Dover Breakwater 1st April 2000

After a long wait of 3 months the Breakwater finally opened after sustaining considerable storm damage, principally to the inside railings.......

Paul Davies came over around 4.45am, so we could drive down to Kent, collect the bait, and catch the boat across to the Breakwater for around 8.15am.
Things looked good with the forecast of South Westerly winds, force 3 to 4, and high water around 10am, although a short tide....

Arrived at Marsh Tackle at 7am, had a chat with Dave, and shared our hopes for may be catching a smoothhound, as some had been caught in recent weeks from the Ad.Pier ... to this end, we had ordered Peeler Crab, which Dave very kindly let us select .... we also had on order yellow-tail lug for general fishing, and Dave loaned us of a coupe of sealable containers for their transportation ....... grabbed a number of odds and end such as packs of Kamasan uptide crab hooks (4/0) along with some 30lb amnesia ..... oh and picked up a couple of rounded bass bullets for the coming months..... tell you about those later in the year one I’ve given them a try.....

Raced over to Dover, and dropped off at Channel Angling and grabbed some ragworm, along with some more 8oz long fixed wire leads...... drove back towards the Dumphead, unloaded the gear, and walked for the boat....

Tommy and Alan were there from DSAA to collect the pier toll, and act as marshals for the day ..... ahead of us were a single lone couple...... and indeed that’s how it remained when the boat collected us as 8.20am .... just four to fish the breakwater!!!!!!!!!
Turned out that the repair work was still ongoing, and that the section from peg 1 to 80 was out of bounds ...... Paul and I decided to fish the far western end at pegs 200 to 213, whilst the couple elected to fish slightly down from us around peg 150 or so...

I set-up 3 rods..... around 8.45am....
First with a long flowing trace with a single 4/0 loaded with crab .... ever hopeful of a smoothhound...
Second with a 4/0 wishbone loaded with either crab, yellowtails, rag, or a combination as the mood took me, in a hope for other fish such as an early bass, or late cod.....
Third, a christmas tree with size 2 hooks loaded with ragworm down the inside wall, and 5 to 8 turns off the bottom for pollack ..... which I later chopped and changed around with a 2/0 wishbone and a 3 snood clip-up rig with 1/0’s....

Paul seemed to be catching from the off .... took me a while to get going .... and whilst Paul seemed to have fish almost every cast, for some reason I was lucky if I connected every other ..... think it may have been a case of me having larger hooks / baits..... although the pouting still felt suicidal towards the 4/0’s!!!!!

9.35am: 23cm pouting on the outside wishbone.....

9.45am; 27cm pouting on the single crab bait....
Paul had a cracking series of bites on his pollack rig .. the only bites seen all day down the wall .. and brought up a pollack of just over 1.3/4lb, with a rather squared off head .. nice fish all the same......
10.35am; Codling ... all 34cm of it, on the single crab bait.....

Went to get some coffee... walked the whole length of the Breakwater, and back again, and wondered if it was worth it!!!! ... just as I went past the other couple, the woman was struggling with her rod.... looked like she had snagged herself on the inside... but no, the rod pulled back, and was then violently jerked..... a fish, not a snag was hindering her ..... looked over the side, as she brought up a nice cod / codling of 5 to 6lb, which her hubby managed to eventually net.......
11.50am ..... I’d switch over to a wishbone on the inside, in the hope of a codling, as I’d had no joy for the pollack, and had a 24cm dab....

12.15pm: 21cm pout on the outside wishbone.....
12.22; 22cm pout on the single crab......
12.50pm: 6” pout from the inside
12.55pm: double shot of pout on the outside wishbone, both on crab .. 22 and 23cm

1.05pm: 6”pout from the outside.....
1.30pm; double shot on the inside... codling of 22cm and a 24cm whiting.....

1.40pm: 24cm pout on the outside on crab...
1.45pm: Paul gave a shout whilst trying to retrieve his crab bait from the outside..... turned out he’d hooked into a nice cod .... managed to net it for him ..... 6.1/4lb .. his biggest fish to date .... to say that he was smiling like a cat with cream would be an understatement, but I was really pleased for him.....

1.50pm .... instead of a decent cod on my crab bait... I pull out yet another pouting... all 24cm of it .... seemed to me that the sea was alive with pouting, and not giving the cod really any chance of getting a look see... :-(
2.00pm ..... 8” codling .... again on crab....
2.25pm ..... another pouting .. 26cm this time.....
Paul managed to pull up a very large edible crab .. no doubt about it, this was Pauls day!!!!
3.00pm .... another small pouting....
3.20pm.... and another.....
Started a mad dash to pack-up before the boat arrived.....
3.30; another small pout.....
The boat arrived early, and I still had a rod in the water.... and of course .. I wind in only to get snagged, thus slowing me down even further.... pulled free, but lost the terminal tackle .... chucked my gear away, and jumped for the boat....
All in all a very interesting day ... looked like the spring codling run had started, and that there was only really one bait to be using ..... CRAB!!!!!!

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