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Folkestone (1998)
The weather forecast was bad .. force 5-7 NE winds, going on force 8/9 ......the reality was more like force 5, but it still meant that Paul, Ant, Karen and myself would be unable to fish the Breakwater ...... picked up the bait from a variety of sources to spread the load.. Ant from Phil Tanners place in Folkestone, Paul from Bills Bait and Tackle, and Karen and mine from Den's in Hythe along with that from Bills and Channel Angling in Dover...
Drove over to Folkestone to collect Tony Swain, said hi to Margaret and Pete and set off for the Pier .... we knew it could be crowded as it was booked for the Folkestone Sea Angling Association Christmas match ...... we fished the section before the elbow, which was roped off for the comp .. a number of anglers were there ahead of us, but we decided to stay and just have a bit of a jolly.....
Set-up around 9.30 ... and used a 2/0 flowing wishbone, and a 2/0 : 4/0 pennell, baited with lug and tipped with rag/maddies as the mood took me....
9.55am: Paul has an 11" dab....
10.05am: Paul has a codling .. all 7.5" of it!!!!!!!
10.20am: Paul has a 7" pouting ... I manage to get snagged and loose a set of tackle, and then the heavens opened .... joy of joys!!! Decided just to use wishbones....
10.50am: Karen has an 8" pout.....
11.15am: Karen has a 9" pout..... Tony and myself have yet to see a bite, let alone catch a fish .... maybe we were casting too far!!!!
11.25am: at last .... 11" whiting ... one of only a handful we saw all day...
11.40am: 10" dab...
11.55am: Karen has a 10" dab.....
12.15pm: Tony lands a 7" pout.... followed a few minutes later by Paul .. sure it was the same pouting :-)
12.35pm: Paul has a double shot of dab .. one of 12" the other 10"......
12.45pm: I get an 8.5" dab....
1.10pm: Paul has an 8" pout....
1.15pm: 10" dab to me.....
1.18pm: get hooked into the rope/railings below the wall ... lost tackle..... in fact this had occurred twice before already!!!!!
1.20pm.... other rod that I'd just cast out starts banging..... bring in another 10" dab....
1.50pm .. get an over-run and birds nest .. recover tackle with Ants help, but decide enough is enough....
2.00pm .. get snagged with the other rod .. pull .. lose another set of tackle ... Karen's cold and Ant's bored .. so we leave Paul to it ... who tells me he stayed for another hour and had 3 more dabs around the 10" mark.....
To sum up ... Day of the Dab..... we didn't see any codling .. well except for Paul's 7.5" wonder!!!!
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