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A new (well new-ish, fished there once before two years ago and blanked) venue for me last night, and though it wasn't to be the most productive a very enjoyable night nonetheless.
With the sea away on Friday I was itching to get out, however the tides seemed to be against me with HT later afternoon. I have very (very) limited knowledge of places to fish on the ebb / over low and you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I have fished north of the Tyne. A bit of use of the search function on here threw up a few possibilities which I narowed down to two - Longsands or Whitley Bay. As the consensus seemed to be that Whitley can empty out on a big tide I plumped for Longsands.
I got to my mark early (about 75 minutes after HT) and got set up. Bait was runnydown, ragworm and some manky mussel from the fireezer. It was a lovely evening to be out (which was part of the reason I got there so early):
It wasn't long before I had a little nibble and a Coalie was on the beach to save the blank:
That was to be it for a while though, and the old worries of the fish first cast curse appeared. The tide was flying out at a rate of knots and by the time I came to reel in after my cast the water was a good 30 yards away from where I had started. Then as the sun went down I switched to using runnydown tipped with rag instead of the straight rag I had been using and straight away I had a good rattle and my second fish of the night, a just about sized codling:
Shortly after I had another of similar size that like his marrah went back to fight another day. A couple of lads turned up and went to fish Slatey Gut, I stuck it out for another hour at this mark but with no more bites decided to make a move down the beach. The plan was to fish what I think was Stony Bottom but there was someone already on there so I ended up on the Boilier Skeer (?). Probably fished it all wrong and I was a bit tentative given I've never fished this sort of mark before and it was dark. Anyhow I made my way out to an area in front of what looked like the boiler and whacked the bait out to the ENE kind of parallel to the skeer. First cast I got a cracking bite that never came back, second cast I lost a fish on the retrieve and after the third cast the tide had turned and worried about being cut off I packed in and called it a night.
Not the most exciting of sessions but three fish, a lovely evening and a new mark explored gave lots of positives and it was nice to blow off the cobwebs and be on an open beach again.
With the sea away on Friday I was itching to get out, however the tides seemed to be against me with HT later afternoon. I have very (very) limited knowledge of places to fish on the ebb / over low and you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I have fished north of the Tyne. A bit of use of the search function on here threw up a few possibilities which I narowed down to two - Longsands or Whitley Bay. As the consensus seemed to be that Whitley can empty out on a big tide I plumped for Longsands.
I got to my mark early (about 75 minutes after HT) and got set up. Bait was runnydown, ragworm and some manky mussel from the fireezer. It was a lovely evening to be out (which was part of the reason I got there so early):
It wasn't long before I had a little nibble and a Coalie was on the beach to save the blank:
That was to be it for a while though, and the old worries of the fish first cast curse appeared. The tide was flying out at a rate of knots and by the time I came to reel in after my cast the water was a good 30 yards away from where I had started. Then as the sun went down I switched to using runnydown tipped with rag instead of the straight rag I had been using and straight away I had a good rattle and my second fish of the night, a just about sized codling:
Shortly after I had another of similar size that like his marrah went back to fight another day. A couple of lads turned up and went to fish Slatey Gut, I stuck it out for another hour at this mark but with no more bites decided to make a move down the beach. The plan was to fish what I think was Stony Bottom but there was someone already on there so I ended up on the Boilier Skeer (?). Probably fished it all wrong and I was a bit tentative given I've never fished this sort of mark before and it was dark. Anyhow I made my way out to an area in front of what looked like the boiler and whacked the bait out to the ENE kind of parallel to the skeer. First cast I got a cracking bite that never came back, second cast I lost a fish on the retrieve and after the third cast the tide had turned and worried about being cut off I packed in and called it a night.
Not the most exciting of sessions but three fish, a lovely evening and a new mark explored gave lots of positives and it was nice to blow off the cobwebs and be on an open beach again.
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