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Albert Pier 8th Aug 2002
Map Ref: 647,477
Tide: HW 7.00am (10.0m)
Weather Forecast: Moderate showers with westerly wind F3.
After the previous days mullet fishing, Chris and myself decided we’d target the Albert pier again … and so I drove over to Five Oaks, and collected Chris at 4.45am ….. drove down to the Pier, and set up on the steps …… I decided to float fish, whilst Chris elected to go for the mullet, using a single hook paternoster to ledger in the deep water at the base of the steps…. And by 5.30am we were both fishing……
6.05am …. I’d started to allow the float to drift in close, so that I was in fact fishing over the lower half of the steps … suddenly my float shot under ….. I reacted by giving a solid strike, and instantly felt the resistance of a fish on the other end … my initial thoughts were that it was a small fish, such as a horse mackerel … but very quickly changed my mind as the fight developed, and confirmed when the fish rose to the surface …… it was a mullet of around 2lb ……. This mullet although no monster, had obviously had 3 shredded wheat for breakfast …… it simply dived down, and stayed down despite my best efforts of tiring it out and bringing it up …… when at last I did manage to bring it up, after some 10 minutes of surging runs, jerking pulls, and crash dives, it lolled onto its side, and gave the impression that it was spent …… Chris with the landing net submerged, waited as I brought it in ….. and then, just at the last moment, the mullet went into turbo mode, and sped off towards the other side of the harbour ……. Another 10 minutes, with a battle of wills …. The fish attempting to dive, and pull free, and myself equily determined to play the fish into submission .. had a scare for a while when the mullet insisted on diving vertically below us, and threatening to cut the line against the submerged stone steps …… but eventually with leaden arms, I brought it up, and it started to loll again on the surface ….. brought it around to the steps, and Chris was able to net it ………
The fish was 16.1/2” and came in at just 2lb in weight …. Took a picture and slipped it back…
From this terrifically promising start, things failed to materialise …….. whilst we had a number of bites over the next 6 hours they came to nothing, and frustration started to creep in ….. we were able to fish from the second section of the steps as the water ebbed away, and we decided to spice up the groundbait with sardines and garfish guts …. But all to no avail .. indeed it went very quiet by 1.40pm and low water …. We could even see the bottom, with less than 10ft of water.
Part of the problem may well have been the spring tide, with such low water conditions, also the fact that probably we were less stealthy than we should otherwise have been, fishing too close to the water / and being to close to the edge, plus the noise of splashing weights etc from the feathering brigade, and whilst any one would / could have disrupted thing, it just felt that the combination of events did us no favours at all….
By 2.00pm the weather grew more bleak, and the wind veered to the east, blowing the floats up against the wall, and forcing us almost to hang over the edge to observe them, bobbing up and down in the now ruffled waters as the wind slowly increased!!!! Then we had people fishing right over head, with 6oz bombs landing in close proximity ….. none of which instilled much confidence as far as the mullet fishing went….
By 3.45pm we’d had enough, and packed up, a good hour or more than we had intended …we'd held on to fish 2 hours either side of low water, as we believed this to be the optimum time for the mullet at this venue.... but after almost 10 hours of fishing and only a single hooked fish, and with nothing at all to report during low water, we couldn’t really say it had been a spectacular success!!!!!!