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Deal Parade Beach 19/1/2000
Drove down to Dover and arrived at Bills Bait and Tackle around 2.30pm.
Went inside to be greeted by Clive. We had a long chat about the state of fishing over the past six months, and how it had suddenly picked up in the last six days....
The Ad. Pier had been fishing extremely well with many double figure cod, caught on the night tides that weekend .... unfortunately with the storm damage sustained over the Christmas Period, it would be closing at 4pm except for Friday and Saturday nights.. which ruled it out for this trip :-(
.......... more bad news was to follow... one of the committee members of DSAA came in and told us that the storm damage to the Breakwater was worse than first thought, and that the Harbour Board could not see it opening until at least March!!!
He also happened to mention that he’d fished the night before at the Warren with his sons for a few hours, and that each son had caught a 9lb cod, and that he himself had one of 5lb ... seemed that the cod had come in very close and that he’d only picked his up through a miss cast.
Clive said that the Kingsdown Butts had also been fishing well ... but not having fished it before I decided to play it safe, and fish Deal parade beach nr Ceasers Head.. just south of the life-boat station......
I grabbed by bait (2 score of yellow-tails and 3 of commons), and set off for Deal.....
I stopped off on route to have a look at the Undercliff section next to the Zeatland Pub, which marks the start of the Butts, but decided that the water was a little low, and that the danger of getting snagged with the type of rigs that I had was too great..... somewhere to try later perhaps when I’ve got the right gear for the venue.........
Arrived at Ceasers Head and set-up to start fishing around 4pm........ High water was due around 10pm... the weather forecast was for a N to NW wind starting around force 4 and dropping as the evening progressed.... with such a bitterly cold cross-wind I set up the beach-buddy to give me some respite.... although by the end of the evening it really wasn’t needed......
Set up two rods and rotated 3 basic rigs..... 3 hook clip-down with 1/0’s, a 2/0:4/0 pennel, and a 4/0 long traced wishbone .... all loaded with yellow and common lug.
From the first cast, the rod tip was registering bites.... small savage runs of whiting and pout.... and it really didn’t seem to matter at what distance I cast or what rig was in use..... although obviously the 1/0 rig connected more often....
4.30pm .... 8” whiting on the top hook of the 3 hook rig.....
5.00pm... an 8” whiting and a 6” pout.....
5.35pm.... 10” dab on the 4/0 wishbone....
5.55pm .. 6” poor cod and a 9” dab.....
6.55 double shot of 8” pouting
7.40pm .... reeling in a 10” dab and a similar sized 3-bearded rockling, only to find that by feet are surrounded by a carpet of shimmering and twitching sprats washed up in the surf ..... not really surprising then that no cod were showing to by lug worm baits ..... tried using a whole spat mounted on the pennel .. but to no avail...
8.10pm ..... 10” dab......
8.30pm ... Steve phoned and we had a chat about the conditions and the lack of decent fish..... and how I should have taken my earlier advice in the week, and fished a more rocky venue such as the Warren or the Butts.... :-(
9.00pm ... a 6” and 7” pouting on the 4/0 wishbone....
10.00pm ... more spats washed up in the surf .. collected a few handfuls and gave them to the chap fishing next to me.... he was having exactly the same fortune as myself ..... NO cod .. not even a sniff of a codling......
10.20pm .... managed to land a polybag and a 10” dab on the wishbone...
10.30pm.... 8” dab....
Things then went very.. very quiet .. and I packed up around 11.30pm ... chipped the ice off the car and headed back for home ......
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