fishybuisness
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2021
- Messages
- 107
- Reaction score
- 800
- Points
- 93
- Location
- Devon
- Favourite Fishing
- Shore
So lately the big beach has played hard to get on a couple of sessions with only pest straps and pout and so on and i have been waiting for a good westerly to stir it up a bit.
Last mon a mate rang me and said we are on for a bit of 7 and bait work!
I rushed home from work and dug worm like a mad man and managed to get a few wraps of fresh blacks so we had enough for a good session and we met at location to cross a patch of water in 45mph winds at 11pm. This was a little hairy but we navigated well and ended up at the end destination still alive. We decided to put our heads down for a few hrs and hit it hard just before first light. Sea state was a bit wild but strangely clear water! It looked fishy and it was just the wrong type of fish being caught, bass upon bass played with our baits with a little mix up of bream and small smoothies. It was nice to be on a beach with so much atmosphere and energy after a long stint of water that resembled the doldrums. The best way to explain this session would be the word adapt!
I first rigged up with the normal 3-4ft pulleys with 4.0s and 7oz leads with the traditional 3-4 worm cod baits being wrapped up. Im not a bad caster but it was hard to even pitch the lead high on the back swing and not being used to the load of big baits with a 7oz we were pulling some pretty cool shapes and bending the scaffolding poles to the max. Even though we were hitting pretty good distances and holding bottom it was very hard work. The bass certainly loved the worm.
I started to lighten my approach and dropped down to a 5oz and single worm to really punch it out there. Its funny how much more energy i could develop with a lighter lead and quite nice to see a bait slamming through winds that felt like a brick wall. This is where the bream really came on. To my surprise i was holding bottom and pretty much uptiding. Instead of watching rod tips it was a case of tuning in to the way the line sat in the wind. It a was certainly nice to have slack liners on every bite.
where’s the c*d?
Well what a strange year! We didnt see any cod or even feel a tell tail sign that they were feeding. No nod nod or thump thumps and no yellow skin on the beach boooo.
So after having a great session but still no cigar we agreed that we would give it a go again in a couple of days once its had a bit more of a stir and maybe get a bit more colour in the water.
Wed night into thursday was the plan and the same again dug lug worm and fresh blacks and now straight into distance with 6oz and single worms was producing a really good stamp of bass up to around 5lb and they were fairly consistent. The water was turning the milky colour we wanted and i had high hopes the mud cows would be playing. The swell was near on 3m and the wind well all i can describe it as would be nuclear. We were using continental style rods with trusty mutipliers. I was using my go to cod rods the century bb’s and an my 20 year old carbon metal. The game we play in these conditions can only be learnt by complete failures in the past.
The process is fairly tricky compared to the usual lob put rod on rest and wind in some of the slack!
The distance achieved is equal to your bait size and presentation
The reel has to be well controlled to eliminate any sort of over run, but free enough to really buzz it out there.
so you have whacked it and the lead is high, as soon as the lead hits i pull out a few pulls of line to make sure the lead sinks quick
you now have a serious amount of slack going down the beach and now have to clear the line from the dump/breakers quick enough so you dont get shingled but light enough so you dont break the lead out.
the line now has a little tension but not TIGHT!
Its surprisingly funny to be holding a rod and pushing it towards your line instead of pulling.
bites were very easy to detect because as soon as you had a bite the line slackened and the rod flew back out of the rest onto the floor. This happend alot until i got my old trusty rod wraps to hold them in place
on this session there was 3 of us and we all fished really well and very very hard for most of the tide. We all had some really nice bass and still no COD!!
what on earth is going on?
its worth noting that the beach in these conditions is a very very dangerous place. That morning we identified what we thought was definitely a body. We alerted the coast guard and they were sending a heli and a shore team. We advised that theres no way that any class of lifeboat would not be able to come that shallow or be any aid whatso ever. Also they had about a 2 hr journey from round weymouth. They said they were going to walk up from ferrybridge. We explained we were 5 miles from ferrybridge and 4 miles from abbotsbury. We waited and waited at this point the thing of interest in the water was not being blown inshore and was drifting east a stready 20-30m from the bank. We had to leave and i hope that they managed to solve or sort the situation out.
