As the weather had been settled for a while and the Easter Sunday looking like a reasonable day weather wise, another squid hunting session on Brighton Marina was called for. Not only did I want more of the creatures for culinary purposes but I wanted plenty of practice before the upcoming ‘All England Cephalopod Championship‘ organised by Fishyrob one of the members on WSF, for later in April. I know it’s only a friendly competition but I would dearly love to improve on my position from last year!

The alarm went off at 6am, I was out of the door by 6.30am and on my way on a very misty and windless morning. Got to the marina at about 7am and walked out onto the East arm and was disappointed to see that the area I was going to go for in the bays from about 30 or so were already taken by people who had obviously camped there overnight. Anyway, I settled for bay 25, sat down, and had a coffee before setting up my stuff. Tackle for the day was float fished  jigs for the squid and a ground set up using a DVice ledgered with worm baits for any flatfish about.

It was after about 5 hours of fishing and various thought going through my head such as:  would I have been better off going my in-laws for lunch, shouldn’t I be doing something more constructive, why the hell am I here – when suddenly the orange top of the float slid slowly under the surface. I wound down and felt the tugging and pulling familiar with a squid. Sure enough, it came to the top and was swiftly swung onto the deck, dispatched and put in the bag. It wasn’t long before the float was going again and another squid was safely in the bag. All the earlier thoughts of having wasted time evaporated and I didn’t care if nothing else was caught, I had landed some lovely meals.

The next capture was a surprise, as I reeled in a worm bait that had been out too long, a flounder followed and took the bait well off the bottom where it normally resides. This is not uncommon as they are a predatory fish but it always amuses me when it happens. It was just under size so went back.

Following this, there was precisely no action at all, almost like someone flipping a switch and turning the fish off. It was a welcome break when my wife Anna, along with son Alex and Mother-in-Law Pat turned up for a visit. Alex insisted on having his photo taken with the days captures and couldn’t resist poking the unfortunate (but dead) animals.

I perservered for as long as I could before having to call it a day. All in all, good day – not brilliant but good.