Folkestone

Folkestone Warren 31st May 1999

Arrived at the Warren around 5am, slightly later than I had intended, due to a lack of response to the alarm clock!!!!
The air was damp with a light drizzle falling intermittently, and an NE to E wind of 2 to 3. Low water was due around 7am, so I had decided to try out my new chest waders, that I'd got from Veals three weeks before, but hadn't had the opportunity to use. My first problem was to decide where to fish, never really having fished the Warren at low water .. I was tempted by the western end by Copt Point, but decided instead to fish up around the second high apron ........

And so I started fishing in front of the slipway from around 5.30am onwards .... using a blue and white J9 Rapala .... saw nothing, and had no takes ..... and still found myself bumping the lure into the odd Gault clay boulder, here and there, but a few tugs and I'd soon be free... By 6.30am, I decided to try in front of the Nags Head .... and as I started into the water, I noticed a bass jump out of the water to my left .. a small fish, but a bass none the less .... found it very frustrating as there were many more gault and weed snags ...
Around 8am I noticed a bass break surface after small bait fish... around the end of the line of posts, and then another, and yet another a little further to my left .. my spirits lifted, but try as I could, I could not get a take :-(

8.30am .. I managed to get snagged in a gault boulder for the umpteenth time .. this time however disaster struck .. the snap swivel I was using "unsnapped" .. I put it down to bad luck, and then realised I had only brought 1 other J9 ... in black and silver ....
With the tide now on the turn, and not wishing to get trapped with the rocks to my back, I decided to look at the relatively clear section in the centre of the low apron, but upon arriving there found too much exposed Gault under foot, and decided the risk of slipping over was too great, and thus went back to the slipway on the second high apron.

9.15am .. hit another snag .. and the clip (that I thought was OK) gave again .. and so I lost my last J9 ... Veals would be doing some brisk trading when I got home!!!! ... oh and I binned the clip...

Decided to stop fishing (an event in it's own right) have some breakfast and set up a bubblefloat and redgill and wait for the tide to rise .... saw a lobster potter come in really close..

By 10.30am there was sufficient water to cast from the apron itself using a J13, which is what I did ....... after only a few casts, a fish hit home, I could feel it struggle, and then all too soon it was gone :-(

That proved to be the only take of the day, and I'd missed it .. I saw nothing else in the way of fish after that, and by midday had packed up and headed home....

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