Pagham 15th April

Was visiting my friend Emma in Bognor in the afternoon so I thought i'd have my first bash at Pagham for the night tide.
Definitely a fishy looking spot I thought on arrival, and set up about 150yds to the west of the pipe.
Had one rod with a 2 hook flapper, black and squid in the hope of a Bream or anything that happened to be passing.
The other rod was a clipped-down 4/0 single hook rig, alternating Peeler Crab and Sandeel/Bluey wraps.
About an hour into darkness I had an almighty slam on the sandeel rod, but the line stayed tight and so I left it 10mins and watched the tip like a hawk.
Nothing else happened so I wound it in, only to see that the Sandeel had slid down over the hook point when whatever it was had grabbed it and ran - Entirely my fault as i'd been a bit light with the elastic because I didn't have much left and wanted to save it for the crab baits. DOH!!
Put a Peeler out there this time, and within 20mins had a good positive bite, wound down and hit it.
Definitely felt like a half decent fish as I brought it in, and I have to admit my heart was in my mouth as thoughts of a first ever Smoothound pup crossed my mind. I thought i'd done it right up until I shone the torch on the beached fish, which turned out to be a nice plump Doggie.

Happy enough with that, fished on til midnight with no further action.
Didn't get so much as a sniff on the black & squid rod, which I was a bit surprised by, but i'll definitely be back here for another go.     

Brighton Marina 14th April

After working the night shift 6am - 6pm I decided to join Leigh down at Brighton Marina for a few hours of float fishing.
I felt pretty groggy on the drive down, but once out in the open with bright sunshine and clear blue seas I felt much better and ready to have a crack at float fishing in the sea for the first time.
We opted for peg 60 on the East arm as this peg has a nice selection of rocks nearby, and Leigh informed me we stood a good chance of catching Pollack, Wrasse and Maybe Garfish.
I'd never caught either of these species before, and had never tried float fishing in the ocean and so I was quite excited by the time I cast out.
Leigh was into a Pollack almost immediately, and then I managed one. Not massive, but very pretty fish.

Leigh then had another 2 Pollack, and he suggested I try and lower a bait directly down the wall into a really rocky area to try for a Wrasse.
On the second attempt I connected with a fish and lifted it in, and I have to admit that neither Leigh or I had any idea what it was!!

Unlike most other Sea species that have canine-shaped teeth, this creature's teeth were perfectly straight and rectangular, more like human teeth!
The strength of the jaws of this little critter was unbelieveable!!
After getting home and looking it up on the web we now know it to be a Black Combtooth Blenny.

That was it for the morning, and I had to get myself back to Crawley for a couple of hours' kip before another dreaded 12hr night shift.
Great way to spend a couple of hours though, and i'll definitely be doing more float fishing in the Sea this year.

Shoreham Widewater Lagoon - 7th April

Fished Widewater on Saturday night with Leigh, armed with a bucket of fresh Lugworm that we pumped from Brighton nudey beach, Blueys, Sandeels and Herrings the plan was to try for a Bass or two with the outside hope of a Ray of any size.
We fished 3 hrs up to HW at midnight, with the only action being some strange rattling indications on whole squid or whole Herring.
The baits were coming back definitely chewed, but all other baits came back untouched, very strange.
Aside from that we were fishless right up until HW when Leigh managed a couple of small Whiting and a trio of Rockling - One of which took a Pennelled Crab bait!
I also had 2 tiny Whiting to save me from the blank up to that point, but all in all it was very quiet, and no sign of all the Doggies that we'd heard reports of lately.
Around 2hrs into the ebb, and feeling a little bit put out by it all we started talking about how you can do everything right in this game and still end up scratching your head.
Sure enough just as were talking about the complete lack of action, a decent bite on a huge freshout at range and i'm into a fish!
Right from the off this felt like something a little more special, and as it was nice and calm I saw and heard it splash on the surface a couple of times during the fight.
Trying to time it with the waves I eventually beached my PB Bass!

Not a monster by some guys' standards, but at over 2lbs easily my biggest Shore fish to date.
We fished on until 4am but no further action came our way.
Just goes to show though, one bite is all it takes to make you a happy bunny!     

Sat 31st March - 210 miles, 1 Dogfish

Leigh Holman and myself set off from Crawley at 3am Saturday morning, (Should have been 2am but I overslept, sorry mate!) our destination? The Isle Of Sheppey in Kent. Our target species? The mighty Thornback Ray.
After some very kind advice from a guy I met through the World Sea Fishing forum who had caught a few lately, we were headed to a beach mark near Leysdown-On-Sea.
Normally this would be a drive of an hour or so, but as my car can't go above 4th gear at the moment, I had to take it easy and we arrived at the mark for around 4.45am.
After setting up in the dark we managed to get our rods out fairly painlessly and sat back to await the results.
Once the sun came up we were able to get a better look at the venue, and it was definitely quite pretty, fishing from a small strip of shingle before the sloping cliffs of 'London Clay' behind us.

We fished until 9am when the tide started to run out at quite a rate, and the only action we had was a slow, trembly bite to one of Leigh's rods, but nothing came of it. It was possibly a crab stripping his Bluey fillet bait.

Not to be deterred, and with the whole day ahead of us, we decided to venture further south to another mark that had apparently thrown up a few Thornbacks lately, Deal Pier in South East Kent.

The sea conditions did seem more favourable here, with plenty of colour in the water and a very strong North Easterly wind blowing.

I initially tackled up with Ray rigs and Bluey/Sandeel baits whereas Leigh fished one rod for Rays and the second rod with smaller hooks and worm & squid baits to see what else was about.

Before long Leigh connected with a string of small Pouting, followed by the cutest micro-Dab I have ever seen!

It didn't take long for us to realise why this Pier has a reputation for being 'a bit snaggy', I lost 3 sets of end tackle in 3 consecutive casts, and before long Leigh had lost a set too.
Despite being expensive, neither of us liked the idea of leaving baited rigs littering the sea bed, nor of adding to the already enormous amount of gear that must be lying out there, just waiting for the next person to get snagged on.
With this in mind, we upped sticks and moved onto the arm of the4 pier itself, and Leigh was quick to latch into a few more Pouting.
Despite my best efforts, all I seemed to be able to catch on my Ragworm baits was Whelks, 3 of the bloody things in a row!!

Even with lots of layers of clothing, the biting North-Easterly winds were really starting to get me down, and so I made a yomp to the car to stick on an extra pair of jeans and pick up some hot food for us.
After the hot grub and the little walk had warmed me up a bit, I persevered with the Ray tactics with a renewed vigour.
One young lad I spoke to on the way back from the car did mention that a Ray of 5lb + had been landed earlier on, and we since found out that it was caught by the guy next to me in the first spot we were in!
It's always the way, but i'm pretty sure if we'd stayed put, we would have run out of tackle sooner rather than later.
With that in mind I wasn't particularly hopeful when I thought I saw a bite develop on my new SALT Travel Rod (Thanks Leigh!)
But sure enough, after clearing a jammed leader knot Leigh helped me swing up my first Lesser Spotted Dogfish of the year!
Not exactly what we had come for, but as i've said before they are one of my favourite species so it was most welcome.

We fished on in hope until just after 8pm, until eventually, cold and tired after such a long day, we called it a day and made the long drive back to Crawley.
It wasn't an easy day's fishing by any means, but that definitely made the one fish that I did catch all the more welcome, and we definitely learned a few lessons.
Number 1 being, don't fish Deal pier unless you have a truckload of spare gear and a lot of patience!!!