Dover Breakwater 22nd April 2000



The weather this week had again been very hard to forecast, but from what I could see from the long range charts, there was a possibility of fishing over the weekend.... arranged to meet Tony Swain down in Kent if the Met Office forecast was OK ......
Again we were on tender-hooks with the Friday forecasts talking about force 5 to 6 ... just that bit too close for comfort, and a real danger of the Met Office sticking in a 7!!!!!
As it turned out the 5.05am shipping forecast gave SW winds force 4 to 5, decreasing 3 .. yippee... grabbed my gear, and gave Tony a buzz..... “Thunderbirds are GO”...

Arrived down at Marsh Tackle around 7am, and found a mug of coffee (c/o Wendy) already waiting for me... Tony arrived a couple of minutes later, having taken a “short cut”!!!! Chatted to Dave, collected our bait (peeler crab and yellowtails), and set off for Dover..... parked the cars in the Lorry Port at the top of the Dumphead .. had a bit of trouble finding a parking ticket meter that was working...... once that was sorted we made our way for the boat....

Arrived to find only a handful of other anglers waiting, inc. Mark Bennett .... paid our ticket money (now £3), and caught the first boat across.... walked down to the Knuckle and got to peg 1, but by the time that Tony and Mark had arrived, two other anglers had set up in the other corner .... decided that trying to fish with five of us, was going to be rather tight, esp. as we were planning to use two rods each on the outside, so gave my peg to Tony, which allowed Mark to fish the centre part of the knuckle, felt this was only fair, as neither had been able to fish the Knuckle before .... walk around to the otherside of the lighthouse and set-up at peg 20...


High water was due around 2.20pm with a 6.4m tide ... the rain that was forecast never materialised, and the weather was sunny with a force 2 wind from the SW for most of the day... all very pleasant .. I’m sure that the bad forecasts over the previous days, had put many people off, coupled with it being Easter weekend....

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....
Later in the day I replaced the yellowtail for crab, on all the rods.....

9.26am.... first fish of the day.... 8” pout from the inside....
10.00am ... had a series of bites that resulted in a 56cm dogfish from the inside....

10.20am.... 29cm pouting from the outside on crab.....

10.45am ... got snagged on the outside, and lost the yellowtail rig..... so I tied a new leader and set-up as before....
11.05am.. double shot of pouting from the outside on crab, 27cm and 29cm.....

11.15am.... 9” pouting from the inside....
11.40am... double shot from the outside on crab, with a 28cm codling and a 26cm pout....

11.50am... 32cm pouting from the outside on yellowtail....
12.10pm ..... 28cm pout from the outside on crab....
12.40pm... 28cm codling from the outside on crab....
12.50pm... Mark had missed a few decent bites on the inside, including a short run when he was using sandeel .... he’d switched over to crab, and was rewarded for his efforts with a small Starry Smoothhound ... to say that he was pleased would be a very big understatement... :-)

Not long after, Tom the Steward also landed a small Starry Smoothhound on crab again on the inside (that I’d given him a couple of weeks previously)....
1.10pm... 9” pouting from the outside on yellowtail....
1.25pm..... 35cm codling from the inside on crab....

1.40pm.... 8” pout from the inside on crab....
2.05pm.... had a series of rattling bites on the inside rod .. brought it up to find a double shot ..... 48cm Starry Smoothhound, and an 8” pouting... both on crab...

2.15pm.. got snagged again on the outside.. lost the trace and had to prepare a replacement...
2.40pm.... double shot from the outside ...... 49cm dogfish with a 26cm pout, both on yellowtail....
2.48pm... double shot from the inside with two 8” pouting, both on crab....
3.10pm.... had a series of very sharp tugs on one of the outside rods .... brought up the fish which I could feel fighting away ..... 50cm Starry Smoothhound, again on crab...

3.19pm.... 29cm pout from the outside on crab.....
3.23pm... 9” pouting from the inside on crab....

Packed away and walked back with Tony and Mark to catch the boat ..... everyone had had a similar day, with pout dominating the catch, odd codling here and there, with dogfish and whiting thrown-in.... went for a quick drink afterwards, to relax and chat about the days events, plus what we had planned for the rest of the summer, in terms of species and suitable venues etc, .....
I will probably start plugging for bass in the next few weeks if the weather allows, and will return to “The Wall”, once the summer species are there in number, ie, bass, pollack, smoothhound, mullet, etc..

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