Dover Breakwater 21st Sept.1997.

Karen, Tony, and myself started fishing around 9am between pegs 140 to 150 approx.. The weather was fine with a force 4 easterly wind and High Tide at around 2pm. Reports from the previous day, and the all night competition before hand seemed to indicate a good chance of codling and flat fish with maybe some bass.

Terminal tackle consisted of one or two size 2/0 or 4/0 hooks either clipped down or in a clip up / clip down arrangement, for the codling, with black lug and squid combo's as the main bait. All three of us started by fishing the outside wall...... very strong tidal run...... 8oz long wire graps a must.....

Tony took the first fish...... a small codling........

Unfortunately the chaps next to us consistently used inappropriate leads and tactics for the venue, and kept crossing our lines........ eventually I decided to fish the inside wall, for flat fish and maybe dogfish, with one rod, using the same rig as before, but with size 2 hooks, and no squid on the lower hook. The other rod I set-up to catch Bass with......

Tried to catch small pout down the wall to live bait with using the pike rod (find that it is so sensitive that one rarely misses a bite)..... but no joy..... so I alternated between a squid head with tentacles, and a side of mackerel on a 4/0 pennell down the wall......... just helped to keep the crab population healthy!!!!!!

Very little else caught along the Breakwater..... a few pout... one or two codling, and we saw a flattie being pulled up............ mostly however we pulled up weed and lost tackle (I suspect washed up by the very large tides of the past week.... Tony said something about the biggest in 20 years or so!!), Karen even managed to rap a hook snood around, and pull up a barnacle encrusted stone of about 1lb or so.... Soon after this she changed over to a wishbone rig.......

Set the pike rod up for spinning and plugging, and walked up and down the inside wall and flicked out where I could with a variety of lures (oh how I wished I had brought the rapalas with me)..... on two occasions I saw white bait rise to the surface along with a bass in hot pursuit, not 10ft away from the wall....... but as with the rest of my miserable attempts..... no joy!!!!!!!!

Tony caught his second fish around 3pm, again a small codling, on the outside wall on lug/squid. Someone further down managed to land a lobster, just as I had done the previous visit to this venue, although this one was around the 3lb mark...... Boat collected us at 3.50pm...... on the way back the boat stopped to help a gull that had line and weed caught around one of its legs...... not as a result of our activities I must stress..... I wonder if we shouldn't have some form of biodegradable line... better for the wildlife, and would reduce the amount of tackle snags at such venues..... maybe it already exists and I'm just ignorant of it......

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