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Dover Breakwater 29th Nov.1998
Arrived at Dover around 7.30am ... went straight to Bill's Bait and Tackle to collect part of my bait order ... Walked in and Clive looked to be doing a brisk trade, in both tackle and bait..... collected my fresh lug and rag along with a few weights and swivels, and looked enviously at the record breaking bass in the display cabinet under the counter ... something I do every time I go in ......
Clive brought me back from my day dreams with the offer of a tub full of
white-rag...
as he was fishing a lug only comp., and he didn't want to see it go to waste ..... he reminded me to pinch out the heads to make baiting the hook that much easier.. a very useful tip for those of you that have never used it ... I have to say it's not a bait I use very often, not because I don't like it, far from it, but because it's so hard to get hold of normally, unless you have the opportunity to dig it yourself.... ...... it really tends to come into it's own as a match bait for tipping esp in those lean months from Feb to May ...... it falls into that bracket of baits along with fresh peeler crab, that unless you can get hold of it, your really wasting your time fishing at certain times of the year (esp. match fishing....).
I'd ordered a small amount of bait from Channel Angling as Karen had planned to fish with me..... but as things worked out, her work load prevented her from doing so .... I collected the bait, and decided that the excess from either this or that from Bills would carry over until the next day at Clevedon .. nothing like fishing one side of the country, followed by the other side the next day!!!!!!
Arrived at the Dumphead around 7.50am, to find a few anglers already waiting, and a notice saying that pegs 1 to 30 had already been booked for a mini comp...
Waited until 8.30am or so, until the boats arrived to take us across ... walked down to peg 60 and set-up just after 8.45am.....
Decided to set 3 rods up, and see how things went .... on the outside, I had one rod with a 2/0 : 4/0 pennell , and another with a long flowing 2/0 wishbone, whilst the third rod was on the inside with a 1/0 wishbone gently lobbed out ..... all hooks were baited with lug or rag, or combinations of........
The tide was less than ideal, with HW already having passed around 7.30am, and just after the neap set...... Wind was forecast as NW / N 4 to 5, occasional 6, and at times felt like it!!!
9.40am : First fish of the day .... an 8" pouting hooked on the pennell from the outside....
9.50am : pulled up the wishbone on the outside to change bait, only to find
a small 10" school bass... I took a photograph and returned it ...
The tidal run was reasonably strong running from left to right...
10.20am : Double shot of 8.5" pouting on the outside wishbone....
Got the wishbone snagged on the outside, and lost it :-(
11.00am : Another double shot on the outside wishbone, this time a 12" whiting and a 9.5" dab.....
11.20am: 8" pout on the outside wishbone....
11.40am: small 6" pouting again on the outside wishbone....
12.15pm: a nice 13" whiting... you guessed, on the outside wishbone......
12.40pm: a nice 11.5" dab on smelly week old yellowtail ... on the outside wishbone...
1.00pm: manage to haul up a 4 armed starfish, one large rock with sea anemone
and my lost wishbone!!!!!!!
1.15pm: oh my.. another starfish .. complete this time...
1.30pm: 8" dab on the outside wishbone...
1.50pm: 9" dab ..on the outside wishbone....
Tried using the pennell on the inside and promptly got it snagged and lost it!!! .. I then just used both wishbones on the outside.....
2.40pm: a nice 10" dab...
2.50pm: haul up a load of line, large fond of Laminaria, and a new Gemini weight....
3.30pm: packed-up and caught the boat back ......
Most people had caught a few dabs, along with the odd pouting and whiting, but not a single codling was caught!!!!! Talked with some of the chaps coming off the boats, who said that there were plenty of cod/codling about 2 miles out, but that the numbers dropped of rapidly inshore :-(
Drove down to Dover with Paul .... we already knew the bad news .... forecast of SW force 5 to 7, but Bill and Clive of Bills Bait and Tackle, very kindly phoned the Motorboat Co., just to confirm .... No go :-(
Collected our bait, plus a few bits and bobs .. had to nip over to Channel Angling to collect the maddies that I had ordered, in the hope of a late pollack, or a small Coalfish from 'The Wall', that I could photograph ....
Paul and I decided that we'd fish the Ad. pier (the best option would have been to wait and fish afterdark, but with prior commitments and the fact that we'd been up since 5am didn't make it a plausible one....).
Arrived and paid our toll to the Steward .. I also decided to renew my DSAA membership ... caused a bit of confusion.... half an hour later we managed to walk to the mid-section with the old gun emplacements.... it's really foggy .. can hardly see my hand in front of my face at times, and that's how it stayed for most of the day.... with a constant drizzle .. fun!!!!
Started fishing around 8.30, with low water around 1pm or so:
Set up with two flowing wishbone 2/0, baited with lug and occasionally tipped with rag or maddies. I set-up a third rod to fish down the wall with 1/0 hooks on a Christmas tree boom set-up, using the maddies........
8.55am: Paul manages to pull up a bait robbing crab.....
Things are really quiet .. nothing happening at all....
9.30am: get a bite... I decided to leave it ... after five minutes pulled in an 8" pout!!!
10.20am: five bearded rockling of 7".... things really aren't looking good.... Paul pulls up another crab...
10.50am: Paul has a 5B-rockling .. this ones 8"....
11.45am: Paul, with yet another crab!!!
12.05pm: Double shot ... well an 8" rockling and a crab!!...
12.30pm: just to break the monotony of rockling and crabs, Paul has an 8" pout....
12.40pm: just lifting a small pout up the wall, and it drops off... sad when dropping an undersized pout causes heart ache!!!!!
12.50pm: pull up a largish velvet back swimming crab, that refuses to let go of the hook with bait on it ... that is until I gently use it as a yo-yo ...
1.45pm: ooh good another rockling .... 9" this time ..
2.00pm: at last a decent bite .... can feel a fish on the end ... pull up a 15" whiting of 1lb.....
2.20pm: Paul has a 10" whiting .... things are picking up .... WRONG....
2.40pm: I have a 7" pouting.... followed rapidly by Paul having a crack-off.....
3.25pm: I have a decent 12" pouting of 1lb.....
3.37pm: pull up the Christmas tree ... one 7" shanny looks back at me!!!!
4.00pm: packing up, and pulls in two 6" pouting .. one on each rod.....
Looked as if the pout were moving in with the darkness ... saw no codling being landed at all ... and just as we left the Rain came down.......
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