South East Pett level low water 11/7

[ouchthathurt]

As I was awoken by the seagulls at 0430 and I had lugworm in the fridge, it would have been rude not to head to the beach and drown a few worms, so the ole car was loaded with fishing gear and away I went, leaving wifey sleeping peacefully. On arrival, I had about an hour before the tide turned and started flooding again, so I rigged up two rods with 2 hook clipped down rigs, baited with fresh lug pumped yesterday morning and launched them into the totally flat calm sea. I wasn’t initially confident as I couldn’t quite clear the sand bar in front of me, and wasn’t confident with my baits in the slack water behind, so I spent an hour idly glancing at the tips while pumping more bait as I was having my hooks stripped within minutes by hoards of crabs. On the turn of the tide, the sand bar quickly disappeared under a reasonable amount of water, with the bait stocks brimming with mega fresh lug, I fished on with more confidence. First bite was a tentative tapping, on retrieval I noticed the weed was increasing, but nothing to worry about, but the weight on the end turned out to be a spider crab! The shore line was awash with dead spiders, as well as a lot of peeler/softie spiders. The sky’s darkened and it started spitting with rain, the wind picked up just enough to put a chop on the water, so things were looking better by the minute. Next cast saw a drop back which produced a good eel, I always seem to catch eels here at low water, of a decent size rather than snotty bootlaces. Mid tide saw me being pushed back up the beach rather quickly, having to move everything every few minutes. I didn’t want to move everything right back as there were dog walkers et al, so wanted to keep things together and not worry about people on the tide line hitting my lines. A few more casts came back with the hooks cleanly snipped off, bloody spiders again! I decided to have one last chuck before heading home. A rattle of the tip followed by slack line saw me cranking in a weight, which turned out to be a bass, so I could head home happy. Retrieving the last rod, I could feel another dead weight on the end, and excitedly cranked in what I thought could be a second, bigger bass… nope. It was another spider wrapped in a ball of weed! With the surplus lugworm released and burying themselves again (they don’t half dig quickly!) as I won’t be out again for at least 5 days, I wrapped the gear and headed home.

 

[bananas]

Few nice fish for a impromptu session , nice pics too.

 

[Mr Fish]

Well done mate. You didn’t pick up a few peelers or softies then?
If they’re peeling now, the fish will be out there smashing them.

 

[ouchthathurt]

It did cross my mind, but when I was younger, I read a chapter in John Darlings bass fishing book and he didn’t rate peeler spiders, that’s always stuck in my head! Daft innit?? I did crush all the dead crabs up as the tide flooded over them, free ground bait!

 

[Redneck Dek]

Nice one lad?Crackin report?

 

[Mr Fish]

It did cross my mind, but when I was younger, I read a chapter in John Darlings bass fishing book and he didn’t rate peeler spiders, that’s always stuck in my head! Daft innit?? I did crush all the dead crabs up as the tide flooded over them, free ground bait!

Yea, he’s part right. Outside the moulting season I haven’t had that much on them (although friends have) but WHEN they’re moulting is another story.
The areas where they peel here, all the hounds, bass and every other species are in there smashing them up and enjoying a free feast.
Literally no other bait will work apart from for the odd strap or dogfish.

Outside the season, hounds still like them, good trigger and wrasse bait, otherwise they don’t do that much.
Obviously I don’t know the foibles in your area but there are that many spiders peeling and soft, the bass for sure will be out there smashing them right now.

Edit: the irony is, they would have loved your ground bait but probably not that fussed about the lug