Where I fish: Hillhead

My favorite fishing marks - particularly through the summer and early autumn months are at Hillhead. More specifically - Brownwich beach, known to some as 'Hillhead cliffs'. This is the long stretch of shingle beach, backed by orange coloured cliffs and forming a very gently curving bay between the spit at Hillhead and and the point where the Brownwich stream cuts through the cliffs and spills onto the beach.
Access is via parking behind the Meon sea wall. Then hiking west along the beach past the chalets (Shanty town). The sea wall itself is well known for its' quality smoothhound fishing in spring and early summer and can get pretty crowded at these times.
Not being one for crowds I prefer to press on to Brownwich - even at the height of summer, if you walk far enough you can find a quiet spot. At night and in other seasons I've often had the lot to myself !
The gently shelving shingle gives way to miles of seemingly featureless, undulating sand and mud at low water. The spit can be fished at low tide but further along the beach itself, fishable times are from about 3 and a half hours before high water, over high (you tend get a 'stand' here - the effects of tidal flow into and out of Southampton Water - prolongs the apparent time the tide stays in), and 3 hours of the ebb.
I've got to know this beach particularly well over the years - initially because as a teenager (a long time ago now I fear), I lived with my parents in Brownwich Lane - basically a gravel road across farmland from Common Lane, Titchfield, that terminates just before a footpath that leads on to beach. It was easy to walk down and my explorations began from there.

Brownwich has thrown up some nice fish over the years. I would say the only really bad time is around February and early March - which holds true for a lot of the Hampshire coast.
Spring time can see some reasonable flounder catches and school bass, then from late April, May and June, thornback rays and decent smoothhound can feature. From July into late autumn is when I seriously fish for bass - which can be good quality (if not quantity) for the area, my best there so far being 7lb 10oz. Stingrays are there in high summer.

A 6 lb 8 oz bass












August, September and October are worth night fishing for sole.
The end of the year and January can see some decent flounders - again not always in huge numbers but good average sizes.

Where I fish: Gilkicker, Stokes Bay and Browndown

I now live 10 minutes walk from Stokes Bay and although most of my fishing has been done at the Hillhead area I am trying to get to know the bay more intimately. It would be rude not to !
Here's a rough guide to seasons and species as I see it:

Spring: Can see a run of Plaice including quite decent ones – I have had them to over 2lbs 8oz, but in recent times catches have not been brilliant, I suppose due to commercial pressure. As the season advances both spotted and thornback rays can be caught at Gilkicker or Browndown. Flounders can also be caught.

Summer: This is one of those venues that can produce almost anything on its’ day – assuming the magic formula of – right bait + right place + right time + right luck.



A surprise brill of approx 2lb 8oz - Oct 2005

At the east end of the bay is Gilkicker point and at the west is Browndown point. Both have deep water and especially on springs, pretty fierce tides - when weed can be a problem. Both can produce Bass, dogfish, smooth hounds, rays and now and then conger eels (last year the local papers' angling section featured a 30 lb conger caught at Gilkicker – I had an 8lb ‘strap’ last September).
The middle section of the bay has slightly shallower water and less of a tide run and can again produce a few Bass, plaice and sole at marks like the Inshore rescue station, in front the paddling pool and the Alverbank wall.
When the mackerel shoals are around they can turn up anywhere along the bay and sometimes chase whitebait right up to the waters’ edge.



A 4lb bass hits the beach - Sept 2005

Autumn /Winter: Always hopeful of a good run of whiting – last year was quite good from late October. Bass still a possibility to late in the year. Plus usual pout, poor cod and sometimes dabs. Cod are caught from the likes of Gilkicker and Browndown, but, the odds are not high for the individual angler. It is worth sticking it out with a large cocktail bait while fishing for whiting etc. with another rod, as the few that are caught are often of good quality and a big bass is always on the cards. Again flounders can be caught.

2007 DIARY

08/04/07 - Gilkicker Point

Me and peterpan3494 (Pete) fished Gilkicker point from 18.00 to 02.30. We were joined later my mate Chris.
LW was at 20.42. Tide – 4.2m. Calm night with a light westerly breeze.
Baits – sand eel, mackerel, frozen peeler, rag and lug.
While daylight was still with us I put one of my rods out at distance with a clipped down wishbone rig with ‘bling’, loaded with rag and lug – searching for a plaice, but to no avail.
As darkness fell switched to clipped down 3/0 pennels on 2 rods variously baited with sand eel/rag, mackerel/rag, peeler/rag etc. fished at long (ish) and medium range. Later I added my Shakespeare flattie (‘bass’) rod with a running ledger on the bottom with large mackerel and rag bait and a top dropper with rag or sand eel. This was fished closer in.
Bites were slow to come with knocks from small stuff. Then around midnight noticed a steady knocking on one of the ‘distance’ rods, then the tip pulled down. A good little tussle resulted in a lovely spotted ray of exactly 5 lb – a PB for me :


After pictures and weighing it was returned safely and I re-baited and re- cast.
With this the other distance rod started nodding – this time the culprit was a small smoothound.
Just as I finished re-baiting from that the tip of the ‘bass’ rod, which was fishing at about 40 yards began a rhythmic tapping and the bait runner click steadily away. I picked it up and answered a strong pull with one of my own. Another spotted ray was soon on the beach having given a good account of itself on the little rod. This one was slightly smaller at 4 lb.


Both rays took the sand eel/rag combination and were caught within a half hour period at roughly half flood.
Other fish were a whiting of about a pound and a few pout.
Chris caught a number of pout. Sadly – and unusually – Pete blanked despite having a thumping bite that lifted his rod but off the shingle on almost his last cast !

Sole and Bass session 7th 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 !

Summer 2006 - A summary

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 ....


Smoothhounds to 8lb











A brace of bass to 4lb











7lb Thornback ray
















9lb Thornback and a very tired me !
















Sole 1lb 6oz and codling 1lb 11oz - early September