Dover Breakwater 22nd Nov.1998

Drove down to Hythe in Kent, to pick-up our bait order from Den's Tackle, at just after 7am ..

We had been unable to secure an order for lug at any of the tackle shops in Dover on the Wednesday, due to the tides coinciding with the hours of darkness, and the high demand due to 'Cod Fever'...... So we were very pleased to get our gutted yellow tail wraps for the day ahead, along with a number of small pieces of terminal gear that we required....

We then drove on to Dover for around 7.30am to collect the ragworm order from Channel Angling ... they have just moved a little further up the street into a much more spacious and open shop.. lots more room to browse, although as Roy joked, it may take a while to find your way around all the goodies.....

Parked the car in the Hoverspeed P&D.. £5 for the Day, but it's a lot better than skimping on the charge on the Roadside parking and getting clamped, which has happened to a number of Anglers over the past few weeks .. the £4 toll runs out for most around 3pm, and the council would seem to know this, so they clamp during the 30 to 45 minute gap in duty.... ouch....

Got to the Dumphead for 7.45am .... already 20 anglers ahead of us... most from the Duke of Wellington to fish a Match .. they took Pegs 70 to 130 I think ....

Tom told us that the largest fish that Saturday had been a cod of around 8lb, but that a couple of double figure fish had been lost, whilst being netted.....

We got on the second boat, paid our £3 each, and set-up at Peg 60 or so, right next to the steps around 8.45am..... by the time the last boat load of anglers arrived, things were quite tight, with some 50 odd anglers in all....

The forecast was for a dry day, with sunshine and cloud, a southerly wind of 4 to 5, decreasing ...... High water was at 12.26pm, and 6.4m.

I decided to set-up two rods on the outside.... both with long flowing wishbones, one with 2/0's the other with 4/0's ... on reflection, I really should have changed one to a clip-down pennell.... I set up a third rod on the inside that I played around with, and either fished as a flowing 2/0 wishbone, or with a small pouting on a Pennell down the Wall for that Bass/Cod, or with 3 booms and 1/0's mounted with ragworm for Pollack down the wall ..... Paul used much the same sort of set-up except that his 3rd rod was dedicated to pollack fishing through-out...

9.20am: Paul kicked off with a nice 13" Pollack, although he came VERY close to losing the rod over the side, as it lifted/bounced out of the arm brace ...... at the same time as he was dealing with that, the other rod he was fishing the inside started banging.. Paul rapidly dealt with the pollack by dropping it and the rod, and raced over to pull up a 12" pouting.....

9.40am: Paul has a small dab of 7" from the outside .... I get a nice bite, and meet resistance on retrieval ... but it feels like dead weight, no real kicks or dives ...... and although I called over to Paul with the drop-net, just to be on the safe side, it turned out to be nothing more exiting than a ball of old line, a fond of Laminaria, and a few old Gemini weights.....

9.50am: At last a decent bite.... only an hour of fishing, although I took some consolation in the fact that everyone seemed to find it slow going, even with the tidal run.... anyway, turns out to be a double shot with an 8.5" pout, and an 11" whiting .... Paul got snagged and lost his rig ... in fact he lost something like 5 rigs throughout the course of the day.......

10.20am: Had a series of small taps on the inside rod..... turned out to be a 9" poor-cod.....

10.25am: Pulled in a small 6" pouting from the outside, that when straight on the pennel on the inside, in hope of that big lone bass.....

10.30am: Another pouting.... all 7" of it!!!!!, from the outside.....

Soon after this I got caught up in a tackle snag and lost a wishbone rig, which was annoying as I had a bite at the time.....

10.50am: and another pout from the outside.... this time 9".....

11.00am: The tidal run really starts to kick-in.... and I have a double shot of pouting from the outside.... one of 11", the other 8.5"....

11.14am: Paul joins in the pout bashing, this time an 8" individual from the inside... just as he's returning it, I bring one of 9" in from the inside as well ....

11.35am: Paul lands an 18" Pollack from the inside on his Christmas tree .... the tide brings more activity along the 'Wall', AND codling are being landed by some lucky individuals ..... the sea and spray are also splashing over the top....

Chap some way down to the left of us, grabbed my drop net for his mate .. but I'd forgotten to attach the additional leads to the bottom to sink it (and thus control it) ..... they lost it.... I felt really guilty, and promptly attached the weights that I'd specifically brought along for the job.....

12.15pm: My rod set-up for Pollack, starts to bounce wildly.... grab it... and pull up a Pollack of 14"....No sooner had I landed it, than Paul gives a shout, and pulls up a double shot with one pollack of 14" and the other of 13" .... looks like a shoal swam past.....

12.40pm: 12" pout from the outside......

12.50pm: get a bite.. retrieve and again meet resistance.... pull up a 10" pout, but it's not on the rig I'm using .. it's on the wishbone that I lost ... plus I manage to pull-in one of Paul's lost rigs as well!!!!!!

1.00pm Lad to the right of us, needed help to land a nice codling, that he'd caught using a long flowing wishbone...... lent him my scales .. came in at 5.5lb... at least someone was happy :-)

1.10pm: Paul landed a 12" whiting from the outside.....

1.15pm: I on the other hand have yet another pouting ... 11"....

1.50pm: Paul has a 9" dab from the outside.....

2.00pm: land a nice pout of 13" from the outside.....

2.10pm: It was obviously going to be one of those spooky sorts of days ..... Paul got a series of tugs, and bangs ..... hits into a reasonable fish... chaps next to us help him land it, only to realise that a second set of tackle was involved (from persons unknown), and in the confusion it really wasn't clear who's the fish was... ie who's hook was in it's mouth before it was unhooked in the drop-net, but as nobody came forward at the time, we all felt that Paul should have it by default..... came in at 3.5lb... shame really, the uncertainty of ownership tainted the experience for Paul, or at least it seemed that way...

2.24pm: Paul has a 10" pout from the outside....

2.35pm: Paul has another Pollack, this time of 16".......

I went and got us some coffee from Tommy's Tuckshop .. looked around and the story was the same ... a few codling about in the 3 to 5lb range, with one decent Cod of 8.5lb in the knuckle .. otherwise pouting, with the odd whiting and dab, here and there...... oh and a few dogfish as well.....

3.00pm: Catch a 12" pout on the outside.. go to release it on the steps on the inside, and almost get splashed by a wave, to Paul's delight.....

3.30pm: Paul had the last fish of the day as we packed-up to go .. a nice pouting of 1lb...... as we packed up, lots of seagulls descended .. and poor old tommy was making his way back towards the pick-up point collecting loads of rubbish that many had simply left ..... I do wish people would give more consideration towards the stewards, with out whom, the venue would be out of bounds....

Not a great day, but as Paul pointed out, at least we didn't blank.... ;-)

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