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South West Back breaking flattie bash

Mr Fish

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My calcium deficiency problem seems to be playing up again. The main symptoms for me are muscle and joint pain.
After a pretty much trouble free summer it’s been sneaking back, I suspect because I’m getting less vitamin D. Anyway the hospital is hopefully very shortly sorting blood tests so based on that I’m hopeful they can increase the dosage and get me sorted again.

ANYWAY, within reason, I’ve decided this time around I’m not going to stop doing the things I want to do.
Rock hopping might be off the menu for now but estuary and beach fishing is still doable, as long as I accept I’ll suffer for it afterwards ?

So today’s plan was a flattie bash for flounder in my local estuary.
I went out yesterday and dug these buggers, because my experience last week showed it was too much for me to dig bait and fish on the same day. I hoped by spreading the pain around a little, it wouldn’t be as bad…

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So, popped a codeine this morning and got down to the estuary about 2pm, not feeling great if I’m honest but hoping it would be okay.
@Christurner was set to meet me at around 5pm but I wanted to try and fish a bit of the ebb tide, which can be a good time.

I picked a spot which supposedly was the place to be on the long mud bank.
So I was a bit annoyed to discover my first cast was snagged. Whatever it was moved a bit, I’m guessing a buried log or bit of metal debris chucked into the river. Unfortunately only had 15lb line on and eventually it snapped.
The bait was also getting stripped very quickly. I suspected fry was the culprit, fingerling bass we call them, bloody things.
I was proved right…

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That did it, time to move. So I upped sticks and walked about 60-80 yards along the bank to another spot that showed a lot of footprints, meaning one or more people had probably done a longer session there, ie hopefully there were fish!
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Mud glorious mud…

First cast, typical flounder bite and yep…

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Only about 10oz but at least something was there, but were there more?
The odd lone flounder is possible anywhere but if it’s any good you’ll see a few.

Yup, next cast produced a much better fish, I figured about 1lb 2-4oz.
In my haste I forgot to get a pic at the time. Oops.
I’d brought a keep sack to keep any keepers fresh, so that was deployed.

I’d had three in short order so texted Chris and said get his arse in gear as I’d found the fish and other people were starting to come down.
I was kind of sneakily trying to flip them on the bank so people further down couldn’t see I was on the fish ?

By the time Chris arrived I had five. I gave him some of my worm to get started and said we could share but he’d probably need to dig at some point as I’d got through a lot of it.
If you didn’t get a flounder the bait robbers were still on it.

Chris went off digging and got plenty of decent worm but also put his back out (!) and got stuck so he had to roll out of his mud wallow while I fished on unaware ?

We both caught steadily. Chris had quite a nice one that joined my collection in the keep sack.
As darkness fell the bites tailed off a bit. Usually flounder fishing is better in the day, at least for the larger fish.

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But we both continued to catch, albeit sporadically.
I added a couple more to the keep sack, including one or two for Chris in case he didn’t get a companion keeper to go with his first fish.

By about 8pm our respective back ailments were becoming very painful.
I was squeaking every time I slipped in the deep mud and I’m sure Chris was feeling it as well.

We decided to knock it on the head although we were still catching, but enough was enough.
I ended up having 14 flounder and I believe Chris had something like eight, but he’d have to confirm the exact number.

After squelching through the mud we headed to a stony bit where Chris washed off his gear (I didn’t have the will to bend or stretch much at that point, it can be cleaned another day!) and we tipped out the fish to see what we had.

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Not too bad. My biggest one was on the far right but on weighing, it only went 1lb 3 and a half, I thought it would be a bit heavier.
Chris’s best fish, the third one along, went 1lb 8 but it was a much fatter fish.
It had clearly been in the river longer as it was green whereas mine was still mostly brown and with a few spots, showing it had been out at sea not too long ago.

Fish gutted, we staggered back to the cars and headed home, with my thoughts turned solely towards a codeine, or maybe two…

We were going to fish the surf beaches Friday and Saturday but I definitely need to do some resting up, and the surf forecast is rubbish for Friday anyway, so Saturday it is!
 

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Great report as always mate. The big flounder looks much heavier than it weighed then. Even without anything to compare it against for context (other than the other fish) it looks a good 2lber.

Well done on having a few though, and for braving the mud.
 
Great report as always mate. The big flounder looks much heavier than it weighed then. Even without anything to compare it against for context (other than the other fish) it looks a good 2lber.

Well done on having a few though, and for braving the mud.
Yea I’m wondering if maybe I fecked up the weighing but didn’t alter the scales between fish so I think it literally just hadn’t put on weight yet.
If you zoom in you can see its got quite an empty body cavity
 
Yea I’m wondering if maybe I fecked up the weighing but didn’t alter the scales between fish so I think it literally just hadn’t put on weight yet.
If you zoom in you can see its got quite an empty body cavity
Yeah, I see what you mean. It does look like it needed a good feed. The ones at the top middle and bottom left look much chunkier, despite being smaller in size.
 
Cracking report as always and nice feeeesh. Shame about the pain but to be honest, after the balloon and marmite festival I still can't picture your face not contorted with excitement and distress. Good effort ?
 
Great report and photos Tony! Nice haul of tasty Flounder there - maiking me hungry! ??
 
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