Folkestone

Folkestone Warren 20th Aug.1999

Arrived at the Warren around 3.30am , and walked down to the second apron, and on to the slipway.

Dawn had yet to arrive, an a brisk SW wind was blowing, around force 3/4 .. not the NW 2/3 that I'd expected... but even in the dark I could see that the waves were quite large, and the spray occasionally splashed my face... HW was due around 6am, so I could start fishing almost immediately....

Disaster... I'd forgotten to pack my pocket torch to help string up the rod etc ... managed to do it blind in the dark after a number of goes ..... first cast, and I felt that something was wrong .. retrieved the J9 that I was using, and in the gloom, understood the problem .. the braid had wrapped itself around the front treble .. in the light, not a problem, but in almost pitch black, one of those situations only made worse by ones efforts ,, eventually I had to cut the braid away and reknot the small snap swivel ... fun fun fun ....

By 4.30am things started to improve .. firstly the gloom was starting to lift, and secondly the wind abated to around force 3 .. only problem was that I was starting to pick up drifting weed almost every cast ..... as a result I decided to abandon the slipway, and go back to the Nags Head, even though I knew this would made life difficult with the prevailing crosswind.

Nothing much to report in terms of surface activity once the sun came up, wind didn't help by making the sea a little lumpy on occasions, but I saw now bait fish, mackerel, or real bird activity. The sea was quite coloured, with small amounts of floating weed here and there.....

6.00am .... had a good tug on the J13 that I was using, that stopped me in my tracks , but the fish was off the hook faster than it was on ....... :-(

6.30am ... just pulling the rapala out of the water at my feet, when beneath shot the dark shadowy form of a fish that ran parallel to me .... hope yet of catching a fish .....

but everything went really quiet for the next hour .. I was just thinking of packing up, when the rod jerked in my hand as I was retrieving ..... spool slipped on the low clutch setting, but that was soon rectified .. and up pops a small bass, that had taken a head shot at the J13 .. brought it to the landing net, and just as I lifted it out of the water, it threw the treble .... measured all of 14" , photographed it, and popped it back....

By 8am, decided to call it a day, packed up, and drove back to Kingston, and on to work ... a nice morning, but somehow the double figure fish that I'd had planned at 4am, just never showed .. ain't that the way of things!!!!

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