Thunderpants
Well-known member
Chesil Beach is an eighteen mile long strip of shingle beach in Dorset which runs between West Bay (Bridport) and Portland. It is joined to the mainland at each end but separated from the mainland along most of it's length by a patch of water known as The Fleet (this is where Barnes Wallace tested his bouncing bomb for use in the dambuster raids during the war). Chesil is a very popular fishing mark with deep water all along it's length and is my favorite place to fish in the whole of the UK. I have had some great sessions here in the past including catching 28 sized fish over three sessions once and a winter session where I hooked into the fish of a lifetime only to lose it in the surf, but that's another story. I try to get down here at least twice a year and this May was one of those.
Saturday 20th May Burton Bradstock
Burton Bradstock is a village at the western end of Chesil Beach. The stretch in front of it is called Hive Beach. The left hand side of the beach is backed by low hills and is clean ground. The right hand side is backed by huge cliffs and there is a reef just off shore. The region between the reef and the shore is very productive and my favorite spot to fish but if you cast too far you end up in the snags so you have to be careful and cast short.
I arrived on the beach about 8pm and started spinning for mackerel with some help from Thunderpants Junior
. I met a couple of the locals who I have spoken with on previous visits and who were out bass fishing as usual. They were still waiting to catch their first bass of the season so I did not have high hopes in that department for this week. No mackerel were about either so once it got dark I switched to the bait fishing gear using rag and lug and moved along to my favorite spot to the right of the beach in front of the cliffs. I caught one rockling and nothing else so a disappointing and unusually quiet start to the week in what is usually a very productive spot for me.
Sunday 21st May Burton Bradstock
I headed down for a night session arriving with about half an hour of daylight left and fished through until 1.30am. I was using two rods one with a 4/0 pennel rig and big baits and one with a two hook scratching rig. Baits used rag, lug, mackerel, squid and raw prawn. First cast I landed a double shot of a dogfish and a pouting on the pennel rig one on each hook! The doggie was a good size so I decided to keep it and we cooked it up mexican style for tea the following day - Dogfish Fajitas! A first for me and tasting pretty good The bad news was that as I lifted my rod to raise the dogfish/pouting double up off the beach there was a snap and I lost the end five inches of my rod! I couldn't believe that the weight of those two fish (no more than three pounds total surely) could snap a 4-8oz beachcaster rod tip it's not as if I abused it in any way just a gentle lift. It must have been a defect in the rod or what I am now thinking is a poor design as this is the second rod of this type that I have snapped this way (I had one snap back home lifting a bunch of seaweed out of the River Tyne) The rods were Firefly Silhouettes - if anyone offers you one of these rods don't take it!
Anyway, this turned out to be a busy evening as I landed another pouting and another five dogfish bringing the evenings total to eight fish all sized.
Tuesday 23rd May West Bexington
West Bexington is a small village a few miles further along Chesil Beach. We headed into the village in the morning to see if Michael Michaud (the gardening guru from the tv show River Cottage) had any chilli plants for sale (growing chillis is something else I get up to when I'm not fishing). Sometimes he has a stall at the front of his house with an honesty box where you can buy plants. As we entered the village we realised it was bin day and the local bin truck was right behind us blocking our escape up the single track road. Now when I'm on holiday I always have my spinning rod and a few lures in the boot just in case Mrs Thunderpants issues those immortal words "why don't you have a couple of chucks" when we get somewhere interesting. Well there were no chilli plants for sale and with a bin truck blocking our escape we had a drive down to the beach car park at the end of the road and she says "why don't you have a couple of chucks" ... Woo Hoo !! I could see a couple of lads on the beach pulling fish in so I put a pound on a ticket and headed down. With a cheap 28g dexter wedge copy I landed a dozen mackerel in the first 35 minutes then decided to stop as we didn't have a freezer in the cottage and I could only use so many for bait or food. We were eating mackerel with everything for the next couple of days and even had Mackerel Rogan Josh one night which was bloody lovely! Anyway, I used the last twenty minutes of my ticket fishing with a bass lure but that didn't produce anything.
Wednesday 24th May Burton Bradstock
A night session fishing with two rods (still using the broken one but without it's tip) produced three dogfish and two rockling including this mother which was the biggest I've ever caught having a body as thick as a hen's egg...
Thursday 25th May Burton Bradstock
My last night fishing here I decided to go all out for a bass so I set up my two rods both with big baits (half a mackerel, whole squid etc) chucked close in between the reef and the shore and casting with a shallow diving lure on my spinning rod. There was a shoal of mackerel in close with fish jumping all the time right in front of me. I was hoping to catch whatever was chasing them and aimed my bass lure where I thought the edge of the shoal was. After about an hour of casting I had success and landed my first ever bass on the lure ridiculously close in - it must have been only a few feet from the shore in the very last wave just before it crashed down onto the shingle. Amazing. A nice fish at 37cm but undersized so returned still a bass all the same which left me with a big smile on my face. A great way to end the week.
