On The Road Again

I was getting itchy feet after being back a few days after the Scandinavian trip. Lots of reports from the south and south west coast of excellent fishing for bream, sole, bass, plaice, etc. Chesil was also producing trigger fish for the first time in a while.

Two consecutive days of digging lug and ragworm and I'd got six hundred plus lug and a pound of rag, enough for five or six days if you mix it up with squid and mackeral.

Rolling six hundred gutted lug is not the most exciting of tasks but after it was done and they were in the fridge it was most satisfying ( especially as they're twenty quid plus a hundred ).

After the long boring near five hour trip in the çamper I had a short afternoon-evening session up the western end of the beach and had nine plaice, a tub gurnard, lots of mackerel and gars, scad and the obligatory whiting and pout. And no smeggy congers ! Not a bad start.

Next day I headed up to the eastern end of the beach in search of ( almost certainly ) bream, red mullet ( maybe ) and trigger fish ( ditto ). 

First cast and the rod nodded which resulted in a chunky bream an ounce off two pounds.

Great start. The fishing for the first two hours was slow but steady, more bream and then a small but chunky codling.

The tide slackened and with that so did the bites for a good couple of hours. When the flow returned it went mad for a while with bites on both rods at the same time and several double shots. 

Big shoals of mackerel were a pain, hitting the baits on the drop. There's either not enough or too many of them ! Did keep a couple for the pan though, the best eating fish in the sea maybe.

I had a proper slack liner and thought I may have a five or six pound cod on, but no, a smaller codling and the holy grail, a trigger fish ! Wahoooooo !

The bites continued until I packed up chuffed and bloody starving.

 

I finished up with fourteen good sized bream, three codling, three tub and red gurnard and a trigger fish. Good fishing in anyone's book. The ice cold cider went down nicely after I made the long trek across the shingle back to the van.