Fishing Report: 21st March 09 - St Osyth

Although I'd had an hours spinning on the Colne the day before (tempted by the illusion of a bit of sunshine and a longing for the Bass season to return) I really was in the mood for another spell on the beach. As I had a bit of bait left from the last session and the weather forecast seemed so good I thought I would finish it off by throwing it at a few hours of the ebb tide at my favourite spot at St Osyth again.

With the tide at about 8pm I arrived in time to be set up and fishing for the last hour of the flood on what was a really nice, calm night, passing only one other lone angler (fishing by what is left of the turn of the old beach road onto the dunes) on the way up to the far end of the beach. I settling back to watch the rod tip in the beam of the headlamp with only the occasional visitation from a patrolling Fox behind me in the dunes and the calls of the waders flying overhead for company and waited patiently for the first bite to come. To some it may seem like a very lonely way to spend a Saturday night but in truth this is the fishing I tend to prefer with nothing to distract me from my purpose and nobody to break the peace and quiet, away from the weekend revellers and the telly.

My previous session here a few days before had seen me manage a brace of Codling but tonight was a very different night. There was absolutely no tide run to speak of and the seabed in front of me seemed to be crawling with bait robbing crabs; to be blunt the fishing was crap. Apart from the odd tiddler bite, the only thing to save me from a blank was probably the best Whiting I have had for a few years, which slack lined a large Lugworm bait fished at range and went a good 14 inches. This time of the year I generally don't take Whiting home and such a nice specimen would have gone back had it not have taken the hook about 10 inches down!

Hopeful that the Whiting was a prelude to a Codling or two I fished on but by 11pm the water had all but disappeared and the air was getting decidedly chilly and so at 11.30pm after finishing off the last of the Lugworm on one last ditch bait I left the dunes to the birds and the leftover bits and bobs of bait to the Fox and headed home.

Fishing Report: 18th March 09 - St Osyth

A break in the cold weather had me itching to get on the beach as other than for a few casting sessions, I'd not wet a line for a while. The forecast was for a bright, sunny spring day and there were reports of good numbers of Codling still about so it really had to be done. I opted to fish towards the bird reserve at St Osyth with a high tide at about 5 ish, getting on the beach and set up by about 1pm, just in time to fish the beginning of the flood and enjoy the warm afternoon sunshine. Despite the chilly wind the sunshine had brought out the more hardy of the "gentlemen nudists" and there were half a dozen or so lurking amongst the dunes behind me as I fished through the afternoon, though nothing like the number that appear in the summer months.

I fished through the bright sunshine of the afternoon, one rod out with chunks of Herring (in the hope of a Thornie) and the other with freshly dug Lugworm without so much of a twitch on either rod and it was not until pal Stuart joined me at about 5pm and the sun had started to drop in the sky that the first signs of life started to show with the odd tiddler bite on the Lugworm. I managed my first fish, an undersized Codling, about 45 minutes later and that was shortly followed by another Codling to the Lugworm, this time sizable and weighing about 1.5lb.

As the sun finally sunk below the horizon the temperature dropped sharply and I noticed that the Skylarks (which had been singing over the saltmarsh behind me all day in true spring fashion) had stopped singing. Stuart had managed a couple of small fish but it was only now, just as things started to feel decidedly more like traditional chilly Codling weather, that he pulled out a small Bass, prompting discussions of many more sunsets at this favourite spot of mine. We fished on through the first hour or so of darkness without much more action and so with the tide disappearing fast we decided at about 8pm to call it a night. It was as I was packing up my first rod that the session was really topped off. A full blown slack liner on the remaining rod ended with me slipping a second codling of about 2lb up the beach and finishing off the session quite nicely thank you very much!

As good as the Codling fishing is at the moment it has to be expected that the season will come to a close soon. The recent warm weather has seen the trees and hedgerows start to bud and bloom and on the estuary the Brent Geese are beginning to gather in large numbers, ready for their great journey north to breed. No doubt a cold snap or two will still come but there's no mistaking that feeling of spring and hopefully the impending arrival of my favourite quarry, the Bass.

Fishing Report: 19th February 09 - Clacton on sea, Essex

I had originally wanted a session after some Suffolk Flounders but with various commitments getting in the way I just didn't have the time available for a long session across the border, which usually involves digging Ragworm on the way to fishing. Instead I decided to make the most of the time I had available and fish closer to home, settling for a shortish session at the Gunfleet Sailing Club at Clacton.

I opted to fish the ebb on the very small tide, a definite handicap when the target is Codling, slinging out my first baits of Frozen Black and Cuttle at about 7pm on what was, for a change, a very pleasant mild night. The fishing was slow to say the least, not a great surprise given there was very little run in the tide, however within an hour I had a Codling in the bag; nothing big but approaching the 2lb mark and a nice size for the pot. If I'm honest luck must have been smiling on me with this fish as I didn't even get a bite and it must have just taken the bait as I picked up my solitary rod to reel in and re-bait.

I had hoped to add at least one more fish to tally but it was just not to be. Despite the water being a nice colour there was just no run in the tide whatsoever and the fishing was just not up to much. The only other excitement of the night was one of those steamroller bites that lifted the rod butt off the ground on the last cast at about 11.30pm as the water began to really disappear on me. You would have thought that any fish doing that to your rod would be well and truly hooked but as is often the case, I picked up the rod to find it had gone and reeled in a bait that looked untouched so despite the ferocity of the bite it seems that the fish didn't take the bait properly.

Normally I would have tried that "one more cast" after a good bite but to be honest I was really just too tired and as I started to pack up the rain started to come down so it seems that packing up was probably a good decision (I hate the rain). Despite being a slow session, after all the cold weather we have had this winter, the mild night made for a nice change and I'm not one to complain at having a Codling in the bag for tea, especially not after some of the very lean Cod seasons I have experienced over the years.