Hythe 23/06/2012

I headed to Hythe, picked up my bait at Mick’s Tackle and headed to Princes Parade. Parked up and moved to the beach. I set up the shelter to defend my gear from the 20mph winds and the got to setting up the rods and get the day started.  Having base camp set up I moved down to the water and cast out at 10:40. With the wind  as it was and the strength of the swell. I was having to cast into the wind and then the sea brought the weights round in front of me.

As waited about 20 minutes and then brought the rods in from their first cast and without feeling anything on the line I pulled in the biggest bass I have caught on rod a line, not a massive size, of 27CM. I didn’t weigh it, but popped it straight back in the water once I had a photo. I pulled in the other rod and found a 6 inch whiting on it, so the species count for the day was in good shape from the get go.

I was waiting for JW, Merris and possible AndyC to join when I got a call from JW saying he was caught up in gridlock and wouldn’t be making the session.

About 20 minutes latter I bought in the rods again and I had another bass, another personal best. This one was 33cm long. Another quick snap and back into the sea with it.

After this it all went pretty quite for about 3 hours. The odd bite and one or 2 whiting. It was very hard to detect the bites and until later in the afternoon I didn’t actually really see any, but fish started to come in again, whiting.

At about 4PM I wound in and had a double shot. 1 whiting and one new species for the year, an 10″-12″ eel. That was put back to sea after a piccy.

A short time after I saw a big bang on the rod and waited for a bit and no other twitches could be picked out from the wave/wind bumps. So I wound in and had my first sizeable bass for the plate at 38cm. So he was despatched immediately.

After that a sizeable whiting came in and joined that bass. And the another, but it was so thin I chucked it back. Then a steady stream of bites and whiting, hoping for more bass, but a lass only whiting.

Around 7PM I was holding the rod and then it bowed in a big way, so waiting for it to reach its maximum bend and the lift quickly, but carefully into it, thinking that’s a lovely bass. It was fighting a bit on the way in, but when I got it to the beach, it was a dogfish, making species 4 for the day.

I packed up at 20:00 having used the bait and having had a great day. All of the bass were caught on huge lug on 2 hook flappers at about 25-30 yards beyond the water line.

When I got home I looked in the mirror and my face is the colour of a baboons ass, so a gentle reminder to people to use sun cream when out even on mangy days as the sun is strong and even though it doesn’t look like June, it is!!!