Mr Fish
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2020
- Messages
- 19,087
- Reaction score
- 65,906
- Points
- 116
- Location
- North Devon
- Favourite Fishing
- Shore
That got your attention! The ‘witch’s tit’ was a very flat North Devon surf beach, Westward Ho! in fact.
The occasion was a Friday night memorial bass competition in honour of a club member who passed away before covid, but it hasn’t been possible to organise the event until now.
Sadly after much talk about who was fishing, only seven of us actually turned out to fish it
There were the usual fairly lame excuses (in my opinion) as to why people couldn’t attend. The comp was from 10pm until 2am and if I’m honest I didn’t really want to be out on the beach that late but although I hadn’t known him too well, I liked the guy and wanted to support the event.
So we met up in the car park and headed off to our chosen spots.
Two of the lads opted to fish pretty near the car park.
I’d had plans to walk a fair way up the top but the rest went up there ahead of me and a couple had really bright headlights.
I’m totally anal about bright lights while bass fishing so in the end I opted to fish on my own in the middle between the two groups.
If I’m honest I always prefer to fish on my own anyway - no distractions and I can just get my head down and focus on the fishing.
Well. It wasn’t the best tide state. Low was 12.45am and with a 10pm start, that was a good two hours chasing it down, and it goes down a LONG way.
It wouldn’t have been my chosen time to fish it but it was the best of a bad window and they’d picked Friday to try and avoid any other plans people might have for the weekend.
Out went bluey and squid baits. Then by the time I’d had a coffee and baited up the spare the sea was bloody miles away.
Walk down (a long way) and reel in one rod. Rest the other on the seat box while I carried the tripod down, walk down reeling in the second rod, go back for the seatbox…. Had to do that about four times before the tide slowed up a bit.
It was doing my nut in tbh, but what can you do?
In hindsight, and I hadn’t really thought it through, a sand spike and one rod, where I could keep in closer touch with the surf zone might have been better, but I don’t usually do sessions where I chase the tide that much.
No bites during all of this. One squid bait came back pretty mangled and something may have hit it while I was traipsing up and down, who knows?
Around low, the lads near the car park reported two bass each, best 4lb.
I actually fished quite hard and ensured a constant stream of big squid and bluey baits were going out, plus also tried half a garfish which looked tempting, but nothing hit it.
We had an hour of flood then I noticed the top end lads packing up, the others followed and I kept my gear in the water until 2am but wasn’t expecting much.
Took my time packing up and got a phone call at 2.20 to check I was still alive - yep no worries, crack on home lads, see you soon.
Five bass caught in all but the 4lber was the biggest.
Funnily enough, the guys at the top had a mare with weed all night.
The lads down the bottom had really bad weed once the tide turned - it had been fine for me.
Hardly any weed until an hour into the flood. No bites either, but no weed.
Not much of a report I’m afraid. It would have been nice to get a couple but I hadn’t really gone to catch fish, just to show my support.
As I say, not a tide window I would have picked but a few fish showed at least.
Roll on the proper darker evenings when low tide is at 8pm, two hours after dark!
The occasion was a Friday night memorial bass competition in honour of a club member who passed away before covid, but it hasn’t been possible to organise the event until now.
Sadly after much talk about who was fishing, only seven of us actually turned out to fish it
There were the usual fairly lame excuses (in my opinion) as to why people couldn’t attend. The comp was from 10pm until 2am and if I’m honest I didn’t really want to be out on the beach that late but although I hadn’t known him too well, I liked the guy and wanted to support the event.
So we met up in the car park and headed off to our chosen spots.
Two of the lads opted to fish pretty near the car park.
I’d had plans to walk a fair way up the top but the rest went up there ahead of me and a couple had really bright headlights.
I’m totally anal about bright lights while bass fishing so in the end I opted to fish on my own in the middle between the two groups.
If I’m honest I always prefer to fish on my own anyway - no distractions and I can just get my head down and focus on the fishing.
Well. It wasn’t the best tide state. Low was 12.45am and with a 10pm start, that was a good two hours chasing it down, and it goes down a LONG way.
It wouldn’t have been my chosen time to fish it but it was the best of a bad window and they’d picked Friday to try and avoid any other plans people might have for the weekend.
Out went bluey and squid baits. Then by the time I’d had a coffee and baited up the spare the sea was bloody miles away.
Walk down (a long way) and reel in one rod. Rest the other on the seat box while I carried the tripod down, walk down reeling in the second rod, go back for the seatbox…. Had to do that about four times before the tide slowed up a bit.
It was doing my nut in tbh, but what can you do?
In hindsight, and I hadn’t really thought it through, a sand spike and one rod, where I could keep in closer touch with the surf zone might have been better, but I don’t usually do sessions where I chase the tide that much.
No bites during all of this. One squid bait came back pretty mangled and something may have hit it while I was traipsing up and down, who knows?
Around low, the lads near the car park reported two bass each, best 4lb.
I actually fished quite hard and ensured a constant stream of big squid and bluey baits were going out, plus also tried half a garfish which looked tempting, but nothing hit it.
We had an hour of flood then I noticed the top end lads packing up, the others followed and I kept my gear in the water until 2am but wasn’t expecting much.
Took my time packing up and got a phone call at 2.20 to check I was still alive - yep no worries, crack on home lads, see you soon.
Five bass caught in all but the 4lber was the biggest.
Funnily enough, the guys at the top had a mare with weed all night.
The lads down the bottom had really bad weed once the tide turned - it had been fine for me.
Hardly any weed until an hour into the flood. No bites either, but no weed.
Not much of a report I’m afraid. It would have been nice to get a couple but I hadn’t really gone to catch fish, just to show my support.
As I say, not a tide window I would have picked but a few fish showed at least.
Roll on the proper darker evenings when low tide is at 8pm, two hours after dark!