I took most of my footage with video so not many pics at all.
i cant wait to smash some leads out again but im a bit hesitant for a bit until the targets actually show up in numbers! Fingers crossed they actually do turn up.
Dave out
Last mon a mate rang me and said we are on for a bit of 7 and bait work!
I rushed home from work and dug worm like a mad man and managed to get a few wraps of fresh blacks so we had enough for a good session and we met at location to cross a patch of water in 45mph winds at 11pm. This was a little hairy but we navigated well and ended up at the end destination still alive. We decided to put our heads down for a few hrs and hit it hard just before first light. Sea state was a bit wild but strangely clear water! It looked fishy and it was just the wrong type of fish being caught, bass upon bass played with our baits with a little mix up of bream and small smoothies. It was nice to be on a beach with so much atmosphere and energy after a long stint of water that resembled the doldrums. The best way to explain this session would be the word adapt!
I first rigged up with the normal 3-4ft pulleys with 4.0s and 7oz leads with the traditional 3-4 worm cod baits being wrapped up. Im not a bad caster but it was hard to even pitch the lead high on the back swing and not being used to the load of big baits with a 7oz we were pulling some pretty cool shapes and bending the scaffolding poles to the max. Even though we were hitting pretty good distances and holding bottom it was very hard work. The bass certainly loved the worm.
I started to lighten my approach and dropped down to a 5oz and single worm to really punch it out there. Its funny how much more energy i could develop with a lighter lead and quite nice to see a bait slamming through winds that felt like a brick wall. This is where the bream really came on. To my surprise i was holding bottom and pretty much uptiding. Instead of watching rod tips it was a case of tuning in to the way the line sat in the wind. It a was certainly nice to have slack liners on every bite.
where’s the c*d?
Well what a strange year! We didnt see any cod or even feel a tell tail sign that they were feeding. No nod nod or thump thumps and no yellow skin on the beach boooo.
So after having a great session but still no cigar we agreed that we would give it a go again in a couple of days once its had a bit more of a stir and maybe get a bit more colour in the water.
Wed night into thursday was the plan and the same again dug lug worm and fresh blacks and now straight into distance with 6oz and single worms was producing a really good stamp of bass up to around 5lb and they were fairly consistent. The water was turning the milky colour we wanted and i had high hopes the mud cows would be playing. The swell was near on 3m and the wind well all i can describe it as would be nuclear. We were using continental style rods with trusty mutipliers. I was using my go to cod rods the century bb’s and an my 20 year old carbon metal. The game we play in these conditions can only be learnt by complete failures in the past.
The process is fairly tricky compared to the usual lob put rod on rest and wind in some of the slack!
The distance achieved is equal to your bait size and presentation
The reel has to be well controlled to eliminate any sort of over run, but free enough to really buzz it out there.
so you have whacked it and the lead is high, as soon as the lead hits i pull out a few pulls of line to make sure the lead sinks quick
you now have a serious amount of slack going down the beach and now have to clear the line from the dump/breakers quick enough so you dont get shingled but light enough so you dont break the lead out.
the line now has a little tension but not TIGHT!
Its surprisingly funny to be holding a rod and pushing it towards your line instead of pulling.
bites were very easy to detect because as soon as you had a bite the line slackened and the rod flew back out of the rest onto the floor. This happend alot until i got my old trusty rod wraps to hold them in place
on this session there was 3 of us and we all fished really well and very very hard for most of the tide. We all had some really nice bass and still no COD!!
what on earth is going on?
its worth noting that the beach in these conditions is a very very dangerous place. That morning we identified what we thought was definitely a body. We alerted the coast guard and they were sending a heli and a shore team. We advised that theres no way that any class of lifeboat would not be able to come that shallow or be any aid whatso ever. Also they had about a 2 hr journey from round weymouth. They said they were going to walk up from ferrybridge. We explained we were 5 miles from ferrybridge and 4 miles from abbotsbury. We waited and waited at this point the thing of interest in the water was not being blown inshore and was drifting east a stready 20-30m from the bank. We had to leave and i hope that they managed to solve or sort the situation out.
I took most of my footage with video so not many pics at all.
i cant wait to smash some leads out again but im a bit hesitant for a bit until the targets actually show up in numbers! Fingers crossed they actually do turn up.
Dave out
