Along my shore - Fishing Gosport to Hillhead Beaches: October 2006

Encouraged by a friends' success with a 5lb 10oz bass at one of my marks along Brownwich beach during the rough weather of the previous night, decided to give it a go on Saturday night (7th October) . I arranged to meet up with Pete from the WSF site and rushed down to the tackle shop for bait and luckily was able to get half a pound of ragworm (hadn't ordered any), and six blast frozen mackeral.
Got to the beach about 20.00 and trudged along the shingle to find Pete plus some other of his fishing mates already set up. They had dug some lugworm to add to the bait cache.
The tide was just flooding up the shingle as I set up and the plan was to fish it up, then into the first part of the ebb. High water was at 00.19. The evening was mild and the wind dropped right away, leaving just the smallest of chops on the water. The full moon though, shone mostly unhindered by cloud like a damn great searchlight - which I didnt think bode too well.
Pete and I set up similar rigs i.e. a light beach caster with two hook rigs mainly for targeting sole with rag and lug, and a carp rod with 4/0 pennel setups baited with large mackeral or squid baits. I added a short dropper above the sliding ledger on the carp rod with a size 2, worm-baited hook - a tactic that worked before for close in feeding sole.
The 'sole' rigs were cast varying distances to try and find the range for feeding sole. The Bass rods fished tight in.
Bites were almost immediate on the worm baits, with a steady flow of shoal bass rangeing from goldfish size up to about 2lbs.
Then I struck into a fierce rattle which was met with much more resistance. 'That's better !' I shouted, and the others gathered round me and watched as I wound in something that was putting a bend in the Greys BZE 12' 6''. It was a thumping great silver eel ! My comments about this are best left unprinted !
And so it went until shortly before high tide. A steady tap, tap on the tip of my beachcaster signaled possible interest from a sole. I waited and sure enough, eventually the tip was pulled down hard as my first sole of the night tried to run with the lug/rag cocktail and hooked itself. The range was about 35 - 40 yards. This went on for about an hour until I had landed five sole.
The average size was not huge. I kept a couple of deeply hooked ones for the table and returned the rest. I need not have agonised over the size as the 'keepers' were 30 and 32 cms and the returnees were not far off that, the minimum size limit being 25 cms.

That seemed to be it on the sole front.

We fished on until about 3 am with more shoal bass and one of the other lads had a small thornback ray. I switched rigs on the beachcaster so that I had two sets of mackeral fillet or head 'n guts baits out - knowing the best chance for a decent fish would come as the tide started to make its' way down the shingle. What turned out to be my only chance came with a really hefty bang on the carp rod - definitely a sizable bass. Unfortunatley, concentration had lapsed and I wasn't near the rod. I struck, felt the wieght for an instant - but it was gone. For the second time that night I turned the air a vivid shade of electric blue !

Normally I'm totally obsessed with shore fishing for bass from the spring right through, but this year I promised myself I would try and concentrate on other species.
Started out well with a PB spotted ray (3 and a half lb) at Browndown Bay in May. Then I set my store for some smoothounds. Again, some modest success at Gilkicker with a few to 5lb - but then a good run of fish up to 8 lb at Brownwich . OK, nothing to set the world on fire, but very satisfying to me.
Next - Stingrays - I felt a good chance for these at my favourite local venue of Hillhead cliffs (Brownwich). Took a couple of guys I know from another forum to a mark I thought good for this. Over a couple of weeks they proceded to catch a number of stingers of 6 or 7 lb, culminating in an 18 lb + beauty ! My tally - zero !
On the up side from the same spot I took a number of thornback rays - the best being 7lb and 9lb (another shore PB) on consecutive nights !
Sole were also on my wish list - again I hadn't caught a decent sole for years due to 'Bass hysteria'. I'm happy to say I've landed a couple in recent weeks (again at Brownwich) to 1 lb 8oz and bizzarely during the same session as that one, a codling of 1lb 11oz to the same bait /tactics !
Now the down side. I know it's not over yet, but I've had a poor season for bass. I've had a sprinkling of them up to 4 lb, but by now I've normally got a few quality fish (for me) of 6 lb plus under my belt. I wonder if its because I've not kept to the usual totally single minded approach as regards bass, or simply that I've been a bit crap ? Or has it just not been a very good season inshore for bass ? The spectre of dwindleing stocks is of course ever present. We'll see ....