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By Vic, 27 March, 2011 18:35

Yesterday was a tale of two two halves – crap and brilliant.

Round 1:
Up at 4am, get ready and leave the house at 4.30 to get to Brighton Marina for first light and a crack at the herring that have been showing. I arrived on the East arm at about 5am, two hours after high water, to a flat calm and clear sea, slightly overcast sky and no wind. I headed out on to the virtually empty arm to bay 32 and firstly setup a scratching rod, using a size 2, two hook flapper baited with lugworm and ragworm and cast this out about 30 yards, just to see what, if anything else was about. On each subsequent cast, I varied the distance to cover more ground.

The other rod was set up with a string of 5 size 10 Sabiki lures and a 3oz lead which I then started working. On the 3rd cast, I had a herring on, right up until it got to the wall, at which point, it flicked off the hook and was away. There were no other takes for the rest of the morning. I did have two pinwhiting on the scatcher rod while i had been working the feathers though. By 10am, it became obvious that no herring were going to show until later in the day, so I decided to head off home and return later to catch the 4pm high water.

Round 2:
I returned to the East arm at around 2pm to find it a bit more crowded than earlier but managed to get a space at bay 35. The Easterly breeze had picked up a bit with a resultant to chop to the water surface. It was still an overcast sky with occasional breaks of sunshine. I again set up a scratching rod using the same rig and bait as before and cast that out. The herring rod was set up exactly the same as before.

I started working the lures through the water, just bouncing the lead of the sea bed in a sink and draw fashion. The current was quite strong on the run up to high water and using such a small lead, the lures were being dragged laterally at quite a rate. With so many people having lines out nearby, it beame difficult to prevent manoevre through them, so decided to quit for a while until the current died down a bit.

Anna and Alex had by now turned up for a flying visit after doing the shops in the marina. While Anna and I chatted, Alex spent time exploring but failed the “sit quietly, watch the rod and see if the end moves” test but he did manage two retrieves of the feathers before declaring enough. While there, they witnessed my one and only catch on the scratching rod – my first weever of the year, that had taken a worm bait that was bigger than itself. As I’m awaiting delivery of a new camera due to the demise of my old one, Anna managed a quick photo on her HTC phone.

After they left, I had another go at the feathers and found that the current had eased a bit and working the lures was a bit less troublesome. Just to make sure, I brought in the scratching rod – it wan’t exactly doing much good out there anyway – and packed it away. It was about half an hour after high water when the herring appeared, my first of the year was a safely landed double shot. It was then a steady trickle of ones and twos until about 5.30, when it went a bit hectic with a few more landed, along with a solitary mackerel in amongst them. Most were caught only a few yards out from the wall, while a few were out at about fifty yards or so. I did get a couple of pictures but had to use the iphone camera, so not brilliant. By 6pm, it was over and they departed as quickly as they came and in that time, I had managed just shy of two dozen herring and the mackerel – a nice few suppers and lunches shared out.

So after a disappointing morning to a fantastic afternoon, some nice fish and a great day out. Managed it all while wearing ‘normal’ clothes, got a bit of a red head from the sun – summer is on it’s way.

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By Vic, 25 March, 2011 15:12

Rother District Council are in the process of updating their “Outdated” Bye-laws and fishing is under the spotlight. Amongst the suggested plans are:

Bexhill seashore :
1. “No person shall fish from the restricted area on any day between the 1st day of May and the 30th day of September between the hours of 9 o’clock in the morning and 6 o’clock in the evening”.
2. “No person shall fish from the seashore in such a manner as to cause danger, obstruction or annoyance to any person using the seashore”.
3. “No person shall dig for fishing bait within the restricted area”.

Camber seashore:
1. “No person shall fish from the restricted area on any day between the Thursday before Easter in any year and the 30th day of September between the hours of 9 o’clock in the morning and 6 o’clock in the evening”.
2. “No person shall fish from the seashore in such a manner as to cause danger, obstruction or annoyance to any person using the seashore”.

A lot of this is open to interpretation – I mean, who is going to judge on what constitutes “danger, obstruction or annoyance” for instance? All anglers I know, fish responsibly, don’t annoy or hinder anyone else and clear up after themslves. There are the few who ruin it for all, as there in all groups of beach users. Personally, I find the few anti-social dog owners who let their creatures off the lead and free to crap from one of the beach to the other or otherwise be a general pest to be “an annoyance” yet there is no mention of a dog ban in the proposed changes. Perhaps the councils should spend more time and resources on tackling the anti-social elements of All beach users rather than issuing blanket bans and restrictions.

Anyway, nothing has been finally decided yet but I do urge anyone with an interest in keeping our fishing freedom, to sign up on the petition and let them know how we feel. One thing I and other are sure of – if these plans are implemented, then other councils will follow suit. Before we know it, there will be restrictions along all parts of the coast.

Moves have been made by some of the guys to approach the council for clarification on any of the proposed changes.

There is a general discussions on the subject at World Sea Fishing here and a discussion on action here.

