Folkestone

Folkestone Warren 14th July 2001

Woke up at 1.20am to the sound of my alarm clock going off .. took me a few seconds to realise what was going on …… Time for the Dawn Patrol … those bass down the Warren had a few plugs coming their way this morning..
Weather forecast looked OK with SW winds force 3 / 4 and light showers, and high water due around 5.30am.

Drove down to Folkestone and arrived at the Warren at 3.30am … found a couple of other people either ground fishing or just setting up on the first apron… walked on to the second apron and set-up at the Nags Head … with the tide already well up I could start by using a blue and white J13 straight away … just finished my third cast when I spotted a lone figure coming out of the gloom towards me .. turned out to be Jason Hughes (whom I’d had a number of correspondences with via e-mail, but never actually managed to meet for one reason or another..) … Jason rapidly set up and also stated off with a J13..

I kept fairly static around the NagsHead and let Jason rove the length of the Apron in search of the elusive bass … I tend to believe that the bass cruise up and down the Warren aprons and unless I have a mackerel shoal to follow (with the bass invariably behind them) I tend to fish given reefs, gullies, groins etc waiting for the bass to arrive … heresy to the dogma that is written by many .. but I just think that as I’m unable to fish all the time, working out exactly where the fish will be (location wise, depending upon the specific state of tide / time of day) is simply not an option .. and moving off too frequently is more likely to result in missing them, than coinciding with their arrival at the new spot … the other reasons (which are probably more genuine) are a) I always pack too much gear to rove properly and can’t leave it for fear of it being stolen and b) I’m getting rather chubby and definitely out of shape, and I need an easy life!!! LOL

The water was rather a murky green with a notable amount of floating weed .. which ran down the line on the retrieve and collected on the diving lip of the plug, almost every cast .. although once high water occurred the weed abated .. and as the wind slowly dropped over the course of the morning, so the water slowly seemed to clear…

All very quiet ….. No bait fish, no splashes no nothing …. Mind you the water was rather on the choppy side ….. and remained so despite the wind dropping throughout the morning…. So really would have been difficult seeing any surface activity had it occurred….

6.35am … I was standing casting out and retrieving to my right, whilst talking to Jason on my left .. we were just commenting upon how quiet themornings fishing had been, when suddenly the rod lurched in my hand…. Followed by a series of solid pulsed thumps as the fish dived away… told Jason I was in ….. then all of a sudden the fish lurched in the opposite direction, straight under my feet …. At that angle and time in the fight it was not really surprising that the line suddenly went slack …. Obviously the hook had parted company from the fish and left me with that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach …. Felt like a nice school bass of 2 to 3lb … but to be honest as its been so long since I caught a fish it could have easily been more or less!!!!!

Not long after, Jason gave a shout followed rapidly by a low moan …. He didn’t really need to say anything.. it was obvious what had happened!!!!! We guessed a shoal of schoolies had just moved through….

7.30am... With the rapidly falling tide and with an aching shoulder (out of practice!!!) I decided to pack-up … whilst Jason kept going until around quarter to eight, but with no Joy …. We decided to call it a day and walked back to the cars, dreaming of what could have been, had the contacts been more solid…..

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