Haven’t been out for a while, so yesterday I thought it about time to have a chuck down at Brighton Marina in the evening and have a go for some sole. I picked up some fresh lugworm and ragworm from The Tackle Box and then made my way over to the east arm. I decided on taking the hike out to the higher numbers and eventually settled myself in bay 58 at about 6pm. It was a glorious warm  evening, although perhaps too calm, with no wind at all and a flat calm sea.

As it was still daylight, I started with one rod using  a two hook flapper baited with luworm and lobbed it out to see what was about. I rigged up another rod and stuck on some Sabikis and tried my luck at trying for some mackerel, even though it was perhaps too bright. Even so, I managed one quite quickly and then nothing, so gave that up.

I had intended to use a close in bass rig but this plan was scuppered on two counts, firstly by the huge  amounts of slimy, Spaghetti like weed that was infesting the water near to the wall and was clogging up the hook and sinker soon after casting; secondly lack of fresh mackerel which failed to show up.

As dusk came, I concentrated on sole. Two rods were set up with identical two hook sole rigs in size 4 and baited with either fresh lugworm, ragworm or stinking, evil ‘sticky’ lugworm that I had found in my fridge leftover from my last session.

Bites were quick to come but the first few fish were Pout and two ‘snotty’ eels that completely wrecked my rigs – thankfully I had made a few, so little time was wasted, re-rigging. As an aside, this is where I find the ‘Tronix’ rig winders far superior to the rig wallets I used to use; just clip on and unwind – no more hassle of tangled rigs.

The first soles to hit the deck were slips and then then a nice one of 32cm which was to become lunch. This was followed by another slip and then back to Pout. The surprise of the night was a small thornback which reached the dizzy weight of 1lb 2oz – much bigger than the usual palm sized creatures. This was the last fish of the night although I did bring in a Spider Crab that was hiding amongst a huge ball of spaghetti weed that had to be hand lined up it was so heavy.

I stuck it until about 3am before calling it a night and making the long walk back to the car and heading for home.