…… No it’s not the name of a local good time girl, mayrot (or mayweed) is the annual algae bloom that plagues the coast at this time every year. Unfortunately, these persistent East winds haven’t helped these keep the sea flat and the bloom doesn’t get broken up and dispersed. Local guide and guru, Fishyrob summed it up quite well with “It’s laying in the pools like decaying cotton buds that have been very heavily used”, when he described his encounter with the brown goo in the pools on the chalk reefs in our area.

Anyway, the consequence of this stuff, is that it puts the fishing right off and the fish seem to stay offshore. Hopefully we’ll get some Southerlies or South Westerlies soon to break the stuff and we can then get back to fishing.

Talking of fishing, I headed off to the East arm at Brighton Marina yesterday for an afternoon and evening session. Although I knew the mayrot was there, I thought I’d chance it anyway and see what was about. I arrived at around 4pm with the aim of fishing the 6pm high water down – not ideal times at least I was out. It was pretty busy there with the usual part time chuckers in amongst more dedicated souls. Got myself settled in bay 12 and sent a crab baited ledger into the briny. While that was cooking, I had a few chucks with some feathers to try and entice some mackerel out. This proved hard work and in all the chucks I had, I only managed one to put in the bucket. I swapped the feathers for a lugworm baited two hook flapper and sent that out too.

For some reason, I was not happy with pitch, so when the folks along from me packed up, I jumped into their place in bay 14. After casting out the flapper, I was immediately rewarded with a nice little bream which was lucky to be small enough not to warrant being taken for the pot. As the tide dropped, I resigned myself to the fact that no records were going tgo be broken that day and just settled back and enjoyed the sunshine; could have done without that bloody East wind though – so annoying.

By the time came to pack up (about midnight), I’d only added Pout to the tally. Looks like this weather is set for at least this week, I’m just praying that the wind will swing around at some point soon to stir things up a bit.