be a bass.
Another school bass which was so small it isn't really worth mentioning was landed and a greedy little pollack (see attached pic) took a plug almost as big as he was.
So the moral of this long winded story is? You just never know what lies beneath, even when the elements are so strongly against you.
Edit: Tried to upload pics of the squid and greedy pollack but the forum says they're too big at 1.9mb each. Oh well.
Set my alarm for 3.55 and for the life of me I was sure I only hit the snooze button once but I finally came to at 4.50am. Lifted the blind and..... b0ll0cks. It's fully light I can just see the top of the sun on the horizon and not a trace of wind. It was too late to go to the mark I wanted so I just went local.
Because the sun was already up I took my time, had a cuppa and got my gear out the car. Casually walked to a particular place I hardly plug, clipped on a lure and aimlessly chucked it out still kicking myself for falling back to sleep. Third cast in a mate turned up and chewed my ear for half an hour so no fishing was done. He left and I thought to myself "oh well I'm here now, might as well practice with a plug I've never really used"
It's about 7.30am, sun is very bright & high in the sky. I'm in shorts/hoody, gentle-ish wind is coming from the East, it's slack water and the current under the surface is moving right to left quite quickly. Clipped the plug on, let it sink for 5 seconds and started to retrieve very slowly with a gentle twitch every 3 - 6 turns. Two plucks, lift slowly in to the fish and land a 2 and half pound pollack with more ease than I liked. Hooked in the eye socket, but I somehow managed to get the treble out without damage and the fish swam off eventually to fight another day. Forgot my camera though. What a ninny but feeling a lot more confident now. 3rd cast in, bigger bang and I guess this pollack was closer to 4 pounds and gave me a much better scrap. 7th cast in I had a bass just shy of 2lbs. 8th cast and another school bass! What's going on here I thought? I hate this spot as I've only had one fish to show for easily more than 20 hours of plugging. Perhaps maybe my 11th cast a little tap so I gently lifted the rod and reeled in what I thought was another pollack.... Nope! It was my first ever squid kicking out all manner of black puffy farts! Lifted it over the sea wall and my phone started to ring... Forgot about my phone cam. Doh! Busied the call took a quick pic and put it back. On my very next cast something happened to me that has never happened before. Probably happened to lots on here a few times though. Retrieving again nice and slow still thinking about the squid when my reel made "that" sound that gives us all a knee trembler.... Lifted in to the fish and the reel is now having a proper fit for a good 5 more seconds, I drop the rod by no more than a foot whilst reeling hard, lifted the rod again and nothing, nada, zilch, zip! Perhaps I've just been very lucky with the bass I've caught but I've never experienced losing a big fish like that without making any mistakes. Would have given a lot to have seen that fish. Had to be a bass.
Another school bass which was so small it isn't really worth mentioning was landed and a greedy little pollack (see attached pic) took a plug almost as big as he was.
So the moral of this long winded story is? You just never know what lies beneath, even when the elements are so strongly against you.
Edit: Tried to upload pics of the squid and greedy pollack but the forum says they're too big at 1.9mb each. Oh well.