Haven’t been out for a while, so yesterday I thought it about time to have a chuck down at Brighton Marina in the evening and have a go for some sole. I picked up some fresh lugworm and ragworm from The Tackle Box and then made my way over to the east arm. I decided on taking the hike out to the higher numbers and eventually settled myself in bay 58 at about 6pm. It was a glorious warm evening, although perhaps too calm, with no wind at all and a flat calm sea.
As it was still daylight, I started with one rod using a two hook flapper baited with luworm and lobbed it out to see what was about. I rigged up another rod and stuck on some Sabikis and tried my luck at trying for some mackerel, even though it was perhaps too bright. Even so, I managed one quite quickly and then nothing, so gave that up.
I had intended to use a close in bass rig but this plan was scuppered on two counts, firstly by the huge amounts of slimy, Spaghetti like weed that was infesting the water near to the wall and was clogging up the hook and sinker soon after casting; secondly lack of fresh mackerel which failed to show up.
As dusk came, I concentrated on sole. Two rods were set up with identical two hook sole rigs in size 4 and baited with either fresh lugworm, ragworm or stinking, evil ‘sticky’ lugworm that I had found in my fridge leftover from my last session.
Bites were quick to come but the first few fish were Pout and two ‘snotty’ eels that completely wrecked my rigs – thankfully I had made a few, so little time was wasted, re-rigging. As an aside, this is where I find the ‘Tronix’ rig winders far superior to the rig wallets I used to use; just clip on and unwind – no more hassle of tangled rigs.
The first soles to hit the deck were slips and then then a nice one of 32cm which was to become lunch. This was followed by another slip and then back to Pout. The surprise of the night was a small thornback which reached the dizzy weight of 1lb 2oz – much bigger than the usual palm sized creatures. This was the last fish of the night although I did bring in a Spider Crab that was hiding amongst a huge ball of spaghetti weed that had to be hand lined up it was so heavy.
I stuck it until about 3am before calling it a night and making the long walk back to the car and heading for home.
Having been sidelined from fishing for a little while, I took it upon myself to give the site a bit of a makeover as I thought it needed sprucing up a bit. I do like to have a good old tinker, although not entirely proficient in the witchcraft that is coding, I’m more than happy to delve in and have a go; I mean, what’s the worse that can happen?
Undeterred, I ran a test blog and installed a fresh copy of WordPress along with ‘Panorama‘ a WordPress theme by ‘Themocracy‘. It was the only theme I found that was near enough to the way I wanted the site to look.
Once installed, I set about my tinkering and made a few changes – some minor and some not so minor – to the the theme until I was satisfied I had it the way I wanted. The most obvious changes are the colour scheme and background layout, the minor changes are the rounded corners on the blocks (Update. They’ve been removed for CSS validation purposes but I’m trying to find a work around by use of images) and dividers and other small graphics. The header image is a picture of Seven Sisters on the East Sussex coastline overlayed with a photo taken the year before last at Seaford, when I was out fishing with our son, Alex. The layers were toned down and given a shade of blurring and transparency to give the desired effect.
When I was satisfied, I had all the changes done, I copied all the relevant files, installed the new theme into the live blog, overwrote the theme files with the test copies and away we went. There’s just a few minor tweaks to be done under the bonnet but that’s it really. Now to go fishing.
Ahh…. did I mention the FPO’s new blog… I’m sure I did but just in case I forgot, it’s creamuntilfluffy.co.uk
I have been instructed by the FPO (Fishing Permissions Officer) aka my wife, Anna, that unless I wish to find all my tackle in a mangled heap at the bottom of the garden and see myself being allowed out only once per bi-annual period to fish with a crab line, I must add here a link to her new blogging site.
I therefore publish said link to ‘creamuntilfluffy.co.uk‘, a site dedicated to the art of cookery, recipes and other kitcheny type things.
Please do drop in and have a look around, you’ll find some really, really tasty stuff there. Please feel free to leave a comment.
Bit late this one and not much to write about but here goes:
Fished the east arm at Brighton Marina on Friday evening from 8pm through until about 2am. Baits were ragworm, Peeler Crab, mackerel (heads and fillets). Although nothing spectacular landed, it was ok for for the species count. The final tally was:
6 x smooth Hound pups (biggest abt. 2lb)
3 x sole slips
2 x schoolie bass
2 x mackerel
2 x scad
1 x Smelt
Numerous Pout
It was unusual in that the mackerel were conspicuous by their absence at last light. Whereas you would normally expect to bag up on a few, I only managed the two stragglers along with the scad and a lone Smelt.
I have to say, I was expecting a run of a few larger smooth Hounds over the high tide period but they failed to materialise which was a disappointment.
So all in all, not a momentous evenings fishing but it was pleasant being out on a lovely night.
Apart from a couple of disappointing mini sessions, I haven’t been out fishing since July having being struck down by some mysterious buggy/virus thingy.
Anyway, feeling much better, I thought I’d have a dabble at Brighton Marina yesterday evening to see what was about. After grabbing some bait from the Tackle Box, I headed over to the east arm and got myself comfortable in bay 25. Things looked promising with just a waft of a breeze and a nice warm evening.
Started off with a 3 hook flapper baited with ragworm which sent out about 30-40 yards. While that was doing its stuff, I set about trying to get some fresh mackerel to boost the bait supply. Although it was about low tide, I managed one on the first cast but that was to be it for the rest of the session with no more showing.
First fish to come in was a small smooth Hound which had taken one of the worm baits. This was sent back and the rig was re-baited and cast back out. This was when I noticed more weed building up. This was confirmed when on retrieving the next few casts, the weight and hook were festooned with a mixture of what looked like overcooked spaghetti and wet cat hair balls.
As darkness fell, I tackled down the mackerel setup and re-rigged it with a running ledger, baited up with some frozen Hermit Crab and launched it out to where I hoped there would be less weed. The flapper rig was taken off and a running ledger baited with mackerel head was chucked out.
A few more small smooth Hounds were landed but nothing of any great significance. I eventually gave up when the weed close in made it a nighmare with the big bait and there seemed little point in carrying on.
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Fishing
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brighton marina, sole, thornback | 
