Fishing Report: 7th February 09 - St Osyth, Essex

As seems to be the norm in recent years my Christmas Flattie crusade went completely down the pan. The fluctuating temperatures, way too much rain and the sharp bouts of frosty weather have either confused the Flatties or the fish are just not there any more. I tried one daylight session at Brightlingsea with Stuart a few days after Christmas, when the prom front should have seen us take at least a few fish, but it just didn't happen and we managed not even a bite between the two of us; the only action of the day was watching a huge scrap boat coming into the river.

A lonely night session a few days later produced nothing more spectacular than a small Whiting and the first week of January saw my first Cod session of 2009 turn into yet another depressing blank, so it wasn't exactly the most exiting start to the fishing year. Thirty years plus throwing bait at the sea teaches you that these bad spells come every now and again and that things will look up in good time if you persevere, but when the weather is cold, the nights black and the wind blows right through you from the north a few naff sessions can dampen the enthusiasm of even the keenest angler amongst us, myself included.

With a never ending list of things to do on the website I decided to have a rest for a while and set to sorting out some more suppliers and getting the online cart in order; it took me a lot longer than I expected and in the end it was a good month before I had the site where I wanted and decided on the spur of the moment to fish a few hours over the top of the tide amongst the rock groins at St Osyth.

Starting at about 6.30pm on a freezing cold day I originally intending to walk up to the bird reserve end but with temperatures dropping decided that it would be a bit foolhardy, not to mention hard graft in all the cold gear required for the nights fishing and a change of heart saw me setting up two rods in amongst the rock groins in the hope of better results than my first session of the year.

Fishing both rods with frozen Black Lug and Cuttlefish baits I started the night off well landing a Codling of about 1.75 lb on the second cast but that was pretty much the end of my luck for the night the only other action being just on the turn of the tide when I hit a slack line bite which saw me connected to another fish for 30 seconds or so before it swam straight in towards me and dropped the hook. I spent the rest of the night without so much as a bite until my last cast when I managed to contact another fish and thought for one foolish moment that I would be heading home with a brace of fish to my score, but it just wasn't to be. This fish again swam straight in towards me and about 20 yards short of the beach stuck me into an immovable snag which resulted in a lost fish and rig. Such is life and as it was now midnight and the cold had started to get to me I decided to take the hint the fish were giving me and headed for home and a warm bed.

Quite clearly the fish are still feeding on the sprats as the fish I did land coughed a few up on the beach. If anybody is thinking of fishing at St Osyth in the near future I'd suggest using a lead lift as the beach as obviously had a good scour lately and this has left quite a number of small snags showing close in which tend to catch you out when you least expect it.

Fishing Report: 6th December 2008 - Bateman's Tower, Brightlingsea

I didn't really have the time to spare for a proper session this weekend but on the spur of the moment decided to have a few hours on Bateman's Tower once it got dark. Given that it was a neap tide (which traditionally have not given me good results in the river at this time of the year) and there was likely to be an awful lot of freshwater in the river, courtesy of all the rain we have had lately I wasn't expecting to catch too much and ultimately my hunch was right.

Things were much as I expected. I fished two rods reasonably hard for about 3 hours (1 hour of the flood, about 2 of the ebb) with Frozen Blacks, Squid and Ragworm and struggled for a bite in stark contrast to more recent results at Clacton. Despite the lack of action I stuck at it and eventually, about an hour on the ebb managed to take two fish in quick succession to save my pride, 1 small Whiting about 2 inches long and an equally small Flounder of about 4 inches. Despite having already replaced the camera that died on me during my previous session I was feeling the cold to the point that I really couldn't be bothered to take photos of my minuscule specimens and by 9pm, quite frankly, I'd had enough and headed home to warm up.

