Seaford Bass Sandeel experiment

By , 5 October, 2009 11:36

The ‘sandeel only’ bait experiment I had been thinking of got under way last night with a session just East of the Beachcomber at Seaford beach. I arrived just after low water and set up two rods – one with a ledgered DVice pennel and one, a standard running ledger with a pennel, both baited with sandeel. I had only been able to get packets of small sandeel instead of the larger launce I had wanted, so due to the small size of the bait, I had to scale down to 1/0 hooks as opposed to the usual 4/0 or 6/0 I would use.

The Dvice was sent out at distance and the other chucked out just beyond what breakers there were. I was disappointed to see that the sea had flattened out substantially with hardly any lumpy water, it had retained virtually no movement after the recent winds and had cleared out with just faintest hint of colour.

About an hour after low water, I had the first take on the close in bait, which resulted in a plump bass of around 2½lbs. Shortly afterwards, I had another take which I snatched at and missed.

Things went quiet for a while as the water movement dropped off and it wasn’t until around 10pm that I had another take which I missed. A couple of whiting then made an appearance on the distance rod but they were of no real decent size, certainly not big enough to go home for fish cakes.

While dealing with the last whiting, the reel on the rod screamed and the rod arched over. I picked up but it had gone. As I started to retrieve, it went heavy and almost snagged up. I could feel the kicking of a fish on the other end and from the weight, it felt like a good ‘un. I was however, gutted to see a large ball of weed coming through the water and then weed jamming in the tip ring. I cleared the tip and then dragged the weed onto to the shingle where a bass of around the 2½lb mark flapped on the shoreline.

Another missed run about an hour after high water followed by nothing.

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