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So the long planned trip to the south coast finally arrived, the idea being that the FPO could visit her folks in Portsmouth and I could get in a few days shingle beach fishing and a trip to Chesil as reward for doing all the driving. Unfortunately Hurricaine Bertha put paid to my plans (espcially the Chesil trip, not a place to fish in a big, unpredictable sea) but at least before the weather hit I had the chance of getting one night in on the beach.
After picking up 1.25 lb of rag (£15 fresh dug) and a few crab from the local tackle shop (Lock Stock and Tackle for anyone heading down that way) I headed west to the Gosport beaches to make an early start to my session. Browndown beach was my initial venue of choice, if only because past experience has shown it cen fish fairly well on the ebb. I arrived to make my 20 minute yomp along the shingle to find a stiffish SW wind still blowing and not ideal conditions but it beat sitting in the house so off we went:
Browndown is a very steep sloping shingle beach with medium tide run and at times lots of floating weed. I've had loads of differnt species from here in the past but with the choppy, coloured water and stiff SW wind it turned out to be a waste of time and after three biteless hours I decided to cut my losses and head west east to Hayling Island.
Hayling is a fairly shallow beach at the far east of the Solent and can throw up a few species depending on conditions. I arrived at my mark just east of Eastoke Corner at about half way through the flood tide and soon got set up with two rods, one at range and one fished closer in.
It wasn't long before I was in to fish with baby Black Bream plagueing the closer in rod (nothing more than palm size but the don't half give a good bite):
As the sun went down and the water got deeper the Smoothhound came on, again nothing decent but fish to about 2lb to both ragworm and crab baits:
Both rods saw pretty much non-stop action with baby Bream and Smut pups as the tide continued to build. Nothing to write home about but lots of fun up until high tide when the wind picked up and the weed started to become a pain. I did manage one more fish, a little school Bass that gave me my third species for the night before packing up and heading for home after almost 10 hours on the shingle:
Final tally for the day was no fish ot Browndown (surprisingly) then 8 Black Bream, 6 Starry Smoothhound pups and a single Bass at Hayling. Despite the wind and the driving it was a lovely evening to be out, most fish fell to ragworm with a couple of hounds taking the crab, all on two hook clipdown rigs and size 1 hooks
After picking up 1.25 lb of rag (£15 fresh dug) and a few crab from the local tackle shop (Lock Stock and Tackle for anyone heading down that way) I headed west to the Gosport beaches to make an early start to my session. Browndown beach was my initial venue of choice, if only because past experience has shown it cen fish fairly well on the ebb. I arrived to make my 20 minute yomp along the shingle to find a stiffish SW wind still blowing and not ideal conditions but it beat sitting in the house so off we went:
Browndown is a very steep sloping shingle beach with medium tide run and at times lots of floating weed. I've had loads of differnt species from here in the past but with the choppy, coloured water and stiff SW wind it turned out to be a waste of time and after three biteless hours I decided to cut my losses and head west east to Hayling Island.
Hayling is a fairly shallow beach at the far east of the Solent and can throw up a few species depending on conditions. I arrived at my mark just east of Eastoke Corner at about half way through the flood tide and soon got set up with two rods, one at range and one fished closer in.
It wasn't long before I was in to fish with baby Black Bream plagueing the closer in rod (nothing more than palm size but the don't half give a good bite):
As the sun went down and the water got deeper the Smoothhound came on, again nothing decent but fish to about 2lb to both ragworm and crab baits:
Both rods saw pretty much non-stop action with baby Bream and Smut pups as the tide continued to build. Nothing to write home about but lots of fun up until high tide when the wind picked up and the weed started to become a pain. I did manage one more fish, a little school Bass that gave me my third species for the night before packing up and heading for home after almost 10 hours on the shingle:
Final tally for the day was no fish ot Browndown (surprisingly) then 8 Black Bream, 6 Starry Smoothhound pups and a single Bass at Hayling. Despite the wind and the driving it was a lovely evening to be out, most fish fell to ragworm with a couple of hounds taking the crab, all on two hook clipdown rigs and size 1 hooks
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