I'm one of those anglers who can only get out at weekends because I work the rest of the week. And like many anglers, weekends have to be shared with all sorts of stuff. Spare weekends are then like gold dust. This year, the weather gods have deemed most spare weekends should not be fishable.
The omens for getting out today were not good. On the positive side, winds were forecast to be light (in the morning), but on the negative side would be a big tide and a big swell from the easterlies we've just endured.
With the low tide at 10.00 am I had to be over the sill by 7-ish. Once out, conditions were not that bad. In fact, the drift was so slow I couldn't find enough tide to latch into any Mackie.
With the afternoon forecast not looking good I opted to stay inshore and headed south to Cresswell. I was soon into small codling, all the way through to slackwater. Nothing big, but using light tackle and a light sinker these small fish were quite good fun. Most were around 1 to 1-1/2 pound, with a couple to 2-1/2 pounds.
The flood did not produce any great change in the drift - still 0.3 knots, but the fish kept biting up to around 3 hours into the flood. All of a similar size, with an occasional Mackie taking the hokki too.
By now, the wind had veered northerly, as forecast, kicking up a chop as well as pushing the drift to over 1 knot On top of it all, the rain that had been fairly light became pretty persistent. Time to head back.
Overall, not a bad trip out, with close to 30 codling taken, with 4 keepers and my first couple of Mackie of the year. Nothing worthy of a photo, and certainly not worth risking the camera in the torrential rain. Fingers crossed for next weekend.
The omens for getting out today were not good. On the positive side, winds were forecast to be light (in the morning), but on the negative side would be a big tide and a big swell from the easterlies we've just endured.
With the low tide at 10.00 am I had to be over the sill by 7-ish. Once out, conditions were not that bad. In fact, the drift was so slow I couldn't find enough tide to latch into any Mackie.
With the afternoon forecast not looking good I opted to stay inshore and headed south to Cresswell. I was soon into small codling, all the way through to slackwater. Nothing big, but using light tackle and a light sinker these small fish were quite good fun. Most were around 1 to 1-1/2 pound, with a couple to 2-1/2 pounds.
The flood did not produce any great change in the drift - still 0.3 knots, but the fish kept biting up to around 3 hours into the flood. All of a similar size, with an occasional Mackie taking the hokki too.
By now, the wind had veered northerly, as forecast, kicking up a chop as well as pushing the drift to over 1 knot On top of it all, the rain that had been fairly light became pretty persistent. Time to head back.
Overall, not a bad trip out, with close to 30 codling taken, with 4 keepers and my first couple of Mackie of the year. Nothing worthy of a photo, and certainly not worth risking the camera in the torrential rain. Fingers crossed for next weekend.
