Had my first squid session of the year on the West arm at Brighton Marina this morning. Arrived at about 5.30am, half an hour or so after high water to a beautiful morning, flat calm, clear sea, no wind at all and a clear sky. I walked straight up to the float only bays and tackled up my carp rod with 1ΒΌ oz sliding float and a green Tronix jig.
To say fishing was slow is understatement to say the very least, in fact I had no takes at all in the first hours. As I had the arm to myself, I even wandered down to some of the other bays to have a trot through there but nothing doing. As the tide dropped away, I decided to stay where I was, up in the float bays.
While the fishing was non-existent, I had a play with the camera and took a few morning shots – the last four in the series here
I decided on a change in tactic (well colour anyway) and changed over to a pink jig and immediately I was into some action, a slow pull down on the float which I lifted into. Felt some weight but non of the characteristic tugging of a squid. My catch slowly surfaced and was duly landed…. bugger!! Pictured left (click for larger image). It showed that I might have been fishing just a little too deep. Later on, as the tide dropped away and the crystal clear water became shallower, you could see literally hundreds of these creatures scattered over the sea bed.
I think it was about 10.30 when I eventually had a proper take and I was briefly attached to my target but only very briefly. As I started to wind in, I could feel the tugging and ‘jetting’ when all of a sudden, it let go. I dropped the jig down in the hope that it woud take it again but no such luck. That was my one and only of the day.
It wasn’t long after this that the wind picked up a bit. It wasn’t unduly uncomfortable but it was enough to chop the surface up to the extent that it was difficult to fish the float properly. I reckoned I’d had my chance for the day and blown it and didn’t see the point in carrying on, bearing in mind the conditions too. So it was that I packed up and headed off and thinking about when I can get down there again for another crack.