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Belcroute / Le But 7th Aug 2000
GR: 610,476
Drove down to Belcroute and arrived around 5.10am ..... I'd arranged to meet Mick from JFS Sport for around 7am, but wanted some time before hand to look around, both in terms of gullies, reefs, and weed banks, but also for escape routes and points of safety, should the incoming tide cut us off later in the morning....
Low water was due around 7am, with the weather being almost perfect with a very light wind from the NW, and a mixture of sunshine and broken cloud.
Walked from Belcroute to the rocky promontory to the south .... Le But, looked around and then decided to start fishing just before 6am..... there was already a degree of surface activity with small bait fish rising to the surface, clearly visible due to the calm conditions....
6.00am ....... saw a large splash, which I assume was a bass hitting the surface .... only problem was that it was a) beyond my casting range, and b) behind a bank of weed in front of me ..... but still encouraging none the less...
6.55am .... another bass splash, again on the otherside of the weed bank and beyond casting distance for my J9 ... would have preferred to be using the J13, but the depth of water coupled with the abundance of weed, made this impossible....
7.05am ..... starting to wonder what had happened to Mick, when suddenly around the J9 a swirl from an attacking fish developed..... I continued the retrieve, but the hit never happened :-( .... shortly after my mobile rang, and it was Mick saying he'd overslept, and would be down in about 20 minutes.....
Decided that with all the surface activity to try a popper .... Big-Bug (large version of a Chug-Bug), so I could get some extra distance ..... everything was going well until around 7.20am, when the bail-arm snapped across the line in mid-cast ..... some how managed to cut the braid, and the lure went sailing off into the distance and landed straight in the middle of the weed bank, making it impossible to get back..... :-(
7.30am.... Mick arrived, and we moved around trying the various small bays and gullies.....
8.40am ....... thump...... at last a fish had taken the J9 ..... only a small fish .. brought it in ..... a bass of 13" .... not the 6 to 8lb'er, I'd been dreaming of, but still my first bass in the last two weeks ... maybe I'd finally broken the jinx of the Jersey Bass!!!!!
9.00am .... tide was rising, and we were in danger of being cut off, or at least having a difficult exit .. so we decided to call it a day .... still had a bit of a scramble over the weed/slime covered rocks, but made it back in one piece......