ouchthathurt
Well-known member
- Joined
- May 15, 2021
- Messages
- 2,933
- Reaction score
- 12,691
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- 113
- Location
- Hastings East Sussex
- Favourite Fishing
- Shore
After my boys success on his first foray into beach fishing on his own the other day, where he snared his first codling, I suddenly felt the urge to get out on the shingle and see what I could catch for myself.
The boy and I collected a couple score of live lugworm and headed to a mark I haven’t fished in about 4yrs, but it was a lovely, steeply shelving shingle bank onto clean sand. We arrived at 6pm and planned to fish up to high water at 9pm then 1hr back. I didn’t have a target species in mind, although a nice codling would have been welcome this trip was to shake the cobwebs off and get into the salt water groove again as I hadn’t been on the beach since spring.
Rigs were my usual favourite two hook clipped down to size 2/0 sakuma hooks and 5oz grippers, as I quickly found that the swell tripped out 4oz leads and with the boy and I fishing close together, I didn’t want rods trundling all over the place.
Conditions were blustery with a cross shore wind and fine drizzle, the sea had a lumpy swell with white horses. With both Leeda icon match rods baited and whacked out there, it was into the shelter to see what would happen. It was a murky night!
The boy had also got his rods into play, and the waiting game began.
My boy was first into action, after a discussion about how the conditions were making bite indication tricky, with a flounder to kick things off.
He was happy with that! I then in a “anything you can do, I can do better” style, had a flounder for myself 
which I followed up with a whiting on the other rod 
the flatties went back ok, but the whiting bellied up, so it was retrieved for the cat.
Our next few casts came back untouched and I began to wonder if we’d had all the action we were going to have, when my boy had a sharp rattle which he struck and after a few problems guiding it through the wave dump landed his first proper bass!
He was made up with this as his previous PB bass was about 6oz!
While I watched him sort his rod out, I noticed my right hand rod had crossed under the left, on winding down, there was a heavy weight which was actually pulling back! A prolonged fight ensued, with head shakes and even line off the drag! Convinced I was fighting a monster bass or cod, I gently timed the beaching of my leviathan, which turned out to be…
a bloody conger!
I look a bit penny wise in this pic! Still, it was a pb - not that I bothered weighing it so I wasn’t too disappointed.
We then had a flurry of whiting that kept the interest up and the rod tips rattling which was enjoyable and kept the boy content
as the tide turned and dropped away, I rounded the night off with a dogfish which signalled the end of the action for the night, so we wrapped and packed for 10pm and headed home. 
Time to try get the boy a decent bass from my low water mark I reckon
The boy and I collected a couple score of live lugworm and headed to a mark I haven’t fished in about 4yrs, but it was a lovely, steeply shelving shingle bank onto clean sand. We arrived at 6pm and planned to fish up to high water at 9pm then 1hr back. I didn’t have a target species in mind, although a nice codling would have been welcome this trip was to shake the cobwebs off and get into the salt water groove again as I hadn’t been on the beach since spring.
Rigs were my usual favourite two hook clipped down to size 2/0 sakuma hooks and 5oz grippers, as I quickly found that the swell tripped out 4oz leads and with the boy and I fishing close together, I didn’t want rods trundling all over the place.
Conditions were blustery with a cross shore wind and fine drizzle, the sea had a lumpy swell with white horses. With both Leeda icon match rods baited and whacked out there, it was into the shelter to see what would happen. It was a murky night!
The boy had also got his rods into play, and the waiting game began.
My boy was first into action, after a discussion about how the conditions were making bite indication tricky, with a flounder to kick things off.
He was happy with that! I then in a “anything you can do, I can do better” style, had a flounder for myself which I followed up with a whiting on the other rod the flatties went back ok, but the whiting bellied up, so it was retrieved for the cat.Our next few casts came back untouched and I began to wonder if we’d had all the action we were going to have, when my boy had a sharp rattle which he struck and after a few problems guiding it through the wave dump landed his first proper bass!
He was made up with this as his previous PB bass was about 6oz!While I watched him sort his rod out, I noticed my right hand rod had crossed under the left, on winding down, there was a heavy weight which was actually pulling back! A prolonged fight ensued, with head shakes and even line off the drag! Convinced I was fighting a monster bass or cod, I gently timed the beaching of my leviathan, which turned out to be…
a bloody conger!I look a bit penny wise in this pic! Still, it was a pb - not that I bothered weighing it so I wasn’t too disappointed.We then had a flurry of whiting that kept the interest up and the rod tips rattling which was enjoyable and kept the boy content
as the tide turned and dropped away, I rounded the night off with a dogfish which signalled the end of the action for the night, so we wrapped and packed for 10pm and headed home. Time to try get the boy a decent bass from my low water mark I reckon
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