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Fort D'Auvergne 23rd Aug 2002
Map Ref: 656,477
Tide: HW 7.47am (10.1m)
Weather Forecast: NE Wind F2/3, warm and sunny.
Decided after the previous day, that there were obviously some reasonable sized mullet around and so decided to give the Fort another bash….. but I knew it was going to be hard having lost what felt like my best fish to date.. sort of felt like returning to the scene of the crime!!!!
Collected Chris just after 5am, drove down and set up… although we had to wait until 5.45am and the incoming tide before we could start fishing …… I decided to give Chris the high seating position, from which I seemed to have had better luck, and would also afford him a better look at the mullet as they swim in, which one tends to lose on the lower fishing platforms….
5.55am… in the shallow (but rising) water, we saw a couple of mullet swim by us, up the channel and off towards the slipway ….. but otherwise quiet…. But nice to know they were about…
6.10am ….. Chris had a bite but missed it, and to make matters worse we started to be pestered by a number of young gulls ……. I had the suspicion (that was later confirmed) that when Paul had been fishing the spot, he’d not fully soaked the bread, and that he’d generated a lot of floating crust material, which the gulls were now expecting (but not getting from my overnight soaked bread), and so were homing in on our white floats thinking they were bread crust!!!!!!!
6.25am…. my float dived down, I struck, but the float popped out of its holder, and was floating free on the surface….. AND I missed the bite…!!!!! The float drifted in towards us a couple of times, but never enough to be able to get the net to it…. :-(
This seemed to mark the beginning of a series of missed bites for both Chris and myself …. On occasions we could see the mullet at reasonably close quarters but it seemed like the bait was being mobbed by smelt before they could reach it…. We tried different ranges, and directions, but were frustrated each time…..
6.50am ….. managed to hook one of the culprits …. A small 6” sand smelt, that I managed to drop, trying to put it back … why do they always try to jump out of ones hand at the least appropriate moment???!!!!
7.15am … Chris gave out a shout as he struck home…. But no sooner was he playing the fish, than his line parted company as it surged off …… one very gutted Chris…. After the previous days events, I could only say I understood his disappointment and dejection!!!!
7.30am …. Managed another sand smelt, and then had to contend with diving gulls after the next load of ground bait that I slung out……
7.45am … guess what … yup another sand smelt to me….. but not the monster mullet that I came here for!!!!
8.00am ….. this was becoming ridiculous ….. another sand smelt… but it seemed to amuse Chris with the out burst of derision that it prompted me to come out with!!!!!!
8.25am … another smelt, but at least this one had the decency to unhook itself before I got a hand to it…. And plopped back into the water and swam off……
The wind seemed to change , and come around from the East, but probably in the F2 to 3 range, but the direction coupled with the retreating tide, caused a nasty chop in the water to occur, that made detecting bites for both Chris and myself very difficult……
9.40am ….. Chris being higher up than me, was forced to call it a day and started packing up, and within five minutes I was of the same opinion….. and so off we trudged, back to the Car, this time with Chris wondering what might have been.. if only he’d done this or that…….
Dropped in to JFS.Sport on the way, and said hello to Eddie and grabbed some replacement floats for ourselves, plus a few odds and sods…..
Drove Chris home, so he could get on with the domestic chores that needed his attention, and decided to have a look in on the Albert Pier on my way back to St Brelade’s …. But that’s another story……….