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By Vic, 19 May, 2011 12:22

Yesterday evening, after work, I met up with a Nigel, a guy visiting from sunny Devon and a member of another site I visit – South Devon Fishing. We had initially planned to fish Brighton Marina but the wind conditions at the time put paid to that, so to plan B, we decided to fish Brighton beach, just West of the Banjo Groyne. We got onto the deserted beach at about 8.30 pm to a brisk South Westerly breeze and a nice lumpy, coloured sea, lovely looking conditions for bassing.

I setup the bass rod with a long link running ledger ending in a 4/0 pennel baited with launce to start with. After the first cast, it became apparent that weed could be a problem, as it was soon clogging up the line and tackle and I ended up having to bring in the baits at frequent intervals to clear the line. Nigel had setup his rods with flappers and vaious combinations of baits and was soon in the water.

Nigel was first in with the fish when he landed a small thornback – and no matter what he tries to tell anyone, that is not a size 47 wellie, it is my rather demure and delicate size 11! I do like these little rays but they can be a pest at times and I do wish we got them in the larger size off the shore around here.

I had just re-baited the bass rod with squid and cast out and was in the process of tackling up my second rod, when I heard the ratchet on my reel go briefly and thought it was another clump of weed pulling line off in the waves, so let it go. It then went again and I noticed my line was way off to the left – big weed! It wasn’t until I started to retrieve that I could feel the definite kick of a fish on the other end. I carefully brought it in through the waves and up onto the shingle where I found a lovely small bass of a measured 47cm and around 2½lbs. A nice and promising start to the evening, just needed to get its big brother now.

By now, the wind had started to drop and thankfully, the drizzle had also stopped, for which I was eternally grateful as my lovely neck warmer was somewhat damp and it was beginning to feel more like a wet cat around my neck – or what I imagine a wet cat around my neck would feel like.

Nigel was soon in again with another small thornie. He had told me that he had spent six? sessions in his native homeland trying for a thornie and had finally managed his quest. He then comes up here and they come along like buses. I know, I know they’re small and I hear you say that they’re not real thornies but it’s all we can manage in these ray deprived parts. Anyway, he then started to show off his ray catching prowess by landing a double shot of the little critters. Honestly, there was no way of stopping the guy. I thought I was going to spend the entire night taking pictures of the damn things.

Not to be outdone, I then had one of my very own which took a crab bait out at distance. I must point out at this point that I believe mine was the biggest one of the night – Nigel may have had the edge on quantity but I defintely had the quality factor 😉

As the tide pushed up, the wind dropped completely and as a result, the sea flattened out completely with virtually no wave action. The good thing though, was that the weed had gone and gear was coming back clean. Bites also dried up and it seemed like the fish had gone too. Launce wasn’t working and neither was the squid or crab; varying distances made no impact either.

I heard a shout go up from the thornie king and saw him walk back from the waters edge clutching a fish – and it wasn’t a thornie! He’d got his own bass, although somewhat smaller than mine A quick photo and off it went back into the oggin.

With nothing doing, I was thinking about packing up but as usual, I can never resist that ‘last cast’ and so carried on, even though my optimism levels had dropped to those of a Christmas turkey – but as they say ‘you just never know’.

As I stood there pondering what to do, I saw a rod tip dip down – the one at distance baited with crab. I waited and it dipped again and I lifted into what felt like heavy resistance with a bit of a kick. Another thornie maybe? Anyway I dragged it into the shallows and saw a flounder – must have been a greedy bugger to take whole crab on a 3/0 I thought. It was then that I saw there was another line tangled in there, which turned out to be one of Nigel’s previously lost flapper rigs -and it one of these hooks that was in the flounder. We’ll call that one a joint effort I think.

With the tide dropping quickly and at about 3.15 we decided to jack it in for the night and head back. It wasn’t the busiest of sessions but at least there were fish and it was a great time in great company. I’m hopeful of a re-match at some time in the summer when I’ll be heading off down Devon way.

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By Vic, 7 March, 2011 09:45

Saturday nigh night saw a change in venue as I headed for a small, unofficial competition organised by a young lad passionate about his fishing (well done Ryan for your efforts). Brighton beach, down by the Banjo Groyne was the mark chosen.

I arrived there at about 6pm and walking onto the beach , just West of the groyne, saw that there were already some of the guys down there. The plan was to fish the tide up and over the midnight high water. Conditions were slightly better than the previous night, with an overcast sky and a bit of movement in the clear sea.

Two rods used, one with a two hook flapper baited with lugworm, while the second rod was setup with a long link running ledger terminating in a pennel baited with launce, hoping for bass.

Nothing happened until darkness came and then it was as the previous trip – tiny whiting and slugs (rockling). After Ryan truned up, we wondered over for a chin wag with some of the other guys who are also members of  WSF a fishing website that I frequent.

