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Albert Pier 24th Aug 2002
Map Ref: 647,477
Tide: LW 2.56pm (1.8m)
Weather Forecast: Sunny and Bright. Wind N to NW F2/3
After the poor showing of mullet down at Green Street that morning, and still having a bucket full of groundbait, I decided to go down to the Albert pier for a few hours, and see if I could find the mullet there….. and hopefully break my personal duck for the day……
Arrived around 10.50am, and very quickly set-up on the steps and first landing, so that I was fishing by 11am……
It was obvious from the start, that it was going to be difficult.. the reason being, that there was increased boat traffic within the harbour, this being a weekend, and the wash was almost continuous, making bite detection difficult, and forcing the float and tackle hard up against the stone steps…..
I didn’t have too long to wait before the second landing became available with the dropping tide, and I set up station there, and allowed the float to trot down parallel to the outer edge of the steps, between 5 to 15ft out……..
I had a number of small bites and nibbles, but all resulting in the same outcome …. NO FISH ……
12.40pm…… suddenly the float went, and when I struck home, hit into a fish …. My first thought was a mullet (I always think, that we tend to believe we’ve hooked into the fish that we are fishing for…. Fish for bass, and it must be a bass, fish for mullet, and thus it must be a mullet…… how often is that initial thought proved to be wrong???!!), but soon I had my doubts….. something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t put my finger on it… the fish was taking off on deep diving runs, and it felt that it was doing the head shaking thing…. But something wasn’t right….. almost felt as if the fish was foul hooked …… after a while I managed to start to bring the fish towards the surface, but before I could get a look, it surged straight back down, in a twisting sort of way, that again reminded me of a foul hooked fish, and yet it still was able to power off…… eventually I started to regain line, and grabbed the landing net…… and that’s when I saw what I’d hooked into ….. a very large horse-mackerel or scad (as they are known here)….
I have to say I was rather embarrassed as I had an audience above me, and disappointed that it wasn’t a mullet…. As a consequence I stopped playing the fish, and decided to just land the fish…… MISTAKE….. by not wearing the fish down, and presenting the net, the scad powered off at the last minute, and managed to throw the hook at the same time …….
MORAL: always play the fish out, if your going to use such light gear!!!!
To add insult to injury, I found that the fish had shredded the hook line, into three strands, with its bony tail scales, during the fight, and was forced to retackle-up…..
Over the next hour or so, things went very quiet with a couple of timid bites, but I couldn’t say what caused them… as the water level dropped, I could once again make out the bottom, and with the bright sunny conditions and the clarity of the water, lost confidence in the possibility of hooking into any mullet ….. I was also become very hot and tired, and by 1.50pm, decided to call it a day, and cut my losses, for a few hours sleep, later that afternoon…..