Chatham (Sun Pier) 22nd July 2002

Woke-up with the alarm at 5.30am …. Soon realised that a little mozzie had been sleeping with me … bites from head to foot ….. great start!!!

Drove down to Chatham and arrived at the car park behind Sun Pier at 7am .. paid my three pounds, parked, sorted my gear, and walked towards the pier ….. stopped dead in my tracks … I’d forgotten to take out the bread bags from the car boot ……difficult to fish for mullet without bread!!! Soon remedied, and walked down onto the first pontoon…..

Glorious morning with a light westerly wind and sunshine with blue skies…. With HW due at noon, I decided to take a few pix, and then set up on the first pontoon, and await the rising tide… saw some lip marks on the superstructure but not convincingly fresh from the previous tide or two!!!!

7.45am put the bread bags down, one at the seaward end, and the other close by on the front end….. life made easier by the fact that I’d broken up and pre-soaked two loaves the previous evening….

Set up the two match rods … one with a fixed spool and a self hooking rig (swim feeder with running trace), with a size 10 hook, mounted with bread flake. The other rod was set up with centrepin, waggler, and 20” fluro-carbon hook length, again with a size 10 hook, mounted with bread flake….

Started fishing around 7.55am, with the float fishing on the end from the connecting pontoon walkway, and the self hooking rig on the corner front edge over the second bread bag….

8.35am ….. my mobile goes off … its Leon ….. asks me how I’m doing and says he’ll pop down to the pier, during his lunch break…….

10.00am …. Mad bag lady arrives with loaves of bread to feed the swans ….. and where does she decide to do this … YES… right next to me……. 15 minutes of fending off swans, and I return to float watching!!!!

Just after 12.15pm or so, Leon arrives and sets up two rods ….. again one to float fish, the other a self hooking rig….. chat about the mullet that have been caught over recent weeks ….. 2 to 8lb from various marks including this pier ….. but from what Leon was saying, that although much larger fish were being caught than one would perhaps expect at this juncture of the session, there were perhaps fewer fish being landed….. not having had a single bite all morning, nor seen any mullet on the surface as Leon and Rob had observed the previous Saturday, I could feel that DOOM FEELING starting to creep into my thoughts ….. not helped by Leon reminding me (and quite correctly) to hold my rod away from the waters edge, so as to avoid spooking any potential fish with a waggling rod rip in its face!!!!

Just before Leon had to go back to work at 1.00pm, the weed moved in with the turn of the tide ….. switched both rods over to the down stream side, and said bye to Leon……

1.30pm….. Motorboat pulls up, right where I’m fishing to drop “the family off to shop” … no word of thanks for pulling my gear out of the way etc….. some people are just PIG ignorant …..
Pulled away quickly, and allowed me to continue…. Very soon afterwards the wind started to pick up and made life even more difficult, as it combined with the ebbing tide …… struggled on just with the float gear until 2.45pm, by which time the water level was dropping very quickly, and I decided to call it a day ….. rather disappointing, with no bites all day!!!! …… Oh well, I’ll try again soon … I really want to catch myself a Medway Mullet … this year if I can!!!

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