It was then back to the fishing which really was a just an excercise in bait up, cast, retrieve, unhook small whiting/slug, re-bait, cast out etc etc. The launce was being savaged by the small fishs, I ended up taking that rig off and putting a flapper on that rod too. It wasn’t long before Igot fed up with watching two twitching and rattling rod tips, so I packed up one rod and continued with just the one.

High water came and went along with my enthusiasm. It wasn’t long after this that I decided bed was better than beach and upped sticks and left.

I think that between us, we shifted a lot of whiting and a load of slugs. Ryan did have a small flounder and the other guys managed flounder and a schoolie bass.

This was the first time I had fished this beach for many years and I’d forgotten what a great place it is. There are always promising reports from this area of the coast and good fish are landed every year. This being the case, I’ve promised myself that I’ll make the effort to fish it more often this year.

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By Vic, 21 May, 2009 20:53

Fancied having and afternoon/evening session down at Brighton Marina yesterday and had planned on fishing the East arm to do a bit of float fishing as well as the usual bottom fishing. These plans were scuppered when, as I drove along the coast road and looked at the sea on my left, I saw that there was a band the colour of weak tea all along the coast and around the marina – a result of all the silt and chalk in the water being stirred up by recent heavy seas.

I carried on anyway popped into The Tackle Box to top up my bait supply and get a few bits and pieces. After a chat in the shop and seeing one of the wardens, it became apparent that the West arm would be the better option as it was thought the colour would drop out of the water as the tide flowed. Stock replenished, I headed off to park the car and by about 3.30pm, I was walking out onto the West arm. The sun was shining, it was warm with hardly any breeze and unusually, there weren’t that many people out there but they were pretty evenly spread out along the wall. To have any chance of some space, I had to settle for bay 13 ( luckily I’m not superstitious – touch wood ).

As float fishing was out, I opted to start off with one rod, 2 hook flapper rig using size 2 hooks and baited with ragworm, tipped with strips of mackerel I had with me (frozen). I hoped I might manage to get a few fresh mackerel for bait if the sea cleared enough later on. One cast and one cup of coffee later, the first good bite of the day and I missed it. I left the bait out a bit longer but nothing returned to finish it’s meal. There must have been enough on he hook though because when I did retrieve, there was a small bloody spider crab hanging on while it finished the last morsel. This happened again on the next cast… and the next, I must have had a dozen of the things by the end of the session. I wouldn’t mind if they were peeling but they weren’t, they were all bullets.

I new it was going to be black bream that were giving the bites, so scaled down to size four hooks but by this time, the bites had dried up and all went quiet. I did notice that the water was clearing very slowly – very, very slowly. I tackled up with a set of Sabikis, just in case it was clear enough for some mackerel. As the tide rose, the colour was dropping, so I decided to have a few chucks; this resulted in zero, zilch, nowt.

By now the arm was filling up and I soon heard the swoosh of people casting sets of feathers into the oggin. There were also a few ‘Swoosh ‘n’ crack’ noises, as quite a few were obviously not using shock leaders on their setups and their main line was snapping under the strain of the cast. This is just daft, dangerous and puts everyone around them at risk. Luckily none were that near to me.

Time rolled on and before I knew it, sunset was upon us and it was a real beauty, I grabbed the small camera out of my bag and luckily it decided it would work this time which gave me the opportunity to get a couple of pictures. As darkness fell, the bites started again but were still difficult to hit even with the small hooks. I decided to hold the rod after each cast and it proved to be the downfall of two unlucky fish – one bream and one Pout, both which would not be worrying the record books.

High water came and went with nothing to show for my trouble, so with disappointment, I trundled back to the car and buggered off home.

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By Vic, 4 April, 2009 16:34

Well, I bagged my first squid of 2009 on the East arm at Brighton Marina on Friday afternoon; not a big one at around a pound and a bit in weight but a squid nonetheless. It was caught on a float fished, baited jig in bay somewhere in the 40’s (couldn’t be more precise as there were no painted numbers on the deck). The bait consisted of a small piece of mackerel tail fillet, lashed to the jig with bait elastic. I dropped another two trying to swing them in and lost another that let go of the jig at the surface.

All the action came after the first two hours of the flood on a neap tide. Not a lot else to say, except that it was supposed to warm and sunny down there for the afternoon whereas it was in fact cloudy, mist and bloody cold. Must remember not to trust the weather forecasts and pack appropriate clothing ‘Just in case’.

Hope to get down there again later in the week if conditions allow, so I can get in some practice before the 2nd ‘All England squid Championship‘, a friendly and unoffical bit of banter and competition between the guys on the WSF Forums.