Despite the forecast Easterly winds, which are not a fisherman’s best friend according to the old folklore “When the wind is from the West, fish feed best. When the wind is from the East, fish feed least“. I decided to still go ahead with a session down the at Brighton Marina, fishing from low water through to high water at about 1am.
On arrival at bay 30 and setting up, it became apparent that float fishing was going to be a no-no, with the float just being swept back in towards the wall with all the weed and crap. I packed that up and sent out a lugworm on a ledgered DVice and then set about trying for some fresh mackerel for bait. No luck on the Sabikis and the worm baits kept coming back masked in fine stringy weed.
It was about this time that Keith, one of the wardens came along and mentioned that the West arm was pretty much wind free. With the wind strengthening and the weed getting worse, I soon made the decision to pack up and head off to the West arm, even though I thought it would be packed. As I got there, I met a bloke who had just finished and asked if there was any space on the arm; I was surprised when he said that it was empty apart from only a few fishing there.
As I arrived on the arm and started walking out, I couldn’t believe my luck, it seemed as though the bloody wind had followed me and had now swung round from an Easterly to a Northerly and was blowing straight along the arm. Undeterred, I set up about half way along determined not to blank. First rod out was a ledgered lugworm tipped with strip of mackerel that I had blagged from Keith who was now on the arm too. As I was waiting for a take on the worm, I worked some Sabikis and managed to haul out four mackerel in a few casts.
The worm rod started lunging and the first fish to hit the deck was a nice black bream. I re-baited, cast out and started on the Sabikis again but nothing else seemed to be interested, so I changed over from that and set up a running ledger with 3/0 pennel rig baited with half mackerel fillets.
As the light faded, the wind swung round even more and was now quite fierce and was blowing fine sand and all sorts of rubbish along the wall which seemed intent in getting into my bag and bucket. As I was clearing out the crap from my bucket, I noticed the worm rod nodded a few times and the next bream was quickly aboard. This was slightly larger and was probably around the 1lb mark.
The next take seemed better and having initially struck, I became snagged but could still feel a fish at the other end. I got out of the snag but the rattling on the line had stopped and was now just a dead weight. I cranked the ‘weight’ in and swung aboard the culprit – a set of what I presume were supposed to be a string of mackerel feathers but looked more like something that would not look out of place draped around the shoulders of Elton John or Lilly Savage. Christ, I have never seen such a garishly coloured set of monstrosities; the hooks were huge too, at least 4/0. I reckon the previous owner had deliberately left them snagged there out of embarrassment or a big game boat had passed through thinking there were Marlin or some such beasts lurking near the West arm and lost them on the reef. Anyway, I cut it all free from my gear and dropped them in my bucket with a metallic thud.
I carried on for a while and landed another two bream on the worm baits whilst the mackerel remained untouched. By about 11pm, the wind had increased while the bites had stopped, so with thoughts of a decent coffee (not the hot brown sludge in my flask) and a more comfortable setting, I tackled down and headed for home. At least it was the first time I had fished the West arm and been virtually the only one there.