Please sign the Online petition. You can ignore the Paypal prompt at the end, your signature will still count. Even if you don’t fish the area often or at all, please take the time to sign, you never know, it might be your local council next.

You can also sign up with Sussex Sea Angling Network (SSAN), which has been set up by, quote

a group of dedicated anglers who all fish from the Sussex coast. Their objective is to convey to the appropriate agencies of marine management, the more pressing concerns that Sussex sea anglers share in regard of the security, developement and imnprovement of Sussex sea angling. These agencies, under the new Coastal Access and Marine Act, have powers to regulate recreation sea angling (RSA) and commercial fishing – and so, it is imperative that Sussex sea angling is regularly well represented by a collaborate voice.

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By Vic, 23 March, 2011 10:09

It wasn’t that long ago that after being fed up with just catching pin whiting and slugs (rockling) session after session, I said I would pack up fishing proper until the start of April. Anyway, I just couldn’t resist the lure of the beach, so last night found me at Seaford with rod in hand – if you’ll pardon the expression. I got there at about 8.30pm to fish the tide up to the 12.40am high water – big tide too at 7.2m. Conditions were less than ideal, a flat, oily calm sea which was as clear as gin. No wind at all, not even the slightest breath of a breeze. To cap it all off, the sky was crystal clear with a big and very bright moon.

I had decided that to avoid whiting and slugs, I would stick with my plan of all or nothing and fish just one rod and use large launce (sandeel) for bait. So a long link running ledger with a 4/o pennel was setup. The hope was for any bass that might have been around – although deep down, I really didn’t expect to snag one.

After about 30 minutes, the rod tip pulled down slightly and then just started nodding away. I struck and retieved a small dogfish of the lesser spotted variety any potential blank was thus saved. Unhooked and retured, the stupid fish swam back to the waters edge and was promptly stranded. Why do they all do that?

Half an hour later, another one hit the shingle, was unhooked and released for it to do the same – weird. The rest of the night was spent equally between standing there doing nothing and unhooking dogfish. They weren’t there in plague numbers but just enough to keep things ticking over. It certainly beats the persistant rod tip rattling and constant reeling in of tiny whiting and slugs.

I packed up at about 2.30am with a final tally of 11 LSD’s. Considering I wasn’t expecting much, it turned out to be a pretty good session. Another joy was being able to fish without having to wear my floaty suit, just the salopettes and leaving the jacket in the car. It wasn’t by any means warm but it wasn’t too cold either.

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By Vic, 7 March, 2011 09:45

Saturday nigh night saw a change in venue as I headed for a small, unofficial competition organised by a young lad passionate about his fishing (well done Ryan for your efforts). Brighton beach, down by the Banjo Groyne was the mark chosen.

I arrived there at about 6pm and walking onto the beach , just West of the groyne, saw that there were already some of the guys down there. The plan was to fish the tide up and over the midnight high water. Conditions were slightly better than the previous night, with an overcast sky and a bit of movement in the clear sea.

Two rods used, one with a two hook flapper baited with lugworm, while the second rod was setup with a long link running ledger terminating in a pennel baited with launce, hoping for bass.

Nothing happened until darkness came and then it was as the previous trip – tiny whiting and slugs (rockling). After Ryan truned up, we wondered over for a chin wag with some of the other guys who are also members of  WSF a fishing website that I frequent.

It was then back to the fishing which really was a just an excercise in bait up, cast, retrieve, unhook small whiting/slug, re-bait, cast out etc etc. The launce was being savaged by the small fishs, I ended up taking that rig off and putting a flapper on that rod too. It wasn’t long before Igot fed up with watching two twitching and rattling rod tips, so I packed up one rod and continued with just the one.

High water came and went along with my enthusiasm. It wasn’t long after this that I decided bed was better than beach and upped sticks and left.

I think that between us, we shifted a lot of whiting and a load of slugs. Ryan did have a small flounder and the other guys managed flounder and a schoolie bass.

This was the first time I had fished this beach for many years and I’d forgotten what a great place it is. There are always promising reports from this area of the coast and good fish are landed every year. This being the case, I’ve promised myself that I’ll make the effort to fish it more often this year.

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By Vic,

This crap period for sea fishing continued its typical direness during a session at Seaford beach on Friday night. I got to the beach at about 8pm after finishing work and setup near West View. Two rods used – one with a two hook flapper baited with lugworm and squid strip, the other employed a long link running ledger ending with a pennel loaded with launce.

Conditions were icy cold, clear sky with no wind at all. This meant a very still and clear sea – not ideal for general fishing.

From the start, it was the usual pin whiting and slugs (rockling) on the worm baits while the launce was shredded by pin whiting looking for a change in diet. The only change was when a small, palm sized dab took one of the worms.

It was so cold that I had frost forming on my bag and floaty suit and the very slowly thawing launce sat in a bucket of fishy slush puppy. I don’t know why I stuck it out but I guess the draw of just being on the beach was too strong. I stuck it out until about 1.30 am., by which time, I was sick of seeing slug after slug and tiny whiting. I decided that saving the bait was a better idea so headed off to defrost the car before heading home.