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St Catherine’s Breakwater 11th Aug 2001
Map Ref: 718,529
Tide: HW 23.31 (8.8m)
Weather Forecast: S F4 dropping to calm/variable F2 Dry
Drove over to the Breakwater with the tackle, and waited for Karen, Chris, and his youngest daughter Kayle, to come over from Gorey, where they’d gone in Karens car to dig sufficient lug for the evening ahead, not only for Chris, Karen, and myself, but also for Karens brother Mick and his wife Fran. By the time they arrived at the Breakwater it was gone 6pm … walked about halfway up, and collected some extra squid and frozen sandeel from the MorningWatch tackleshop, to supplement the lugworm, and ragworm that I’d grabbed that afternoon from the Moterworks …..
Started setting up, and saw a couple of small black bream pulled up further along the breakwater…… Decided on a general rig for both Karen and myself ….. two hook Wessex (1/0’s) loaded with lug and squid. Not very soon after doing so Mick and Fran arrived, and set up two more rods in a very similar theme….
7.30pm …. Karen lands the first fish of the evening ….. a 12” Pollack … took a quick pic, and returned it via the bucket and rope….
From this promising start .. everything went very quiet …… but the wind dropped and we were treated to a spectacular Jersey sunset……..
Gave use time to show / remind Mick and Fran how to use the rods / reels, and bait up for themselves … both of them seemed to love it … plus being given the finer points of instruction by Kayle….
8.50pm ….. Chris gets excited by the resistance his tackle is putting up on the retrieve …. Turns out to be a small spider crab……!!!!
9.15pm ….. my turn to pull up a spider crab ….uuuuummm….
Karen fires up the portable barbeque trays we’ve brought with us .. and cooks hotdogs, potato wedges, and a few other goodies …. Don’t you just love summer fishing… LOL
9.20pm … Karen managed a 5” pout …. Still two more fish than anyone else had managed!!
9.50pm … Chris and myself had a play on the backwall with the spare rods .. got the shock of my life, when a bat momentarily collided with my line and pulled my rod violently …. So much for sonar avoidance!!!!
Karen came back from the far end to report that those fishing there had only been picking up Pollack on float fished ragworm….
10.15pm …. Had a series of knocks on the inside rod … very useful things rod tip lights….. pulled up a 10”pout…
10.20pm .. five minutes later Karen also pulls up a 10” pouting…..
10.50pm ….. Karen starts entering the danger zone of being thrown in … pulls up a double shot composed of 10.5”pout and a smaller 8” one…
10.55pm… Chris gets off the mark with a 7” pouting…….
11.05pm …. Fran lands a 9” pouting .. her first fish .. and is dead chuffed ….
11.20pm ….. Both Mick and Chris pull in 8” pout each…..
11.42pm…. Karen has a 9” pout….. followed almost instantly the next cast by a 4” pout that you would have thought should have been 10 times larger from the bite that it gave!!!!!!
Lads on the back wall managed to pull up a couple of dogfish, but otherwise it all went very quiet …… by 1am we’d had enough, and whilst not being the most productive of evenings, everyone managed to catch something, and have a barbeque thrown in for good measure….