ouchthathurt
Well-known member
- Joined
- May 15, 2021
- Messages
- 2,910
- Reaction score
- 12,462
- Points
- 113
- Location
- Hastings East Sussex
- Favourite Fishing
- Shore
Having had the first trip out last weekend for a bass, and realising that I’d missed the best part of the tide, i have been waiting for the tides to fall right so I can get back out there and give it a better go. With a few days off before going back to work tomorrow, watching the tides and weather, I felt that this mornings tide was looking good for a bass. With that in mind, I headed into my local tackle shop hoping to get some bait, but they were out! That left me with the frozen blacks that I had in the freezer, it wasn’t great, but it would do. At 0245 this morning, my baby woke me wanting her bottle, so having fed her, I looked at the clock and decided that the time was ripe, so I crept downstairs and loaded the old jalopy and winded my way to Pett level, getting to the beach for about 0330. Low water was around 0530 so the timing was perfect. I rigged two rods with 2 hook clipped down rigs baited with frozen lug and squid on 2/0 hooks and sent one long and the other short, into the dark swells. The light was provided by the full moon as I sat there fretting about the bait. So I dug out the head torch and broke out the lug pump and soon had a nice pile of freshly pumped lug. Both rods were soon rebaited with fresh dug lugworm and sent seawards once again.
The lateral flow was pretty strong again, requiring 6oz grippers to hold bottom properly. First cast with the new lug produced a nice gentle thump followed by a gentle slack liner which produced bass no 1 just as the dawn was breaking
as I was rebaiting this rod, the second rod dropped back, just as gently as the first, which produced bass no 2 
like peas in a pod! Both were lip hooked so I popped the hooks out, then slipped them back. I finished rebaiting both rods then sent them out into the rolling surf, one long and one short again - then I got back to bait pumping to keep the stocks up. 
The last of the ebb was fast approaching and my confidence was sky high. The sea looked good, with nice colour and not too much may rot about. 
Having decided that I may have gone a bit overboard with the bait digging, I sat back and relaxed behind the rods, within a few minutes, the short rod dropped back ever so slightly, and despite 90% of bites here being slack liners, for some daft reason, I tightened down to the lead again, only for it to drop back again, so I tried tightening again, only for it to go slack again… then the penny dropped… it was another bite! A quick retrieve and a fiesty scrap in the waves and bass no 3 was beached. This one was the largest of the trip, 
he came home with me for my sister in laws dinner. With the flood on the push, I knew my time was running out, the sun was fully up and I felt that the bass had moved on.
with that, I released my unused lug, wrapped up and headed home. 
The lateral flow was pretty strong again, requiring 6oz grippers to hold bottom properly. First cast with the new lug produced a nice gentle thump followed by a gentle slack liner which produced bass no 1 just as the dawn was breaking
as I was rebaiting this rod, the second rod dropped back, just as gently as the first, which produced bass no 2 like peas in a pod! Both were lip hooked so I popped the hooks out, then slipped them back. I finished rebaiting both rods then sent them out into the rolling surf, one long and one short again - then I got back to bait pumping to keep the stocks up. The last of the ebb was fast approaching and my confidence was sky high. The sea looked good, with nice colour and not too much may rot about. Having decided that I may have gone a bit overboard with the bait digging, I sat back and relaxed behind the rods, within a few minutes, the short rod dropped back ever so slightly, and despite 90% of bites here being slack liners, for some daft reason, I tightened down to the lead again, only for it to drop back again, so I tried tightening again, only for it to go slack again… then the penny dropped… it was another bite! A quick retrieve and a fiesty scrap in the waves and bass no 3 was beached. This one was the largest of the trip, he came home with me for my sister in laws dinner. With the flood on the push, I knew my time was running out, the sun was fully up and I felt that the bass had moved on.with that, I released my unused lug, wrapped up and headed home. 
