ouchthathurt
Well-known member
- Joined
- May 15, 2021
- Messages
- 2,935
- Reaction score
- 12,710
- Points
- 113
- Location
- Hastings East Sussex
- Favourite Fishing
- Shore
The boy and I decided to hit the beach again this evening to see what was about, the wind had changed direction and was now bringing in a nice surf on a long spring tide. I set up the boy with his two rods with 2 hook clipped down rigs, baited with fresh lug and whacked them out there, then set up my two rods with a similar set up and whacked them out too. We fished an hour down and 2 hours up over low water. I whipped out the lug pump and got some lovely big blacks to supplement the smaller fresh lug that I brought from a local bait supplier and rebaited with these to see if I could tempt anything. The surf was running well and it just looked “right” as the sun went down, I noticed my boy had a huge slack liner, so he quickly retrieved a badly spun up rig, but alas no fish. With this I saw my tip spring forward and drop slack. On hitting it, I could feel a very heavy weight hanging in the tide. The tide was flooding now and I tried to wade out to a sandbank but couldn’t quite get there as it was guarded by very soft sinking sand, I managed to get the unknown fish to the back of the sandbank and could feel good head shakes and a heavy weight, then nothing! The hook had pulled! I experienced that sick sinking feeling knowing I had just lost something good, was it a bass?? Or a big ole eel or crab? The rig came back perfect, no slime or crab marks in the hooklink, but I’ll never know. ? moving back with the tide, my boy retrieved what he thought was a fish, but turned out to be an 8oz lead (??) with a 4/0 circle hook on a pulley rig lost by another angler. The tide was well on the flood now and with the darkness, my boy was feeling the chill, so I went to reel in my rods, first rod had a small eel on it to save the blank, on packing this away I noted the tip in my remaining rod was nodding, which produced another eel. My boy retrieved his two rods with nothing to show for it, so we packed away and headed home. Dad 2, boy 0. Honour slightly restored, although I’d rather he had caught, but losing that unknown fish will keep me awake tonight, what was it? I’ll never know. 
, that's a dam shame you couldn't get the big fellow in, next time mate , next time.