Saturday 20th May Burton Bradstock
Burton Bradstock is a village at the western end of Chesil Beach. The stretch in front of it is called Hive Beach. The left hand side of the beach is backed by low hills and is clean ground. The right hand side is backed by huge cliffs and there is a reef just off shore. The region between the reef and the shore is very productive and my favorite spot to fish but if you cast too far you end up in the snags so you have to be careful and cast short.
I arrived on the beach about 8pm and started spinning for mackerel with some help from Thunderpants Junior
. I met a couple of the locals who I have spoken with on previous visits and who were out bass fishing as usual. They were still waiting to catch their first bass of the season so I did not have high hopes in that department for this week. No mackerel were about either so once it got dark I switched to the bait fishing gear using rag and lug and moved along to my favorite spot to the right of the beach in front of the cliffs. I caught one rockling and nothing else so a disappointing and unusually quiet start to the week in what is usually a very productive spot for me.
Sunday 21st May Burton Bradstock
I headed down for a night session arriving with about half an hour of daylight left and fished through until 1.30am. I was using two rods one with a 4/0 pennel rig and big baits and one with a two hook scratching rig. Baits used rag, lug, mackerel, squid and raw prawn. First cast I landed a double shot of a dogfish and a pouting on the pennel rig one on each hook! The doggie was a good size so I decided to keep it and we cooked it up mexican style for tea the following day - Dogfish Fajitas! A first for me and tasting pretty good
The bad news was that as I lifted my rod to raise the dogfish/pouting double up off the beach there was a snap and I lost the end five inches of my rod! I couldn't believe that the weight of those two fish (no more than three pounds total surely) could snap a 4-8oz beachcaster rod tip it's not as if I abused it in any way just a gentle lift. It must have been a defect in the rod or what I am now thinking is a poor design as this is the second rod of this type that I have snapped this way (I had one snap back home lifting a bunch of seaweed out of the River Tyne) The rods were Firefly Silhouettes - if anyone offers you one of these rods don't take it! Anyway, this turned out to be a busy evening as I landed another pouting and another five dogfish bringing the evenings total to eight fish all sized.
Tuesday 23rd May West Bexington
West Bexington is a small village a few miles further along Chesil Beach. We headed into the village in the morning to see if Michael Michaud (the gardening guru from the tv show River Cottage) had any chilli plants for sale (growing chillis is something else I get up to when I'm not fishing). Sometimes he has a stall at the front of his house with an honesty box where you can buy plants. As we entered the village we realised it was bin day and the local bin truck was right behind us blocking our escape up the single track road. Now when I'm on holiday I always have my spinning rod and a few lures in the boot just in case Mrs Thunderpants issues those immortal words "why don't you have a couple of chucks" when we get somewhere interesting. Well there were no chilli plants for sale and with a bin truck blocking our escape we had a drive down to the beach car park at the end of the road and she says "why don't you have a couple of chucks" ... Woo Hoo !! I could see a couple of lads on the beach pulling fish in so I put a pound on a ticket and headed down. With a cheap 28g dexter wedge copy I landed a dozen mackerel in the first 35 minutes then decided to stop as we didn't have a freezer in the cottage and I could only use so many for bait or food. We were eating mackerel with everything for the next couple of days and even had Mackerel Rogan Josh one night which was bloody lovely! Anyway, I used the last twenty minutes of my ticket fishing with a bass lure but that didn't produce anything.
Wednesday 24th May Burton Bradstock
A night session fishing with two rods (still using the broken one but without it's tip) produced three dogfish and two rockling including this mother which was the biggest I've ever caught having a body as thick as a hen's egg...
Thursday 25th May Burton Bradstock
My last night fishing here I decided to go all out for a bass so I set up my two rods both with big baits (half a mackerel, whole squid etc) chucked close in between the reef and the shore and casting with a shallow diving lure on my spinning rod. There was a shoal of mackerel in close with fish jumping all the time right in front of me. I was hoping to catch whatever was chasing them and aimed my bass lure where I thought the edge of the shoal was. After about an hour of casting I had success and landed my first ever bass on the lure ridiculously close in - it must have been only a few feet from the shore in the very last wave just before it crashed down onto the shingle. Amazing. A nice fish at 37cm but undersized so returned still a bass all the same which left me with a big smile on my face. A great way to end the week.
