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Dover Breakwater 16th April.2000
The weather over the past week or so had been rather variable with a number of fast moving lows crossing the country, making the forecasting somewhat unpredictable .... I’d gritted my teeth and booked bait for the Sunday as this seemed to offer the best opportunity .... looked at the forecast on Saturday, and the Met Office were still talking about force 7 to 8 ... even at midnight .... fortuitously however, the shipping forecast at 5am gave a SW wind of force 4 to 5 ... and HW around 10.30, although a short tide of 5.6m or so ... grabbed my gear and set-off down to Kent....
Arrived just before 7am at Marsh Tackle, and was greeted by Dave, who offered me a cup of coffee .. but I felt that I really needed to get over to Dover a.s.a.p. to stand inline to catch the boat across..... helped Dave to sort out the 25 peeler crabs, and the four score of yellowtails that I’d ordered, and then jumped in the car....
Arrived at Dover around 7.45am, to find a large number of anglers already waiting at the Dumphead .... the first boat came along early at around 8.10am .. and I managed to catch the third boat across .... turned out that pegs 120 to 160 were pre-booked for a comp, but that the repairs for the rest of the Breakwater had been completed that Friday, and that no restrictions were in place for the rest of the venue .... made my way down the pier, and set-up around peg 46 ..... most people bunched up towards the west end, which ment that for most of the day, I had pegs 10 to about 80 to myself, with just two chaps fishing the knuckle!!!!!
Set-up 3 rods....
1) long trace with 4/0 kamasan wishbone loaded with crab, fished on the outside.....
2) long trace with 4/0 kamasan wishbone loaded with yellowtails on the outside....
3) long trace with 2/0 kamasan wishbone loaded with yellowtails on the inside....
.... and started fishing from about 9am onwards....
9.20am .. first fish of the day ... 8” pouting on yellowtail from the outside....
10.20am... 31cm pout on crab from the outside....
10.30am .. double shot of pout, both 23cm on yellowtail from the outside....
10.45am ... 27cm pout from the inside....
10.55... 35cm codling from the inside...
Went for a cup of coffee .. had a chat to the chaps in the Knuckle ... they’d mainly had pouting and the odd dogfish...
11.10am... double shot of codling around 27cm, both on crab, from the outside...
11.20am... another double shot of codling from the outside (27cm and 31cm) both on yellowtail ... started to think there was a chance of better codling in the offing...
11.30am... 23cm codling from the inside....
12.00 Noon .... double shot of pouting on crab from the outside .... one was a nice fish of 38cm (1.1/4lb), whilst the other was a rather dismal 20cm!!!
12.05pm.... 8” pouting on yellowtail from the outside...
12.15pm... 27cm pouting on yellowtail from the outside...
12.33pm... 29cm pouting from the outside on yellowtail .... seemed like the sea was alive with pouting, and preventing any other species from getting to the bait!!!! :-(
12.40pm.. 9” pouting from the outside on crab ....
Decided to start using a cocktail of yellowtail tipped with crab legs on the inside rod...
1.05pm ... double shot of pout, both 9” from the inside....
1.20pm... double shot of pouting from the outside this time, on crab...
1.36pm.. 26cm pout on yellowtail from the outside....
1.40pm.... small codling of 29cm from the inside....
1.50pm ... first decent bite of the day .... only to pull up a 55cm dogfish from the outside, on crab....
2.10pm... double shot on the inside.... 24cm codling and an 18cm pout.... things then went a little quiet...
2.49pm.... double shot of pout from the outside on a cocktail of crab and yellowtail, and finished off the yellowtail, so resorted to crab on all the rods....
3.10pm .... double shot of pouting from the outside on crab .. 29cm and 30cm...
Started packing up around 3.15pm ... brought the last rod in from the outside, and felt some resistance, plus fish .... pulled up a load of lost tackle and weights, along with two pouting of 24cm and 28cm.....
Walked the length of the Breakwater to catch the boat back .. spoke to people on the way, and the same story .. pout, pout, and more pout, with the odd dogfish, dab and codling thrown in .. only heard of a couple of sizable codling caught, and even these were nothing to speak of..... I think the short tide, with lack of tidal run, probably put pay to any real chances of catching notable fish ... oh well at least I didn’t blank....
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