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Fort D'Auvergne 14th Aug 2002
Map Ref: 656,477
Tide: HW 11.22am (10.2m)
Weather Forecast: Fog, then Bright with sunny periods. SE to S wind F2/3
After the excitement of the previous day, we decided to return to the rock, and try and catch some more mullet…..
Collected a couple of fresh loaves from the bakers, and then picked-up Chris, and drove down to Green St, for 8am….
Whilst the tide still had some way to go, we felt it prudent to stake our claim, for fear that we’d loose the spot either to other anglers, or to holiday makers and kids…..
Arriving earlier however, did afford us the opportunity to get set-up with out thinking that we were missing out on the fishing, and to talk about other venues to visit in the time that remained …. One of which was very close at hand… Chris expressed a wish to fish off the La Collette boulders, nr. the old outfall, especially if there was a westerly wind, which would mean that the area in front of the boulders should be sheltered, and would offer fishing though out the tide, if we were prepared to move either up or down as required……
As the tide advanced, it was obvious that the water clarity was greatly improved … allowing us to see the bottom, and fish swimming in….. the other difference, was that the Easterly wind was driving weed away from us, and towards the slipway….
We managed to actually start fishing around 9.15am….. and every time we threw in ground bait, we could see a variety of fish come for the splash, and subsequent bread cloud ….. looked like lots of smelt, and small mullet, with the odd larger mullet thrown in for good measure……
Both Chris and myself experienced many bites, but found it extremely frustrating at not being able to connect with the fish….. probably just smelt more often than not, but it was difficult to tell, with the rising water, as the bottom visibility disappeared, and consequently only the shapes of the fish on occasions could be seen, and not specific ones taking the bait….
Having said this, Chris had a couple of takes, sufficient, to know that a reasonable fish had hit home, but failed to stay connected, for more than a few seconds……
11.05am …… my float goes under, for the 100th odd time….. bang….. much to my surprise, and joy, I actually managed to hit home….. not a large fish, but still had some zest, with a number of diving runs, head shakes, and solid thumps, before it popped up on the surface, and Chris was able to do the honours with the landing net……
A small 14” thick-lipped grey mullet….. took a picture and then popped it back…..
The wind started to stiffen and the cross-wind and chop that it created, made life interesting!!!!!!
11.30am …. A number of Children turned up, who wanted to swim .. not really a problem, as the beach is large….
But these were the “TOP BOMBER BRIGADE”, and wanted to jump off the rock, straight into where we were fishing …. Such are the hazards of fishing marks that offer easy “family” access ….. they were nice enough to ask ….. I said that we’d rather they didn’t ….. so they jumped off behind us and then swam round to where we were, in order to climb back up …… dripping wet, and all over our gear …… managed to come to an arrangement that they could do one BOMB each, and then leave us in peace ….. both of which they did……
Surprisingly enough there were still mullet about after their antics, but becoming few, and fewer …… the time of day, with the over head sun, seemed to be more detrimental than swimmers / top bombers etc etc……. But we pressed on……
12.40pm…… hooked into a small sandsmelt of 7” or so without really realising that I’d done so…. Unfortunately, just as I was unhooking it, it flipped out of my hand, and fell, bouncing off the rocks, and into the sea below …… a decent that it failed to recover from :-(
By 12.50pm or so, and with the water starting to rapidly drop, the bottom became visible to us one more (with the aid of polarised glasses)…… and with it, the fish started to return, aided by throwing out the ground bait….. again the fish were dominated by small mullet and smelt, but the odd larger mullet also moved in to investigate….. but they seemed to be in a suck-it and spit it out, sort of mood, rather than giving positive bites …… very frustrating, but all part of mullet fishing…..
By 1.40pm there was little water left, and I wanted to nip into JFS.Sport and see Eddie before my parking tickets ran out… so we called it a day, packed up, and headed off to Green Street…….