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By Vic, 28 June, 2010 10:35

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.

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By Vic, 18 June, 2010 08:49

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.

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By Vic, 13 June, 2010 16:58

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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By Vic, 10 June, 2010 15:57

I haven’t been out for a few days, so thought I’d have a go down at Brighton Marina after work yesterday. Arrived on the East arm at about 8.15pm with a predicted high tide at 10pm – not ideal, as I prefer to fish from low tide up. Anyway, beggars can’t be choosers, so got myself sorted in bay 28 and had a look at the water. The mayrot had disappeared but the water was choked with masses of floating weed, moving in the West to East current (this did thin out over high tide and the ebb). The sea was flat calm with virtually no breeze in the clear sky.

One rod was set up with a size 4 two hook sole rig baited with lugworm on one hook and ragworm on the other and cast out about 30 yards. Tried for some fresh mackerel and only managed three by the time darkness fell.

First fish was a very small smooth Hound pup which took the ragworm and was quickly followed by another. Then had a surprise mackerel which took the remains of the lugworm that was being retrieved for re-baiting. A schoolie bass then took a fancy to the lugwom a few casts later.

I packed away the mackerel gear as darkness came and swapped it for a long link running ledger rig which I alternately baited with either mackerel head on a single 6/0 or fillet on a 4/0 pennel in the hope of a decent bass. To be honest, I would have been better saving the mackerel for taking home for all the good they did. The baits were either clogged with weed or savage by crabs, with no interest shown by Billy bass at all.

My painstakingly built sole rig was utterly destroyed by a snotty eel which had taken the ragworm and then spun itself into a sort of cocoon of tangled line and slime. I managed to cut away the line and release the bloody thing which would no doubt make someone else’s life a misery later on.

The only other fish of the night were a brace of Pout and another small smooth Hound pup followed by nothing. By about midnight, my enthusiasm was flagging, a brisk easterly breeze got up and the bait ran low, so gave it another hour before calling it a night.

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By Vic, 1 June, 2010 14:24

Normally I would avoid Brighton Marina on a bank holiday like the plague but a few guys I know were fishing down there yesterday, so I thought I’d pop down for a few hours. I stopped in at The Tackle Box and picked up some quality lugworm and squid before heading off to the East arm. Just as I was walking onto the arm, my phone went and it was Steve from the shop saying I’d left my squid behind – damn. It was arranged that if possible, one the wardens could bring it out when they next did a ticket round and left it at that.

Got out on the arm about 1.30pm and met up with Danny, Steve and Ant and set up in bay 31 with them. High tide was predicted for about 2.30pm but the current was already pulling hard to the right, the sea was dead calm but looked like soup with all the rot in it.

I set up one rod with a size 4 two hook sole rig and lobbed that out baited with lugworm, the other rod, I rigged with some mackerel feathers as I wanted fresh mackerel for bass bait but this was more in hope than probability looking at the state of the water – but you never know.

My first fish of the day was a bass, or basslet to be more precise, as it was barely bigger than the bait I was using but at least it saved me from a potential blank. As the tide dropped away, things were very slow with no fishy action at all. Not long after this, one of the wardens Frank stopped by for a ticket check; I mentioned the squid I’d left at the shop and just asked if he could pick it up if passing. a short while later, Frank returned with the abandoned squid. Top marks Frank and also well done on getting that bloke to return the undersized bass he was about to pop in his bag.

When the other guys left, they kindly left me the contents of their crab bucket which had a couple of peeler shore crabs and two nice peeler velvet swimmer crabs. I peeled one of the shore crabs but jeez, it stank like a tramp’s shoe, it was very, very off  (cheers Danny). I peeled another shore crab, which this time wasn’t quite so aromatic and stuck half of it on the size 3/0 hook of a running ledger rig which had replaced the mackerel feathers. I slung this out around fifty yards and waited only a short while before the rod tip was bouncing away to indicate fishy action. I struck into a fish and brought in a smooth Hound pup of about 2lbs which was quickly unhooked and returned. There were a few more pups but the really, really small ones.

The next fish was a reasonable eel of about 1½lbs. Things quietened down then with only  a couple of small eels, until just after low water at about 8.30pm when it seemed to go bass mad, when they hurled themselves at the baits as soon as they were in the water and a couple of times, I had double shots on the sole rig. OK they weren’t big, all averaging around 1 – 1½lbs but it was enough to keep me busy and was good fun. At one point, I had a double shot of  a bass and a flounder, which made a change. Although good fun, it didn’t do much for my attempts at more sole! This kept going until 3 hours into the flood tide when someone somewhere suddenly flipped a switch and it it died off, with the odd Pout and of course the obligatory rockling.

I stuck it out until 1am, with bait running out and fishy action sadly lacking, I called it a night and headed off home. The final tally was over a dozen bass, a few smooth Hound pups, one flounder, a few eels, numerous Pout and rockling.

The latter hours of the session were a joy to be out, a quiet, still night with no wind, flat sea and although not good for productive fishing, a bright moon behind scattered clouds – this combined with a few fish reminded me of why I enjoy this so much. I tried to get a decent shot but the camera is a bit limited as to what it can do. Click on the picture for a larger image.