Saturday night was to be a late do, with high tide predicted for about 3am. I was going to fish a certain area on Seaford beach near Edinburgh Road but changed my mind and moved further East to a spot near the Beachcomber pub.

There was a fair breeze blowing in from the West which produced a decent size surf to stir things up a bit.

I set up and started to fish at about 8pm. One rod had a two hook Paternoster with size 2 hooks baited with lovely fresh black lug and cast 50 yards out. The second rig consisted of a Pennel with size 3/0 hooks baited with whole calamari and lobbed out just beyond the surf.

First two fish of the evening to come in, were two palm size thornbacks which took the whole calamari. It’s not often that the bait is actually larger than the fish that takes it and gets hooked.

Next fish to visit was a small ‘Snotty’ eel which managed to reduce my precision made rig into a ball of knotted, mucous covered line. By the time the eel had been unhooked, there was no choice but to attach a fresh rig and cut up the tangled one.

Next in were two smallish whiting on successive casts. A bit bigger and they would have been keepers but as it is, they were returned to put on a bit of weight.

Apart from a couple of really small (and I mean small) Pout, that was it for the night until around half an hour after high water when I had two savage takes on the calamari rig which I managed to fluff up and miss. That got the adrenalin going and expecting more of the same, I stood by and kept a watchful eye on that rod. Time went on and nothing happened.

Disappointed, I packed up at around 4.30am and as I headed home, I was already planning a return.

It later transpired that one of the guys from World Sea Fishing forums fished at the spot I was originally going to use and he ended up with a couple of codling of just under two pounds each. Read his report here.