Fishing Report: 8th September 07 - St Osyth, Essex

Having had a week of fishing in the river (not with resounding success I hasten to add) I decided that I needed a change from the spinning gear and with the tides coming back round to late evening I decided to try conventional tactics at a spot I used to regularly fish along towards the bird reserve at St Osyth.

I arrived at late afternoon and set up in glorious sunshine and light offshore winds, fishing the tide from the bottom up, as I generally prefer to do at this venue. As always I was, in the back of mind, hoping for a sizable Bass so I set up one rod with a 4/0 Pennel Rig, fished at range with Ragworm bait. The other rod I set up with a three hook clipped down rig and small hooks to fish close in, hoping to find maybe a Sole perhaps or more likely anything that happened along. I baited the second rod with Ragworm, Peeler Crab and Lugworm baits, the idea being to hedge my bets for any fish that might come along.

The daylight hours were very quiet fishing-wise and it was not until the light had begun to fade and the last of the nudists had disappeared that I started to get any bites. For the last few hours the fishing was fairly busy and the time flew by. Although none of the fish caught were of any size, there was a selection of species and the nice weather and peaceful surroundings made it a very enjoyable evening. I finally packed up at about midnight having managed a solitary Bass of about 20cm, six undersized Codling (biggest just 1cm under the size limit), one Pouting, 1 Whiting (sizable) and an Eel of about 8oz; all but the Bass and two undersized Codling came to the close in gear.