On the plus side the session did give me the chance to try out an old 1990 Black ABU 6500CT Ultracast that I have recently added a mag brake upgrade to. Its an old favourite that I've hardly used of late simply because I've got used to the ease of use of my Mag Elites which give you the opportunity to adjust the braking to suit the conditions, something that centrifugal brakes don't offer unless you fancy taking the reel apart on the beach. The reel behaved impeccably and the single magnet of the upgrade and two small centrifugal blocks gave me just the right amount of flexibility I needed. Despite having cold hands I had absolutely no problems casting it all night and if the reel is usable in the cold and the wet then I'm unlikely to have problems with it in the warmer weather.

As a footnote to this post, a few pals fished a match held at Brightlingsea (in freezing fog!) the following night. Results were similar to mine with only small stuff coming out and I wouldn't really expect this to change until better tides appear with the freshwater out of the river. If anybody is intending fishing this side of the river over the next week or two I'd suggest targeting the Flatties which should be just starting to gather up now for their pre-spawning feed up - they are probably going to be the only thing of any consequence feeding in the current levels of freshwater with the best bait for them being a good sized bunch of Maddies. Fish in the daylight to target the bigger fish.

Fishing Report: 3rd November 07 - River Stour, Suffolk

Fishing pal Stuart had said he was a bit bored of doing the same old kind of session and wanted to try something a little bit different so we had arranged a session after some Flounders on the Suffolk Stour. The plan was to meet early and then head to a spot that used to provide some fantastic sport with big, pre-spawning Flounders, digging bait nearby to add to the basic rations of Ragworm purchased just in case the digging was poor. It was a bit of an adventure in many ways. Stuart had never dug for Ragworm before, it was about a two-mile walk from the car and, if that wasn't enough, the general opinion seems to be that the Flounder in the river have gone, apparently all trawled up by local commercial boats to use as pot bait.

Stopping off to dig on our way we found there were plenty of Ragworm around and it didn't take Stuart long to get into the swing of things with his new fork. We managed a couple of pounds between us in about an hour and moved on earlier than expected, finally starting fishing at our venue at about midday. The weather was far from ideal for Flattie bashing. The fish generally feed in close and like a bit of colour in the water but there was very little in the way of a breeze and as the water started pushing over the mud we could see it was gin-clear, which wasn't going to do us any favours whatsoever!

Although confidence was lacking we set to it, piling on big Ragworm baits on three-hook paternosters and fishing them at various ranges to see if we could contact the fish, but despite sticking to it the Flounders were either not there or, because of the clear water, were not interested in our baits. While Flounder were not putting in an appearance the local Bass population were quite obviously feeding high up in the clear water and at least three or four times during the afternoon there were huge flocks of seagulls working the surface on one part or another of the river, picking off the bait fish that a shoal of Bass had pushed to the surface. With the settled, warm weather and the clear water it actually seemed more like summer than a lot of the summer itself and I commented to Stuart that we would perhaps have been better off bringing the Bass spinning gear.

We persevered on through the afternoon, catching only the odd crab here and there and in the meantime just enjoying the peace and quiet and watching the spectacle of the huge flocks of birds that have gathered on the river for the winter. Finally just as it got dark Stuart managed to get a fish to save our honour (well his honour anyway); only a tiny Schoolie, but a welcome sight all the same. After fishing about an hour of darkness with no further action we decided enough was enough as we both had other places to be and we headed back on the long journey back to the car.

So where were the Flounder? I've heard so many rumours that the River Stour Flounder population have all gone I could perhaps be forgiven for believing it. I'm still not convinced though. These are pre-spawning fish and, just the same as on my home patch on the Colne, it will take a certain combination of triggers to preempt them into gathering in the tight shoals that they form at this time of the year. The food is there for them, so that isn't the reason for their non-attendance. But the weather is still warm (as is the water), there is still a lot of the summer weed about and the prevailing winds of late have allowed the colour to drop out of the water; all these factors, in my experience will delay the Flounder's urge to head downriver and spawn. My hope is that some strong winds and a bit of a cold snap will see them gathering up over the next few weeks, ready and waiting for my return.