Sundays at Brighton Marina, especially sunny ones can be purgatory when it comes to serious fishing. You can generally never find your ‘hotspot’ or favourite bay, the place is noisy and quite frankly, the behaviour of some can only be described as disgusting. Anyway, I thought I’d take advantage of the England v Germany match and hit the marina after the game yesterday in the hope that it may not be way too crowded as normal. I was pleasantly surprised when I got to the East arm – there were hardly any people on there at at all. Weather-wise, it was a flat calm, clear sea, bright sunshine with no wind – not ideal for fishing in the day but I hoped that once dark it wouldn’t be too bad.
I walked out to my favoured bay and started to set up, one rod geared for Bass, with a long link running ledger ending in a 3/0 hook to be baited with mackerel once I’d caught them. The idea was to feather for Mackerel on the other rod until I had enough and then set that one up with a size 4 two hook Sole rig baited with lugworm. As it happens, it was hard work getting the Mackerel and they didn’t show until it was almost dark when I managed to bag half a dozen.
The bass rod was baited up with Mackerel chunk and cast out before I swapped the feathers for the Sole rig on the second rod, baited up and cast that out. First hit was a schoolie Bass that took the lugworm. The next to come up was a small palm sized Thornback Ray, also on the lug.
As the evening wore on, the Bass rod refused to twitch and nothing appeared to be interested in the Mackerel bait – not even crabs, the only time it moved was when I retrieved to re-bait! The lug was proving to be a hit though as I had a steady stream of fish: schoolie Bass, Pout and Small Thornbacks, not great but at least I was busy.
High water arrived (about 1am) and went with nothing spectacular to report. The bait ran out at about 3am and that was my cue to leave with a final tally of 8 Bass, the biggest at 35cm, a few Pout and half a dozen small Thornbacks. The next trip will probably be a prawn and float and float session, although before that, I do have a mission to bag some Mackerel for Anna’s cooking demo at Alex’s school on Wednesday. This will be a first light episode that morning, so I hope that the bloody Mackerel oblige and show up.
Marina East arm now open
Just heard from the Tackle Box at Brighton Marina that the East arm is now open for night fishing tonight and tomorrow night; not sure about the weekend yet though.
Marina East Arm Closed
Brighton Marina East arm is having concrete repair work done during the evenings and so will be closed to access and fishing until further notice.
I’ll update when it’s re-opened.
Had an early session on the West arm of Brighton Marina this morning from 4.30am, to bag some Mackerel – bait for a Bassing session tonight and some for the smoker. The water was flat calm and crystal clear and weather-wise, there was no wind and an overcast sky.
I set up in bay10 and cast out a set of small Sabiki style feathers which were immediately hit by Mackerel, first cast and a full house of five fish; from then on, it was fish every cast – some singles but mostly a full string. They were everywhere, the water seemed alive with the blighters. I must say, it makes a nice change to see so many; up until now, they seem to have been quite sparse when I’ve fished over on the east wall, at least now, you can be guaranteed to get enough without having to work for hours to catch them.
Once I’d caught enough for my needs, I stood against the edge and marvelled at the site of the shoals working along the arm. Looking down into the gin clear sea, I could see individual fish chasing the masses of fry which were being corralled up against the wall. It was like watching one of those TV programmes you see, featuring Tuna attacking Sardine shoals, only in miniature. This is one of the things I love about fishing; you get to see the wonders of nature that many people will never experience and that we anglers all too often take for granted. The photos I took don’t really convey the ferocity of the feeding and shoaling but do give just a hint of what it’s like.
I’d been looking forward to yesterday all week; with the bigger tides and the arrival of Mackerel in numbers, the prospects for a good nights fishing on Brighton Marina, after Bass were pretty good. I arrived on the East arm and headed out and found a space in bay 59, arriving at about 7pm. The place was extraordinarily quiet for a warm, sunny Saturday – hardly anyone out there, anyone would think there was some football tournament on.
There was a hint of an Easterly breeze but it was literally just a whiff. The sea was flat, clear and the tide was just into the flood and coming up to a midnight high, conditions looked promising. I set up a rod for bait gathering using a set of small Sabikis to get a few Mackerel at dusk. I then set up a scratching rod, using a size 4 two hook flapper baited with lugworm and tried this at varying distances throughout the session.
Won’t rabbit on as there isn’t really that much to report, I packed up at 3am after a disappointing 8 hours of inactivity – the final tally was one Black Bream (a keeper), one schoolie Bass and a Pout that all fell to the lugworm. The Mackerel bait was never even touched except by crabs. An evening that had promised a bit more, failed to deliver.
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Posted in: Fishing
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Bass, Brighton Marina, Mackerel, Sea Angling, Sea Fishing, Sole, Sussex, Thornback
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