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Fort D'Auvergne 22nd Aug 2002
Map Ref: 656,477
Tide: HW 7.09am (9.8m)
Weather Forecast: Bright and dry with light northerly winds
Collected Chris just before 5am, and drove down into St. Helier and down towards the Green Street carpark … we had intended to maybe fish Elizabeth Castle later in the day, but Chris had other commitments, and so we’d decided upon the mullet, especially considering that Paul had caught a few the previous evening….
By the time we’d got there, set up the gear in the half light of dawn, and settled down to fish, with Chris at the front and myself on the higher back rock seat, the time was close to 5.40am, with the water just starting to lap at the base of the rock……
5.50am…… in the half gloom, I decided to cast out at right angles to the rock parallel to the shore about 50ft out into the gully from the sweeping rock platform below ……. Almost as soon as the float hit the water and cocked, it shot under the waters surface, I half took a double take, not entirely trusting my eyes in the gloom, but still striking all the same ……. Crunch …. The line went taught and the rod just bent … my first thought was that I was snagged, my next was WOW… as the reel gave line in response to the fish powering off … not very strongly to start with, but gained momentum and ground there after ….. the fish moved off towards the slipway on the otherside of the bay …… started to apply more tension and drag to the line, so as to slow it down and make it work for every yard of line…… this was a super fish, and the way it was fighting and making me work, I can honestly say that I considered it to be in a different class than the 4lb’er I’d taken earlier in August at this spot, a feeling expressed by Chris before I’d acknowledged the fact……
Slowly the fish started to give ground, but not before a number of heart racing moments, when it surged into the shallow reef below us on a number of occasions, with all the dangers that implies ……. It started to come to the surface, the white float becoming visible for the first time since its submergence some ten minutes previously……. But before we could see the fish, off it dashed to the forward reef to our right, and then across to the left of us …. Just at this moment, disaster struck …….. the line went slack …….
My heart sank, and Chris questioned what had happened….. I said something to the effect that the fish had thrown the hook, but the truth was harder to take …… on reeling in, and inspecting the rig, it became apparent that the hook had parted from the line …… the curly pig-tail of line was somewhat shorter than if the knot had simply slipped due to being poorly tied .. the truth was probably more likely that the knot had been damaged previously and I’d not noticed ….. a stupid lazy mistake, well within my ability to avoid, had I used a new hook trace, rather than simply using an old one I’d had success with previously…… I vowed there and then, that it would be mistake that I would not make again…..
To say that I was gutted, does no justice to the constant sinking feeling I experienced, and would continue to feel every time I thought of the incident….. it took me a good half an hour before I could pick up the rod again…. During this time Chris continued to fish, but it seemed very quiet…..
6.40am…. no sooner did I start fishing than the float went down ….. a secret voice inside me was praying that it was the fish I’d lost, but knew in my heart of hearts that it couldn’t be, and so it proved to be, indeed just to add insult to injury, up popped a 7” sand smelt, that proceeded to leap out of my hands whilst I tried to unhook it, flapped around on the rocks at our feet, before flipping off and into the water below…..
7.10am ….. in the waters between the small reef and ourselves, a couple of large mullet came cruising by ….. including White Flash ….. the large mullet we’d seen the previous year, with its distinctive white splash below its dorsal fin ….. our pulses started to race, but to no avail ….. we both had a number of bites, but missed them all, and we suspected that the culprits were the sand smelts hitting the bait before the mullet could get near…..
8.15am …… bang, a fish took the bait, this was no sand smelt, but neither was it any where near the same class as the fish I’d lost earlier in the morning…… this mullet was soon beaten and with help from Chris it was netted, measured at 16” and weighed in at only 1lb 11oz …… took a couple of pix and returned it via the steps on the front of the promenade..
chap came over who’d been staying in the hotel behind, and asked what sort of fish it was etc, and told me he’d watched Chris and myself here before, and then about Paul’s fishing the previous evening, to which I replied that I knew, having already spoken to Paul himself…. ;-)
When I returned, Chris and I swapped positions, so that Chris could try from the higher seating position ….. we both continued to miss bites, and it was Chris’s turn to be frustrated by having White flash in his swim, but plagued by smelt…. :-(
Towards 9am the water was very quickly started to ebb away, and I was forced to cast straight out as far as the light gear would allow, at a depth of no more than a couple of feet ……. Thump, the float went under, and the line went taught even before I instinctively struck, as the fish moved rapidly off, I shouted to Chris, and we both saw the fish hit the surface, shake its head, and the hook flew out ….. which pretty well summed up the day…..
By 9.25, the water was too low to fish, and so we packed up with heavy hearts, and walked back to the car with that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as I relived the loss of THAT fish, over, and over again…..