VooDooMan 2
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2020
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- Shore
More like a CHAMBER OF HORRORS If you are of a nervous disposition or easily upset please read no further . The venue was once again a north Gower surf beach. HW 0300 ish with a 6.1 mtrs tide. Light south westerly wind with a 6% chance of rain through the night (That's what the MET office website said) Arrived at the beach car park armed with 2 rods a piece , plenty of blow lug , razor clams and some frozen mackerel I had cut up earlier for tipping off the worm baits. Nice walk through the dunes to the beach. We were the only ones there so managed to set up near the the stream that runs on to the beach as this is meant to be the local hotspot . I proceeded to set up both rods with a mixture of baits and traces this meant a ledger rig with a couple of razor clams whipped onto a pennel rig and a wessex rig loaded with plenty of blow lug on two hooks . I choose to use a couple of 150 grams gripper leads to negate the quite strong lateral pull on this beach. Having done this , and as the water was still some way off I left the rods in the rest with the traces lying on the sand . This is where it starts to get gruesome . I noticed my fishing pal was having a problem setting up so I went over to offer my help . No more than 10 meters from my rod rest . It appeared that one of his reels was playing up and he couldn't engage the anti reverse lever . We potched with it for about 10 minutes in the dark with the aid of head torches , I had not bothered to keep an eye on my rods at they were not actually fishing ! Next thing we hear a crash as my rest and two rods fell to sand and one rod was being dragged along Our head torches quickly picked up the culprit , a f******* fox has snuck up and started to eat the baited hooks !!!! I grabbed the rod that was being dragged along and proceeded to try and reel it in . The main line snapped !!! The fox ran off and I could clearly see at least one gripper lead hanging from it's mouth . On investigating it was apparent that it had eaten both lots of bait and snapped off the main line as well. That meant it had at least 3 hooks in it's mouth along with two gripper leads hanging down. Now I'm no great lover of foxes but I was pretty distraught imagining the pain it was going to suffer from the hooks let alone the possibility of bad reports of "cruel anglers " should it's dying or dead body be discovered. Any way no to be deterred from our quest of trying to catch some fish I re-rigged both rods , baited up and cast out . My fishing mate was now reduced to one rod with a faulty tip light but was willing to persevere. The weather at this stage was as forecast , light breeze and dry. I soon managed to land a small bass of about 1lb which was a good positive result after the trauma of the bait eating , trace stealing fox. Things however soon went pear shape . Fishing buddy reported that his other reel was now suffering the same problem as the first !!! This resulted in him having to hold the line with the rod in the rest to stop it un-spooling . It was now about midnight and as forecast the wind started to switch round to the SSE still light and no rain. This lasted for about 15 minutes when the wind switched back to almost due west and it started to piss down Definitely not in the forecast. Now both being veterans we were well protected from the weather and used to persevering in adverse conditions . For the next hour we both carried on fishing both getting regular bites and I managed to hook and land another small bass. It had made a mess of the snood so I was in the process of changing the snood when I took stock of the situation and with rain water dripping from my nose I made the command decision that this was getting beyond a joke and no longer enjoyable. My fishing buddy quickly agreed as his arthritic fingers were beginning to cause him some discomfort . Excess bait was donated to fishes and what ever else might eat it. We were both very pleased when we got back to the car loaded out gear and headed home . A pretty traumatic session and it's taught me that unfortunately as much as the mind is willing my 73 year old body no longer enjoys standing on a deserted beach in the pouring rain listening to the cries of a wounded fox drifting along with wind. I fear I might just have to become a fair weather day light angler in future !!
