Last night, I had an ‘old bait in the freezer clear out’ session, so decided to stay local and headed over to Seaford beach to use up some old squid strips and Slipper Limpet that had been in the freezer for way too long.

I got there at about 8pm and set up just West of Edinburgh Road with two rods – one with a 2 hook paternoster using the slippers and one rod close in using a 4/0 pennel with whole small squid.

It was quite a nice night to be out with clear sky, hardly a breeze and what there was came in from the South, there was little swell with largish wave dumps on the beach. There was slight colour to the water but not much.

At about 9.30pm and four hours into the flood tide , I had three Lesser Spotted Dogfish ‘doggies’ in quick succession on the squid. After that it went quiet with no action at all until I had a good take on the squid at about 1am which had the rod hooping over. It took me by surprise so much that I picked up the rod, briefly felt a heavy, ragged resistance and then nothing – arse!!

After that, there was no other indications, so with the rain coming in, the tide dropping and the last of the bait used, I headed for home.