Action Man
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- Oct 3, 2020
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A wise man once told me: ''This venue is never without its dramas'', and well yes, last night was strewn with them!
What a glorious day it was. I arrived at my north Kent low water mark at about 6:30pm, 2 hours before low water and the venue was already filling up with anglers squeezing into every nook and cranny. The conditions were stunning, calm seas, no wind, and a lovely sunset to start the session off.
Some of you may remember my report from 2 weeks ago where I tried this venue for the first time and had some success with the rays even though harshly beaten by the weather elements. Last night it was so nice I thought I would be in for some comfort - boy was I wrong!
I waded out about 50 yards all confident only to be taken by surprise that I was rapidly filling up with cold water in one leg, damn - must have a hole in my waders grrrrr!!!! Anyway, I banged out my first cast as far as I could then squelched my way back to my rod rest. I was a bit peeved off as my dreams of a comfortable few hours on the rocks were immediately ruined by the cold water. Determined as ever I just sat back on my box to prepare my next rig when I heard an almighty crash and looked up to see my rod and rest slamming into the rocks - what the hell! Turns out I hadn't set my drag.... I picked up the mess from the rock beds and lifted straight into an obvious ray bite. Some good pumping and lifting proved some nice sport with the ray until disaster struck, my line must have sheared on a rock and SNAP! There it went, I nearly fell backwards and proceeded to curse a few times with my frustration at losing a fish, and my gear and the prospect of the fish swimming away with it still hooked made me feel quite uncomfortable.
I marched back to my tackle box and quickly changed reels and put on the new rig, then made the long march and wade back out with my soggy squelchy leg squeaking all the way. As I got ready to cast, I noticed my red mainline floating in the water - hang on, it's still there! So I grabbed it with one hand then made it back to the shore where I could then put my rod back in the rest (still hadn't cast it out) and then proceeded with trying to handline it in. To my surprise, it was actually quite easy, took a good few minutes but I soon had all my gear back AND a bonus male ray! So my first handline caught ray (well, sort of anyway)!
After all that commotion, I waded out again and thumped my second cast out, the sun was starting to set and all was feeling good again. It didn't take long to register another positive bite, I quickly acted on it and soon enough I was making my way to the water's edge to fight another ray. Well, can you guess what happened?!? Yep, here we go again - SNAP! Literally fuming, I ran into the water hoping to find my line but obviously, this was long gone (did I honestly think I was going to be that lucky again)?!? Disaster again. So back to my tackle box to tie on a new leader only to realise I didn't have any with me (what an idiot). So had no choice to but to fish without one, something I strongly advocate against but I made sure I had plenty of distance from the other anglers.
Cast number 3 just before low water saw a good attack on my bait which to avoid a snag I struck into and clearly, this was too premature and no connection made. The bait had been well mangled so I was in no doubt this would have been the third ray in just as many casts. Low water came and went and the tide started flooding rapidly and someone opened the door to the kennel, dogfish started coming in thick and fast so after another hour of dealing with them I decided to call it quits. By this point, my entire left leg had gone numb having been submerged in cold water for 3 hours!
What a testing evening, got to just laugh at it all though
Until next time
Alan
What a glorious day it was. I arrived at my north Kent low water mark at about 6:30pm, 2 hours before low water and the venue was already filling up with anglers squeezing into every nook and cranny. The conditions were stunning, calm seas, no wind, and a lovely sunset to start the session off.
Some of you may remember my report from 2 weeks ago where I tried this venue for the first time and had some success with the rays even though harshly beaten by the weather elements. Last night it was so nice I thought I would be in for some comfort - boy was I wrong!
I waded out about 50 yards all confident only to be taken by surprise that I was rapidly filling up with cold water in one leg, damn - must have a hole in my waders grrrrr!!!! Anyway, I banged out my first cast as far as I could then squelched my way back to my rod rest. I was a bit peeved off as my dreams of a comfortable few hours on the rocks were immediately ruined by the cold water. Determined as ever I just sat back on my box to prepare my next rig when I heard an almighty crash and looked up to see my rod and rest slamming into the rocks - what the hell! Turns out I hadn't set my drag.... I picked up the mess from the rock beds and lifted straight into an obvious ray bite. Some good pumping and lifting proved some nice sport with the ray until disaster struck, my line must have sheared on a rock and SNAP! There it went, I nearly fell backwards and proceeded to curse a few times with my frustration at losing a fish, and my gear and the prospect of the fish swimming away with it still hooked made me feel quite uncomfortable.
I marched back to my tackle box and quickly changed reels and put on the new rig, then made the long march and wade back out with my soggy squelchy leg squeaking all the way. As I got ready to cast, I noticed my red mainline floating in the water - hang on, it's still there! So I grabbed it with one hand then made it back to the shore where I could then put my rod back in the rest (still hadn't cast it out) and then proceeded with trying to handline it in. To my surprise, it was actually quite easy, took a good few minutes but I soon had all my gear back AND a bonus male ray! So my first handline caught ray (well, sort of anyway)!
After all that commotion, I waded out again and thumped my second cast out, the sun was starting to set and all was feeling good again. It didn't take long to register another positive bite, I quickly acted on it and soon enough I was making my way to the water's edge to fight another ray. Well, can you guess what happened?!? Yep, here we go again - SNAP! Literally fuming, I ran into the water hoping to find my line but obviously, this was long gone (did I honestly think I was going to be that lucky again)?!? Disaster again. So back to my tackle box to tie on a new leader only to realise I didn't have any with me (what an idiot). So had no choice to but to fish without one, something I strongly advocate against but I made sure I had plenty of distance from the other anglers.
Cast number 3 just before low water saw a good attack on my bait which to avoid a snag I struck into and clearly, this was too premature and no connection made. The bait had been well mangled so I was in no doubt this would have been the third ray in just as many casts. Low water came and went and the tide started flooding rapidly and someone opened the door to the kennel, dogfish started coming in thick and fast so after another hour of dealing with them I decided to call it quits. By this point, my entire left leg had gone numb having been submerged in cold water for 3 hours!
What a testing evening, got to just laugh at it all though
Until next time
Alan
