Shoreham

Shoreham 7th May 2000

Drove down to Shoreham, and arrived around 4.15am, only to be greeted with rain!!!! ...
Got out of the car, and went to pay for a ticket, only to find the machine was out of order.....
I was starting to get the feeling, it was going to be one of those days!!!!!
By the time I’d walked back to the car, the rain had started to ease, and so I got the gear out, and put on my waders and made my way towards Soldiers point on the west side of the Harbour.....

The tide was going out, but my progress was halted half way along the foreshore, by the huge drop on the otherside of one of the groins, before the wooden boating ramp.....
I’ll have to remember to gain access to the point next time, by walking around from the sailing club.....
Anyway decided that as I was opposite the end of the low wall extension running from the old jetty, I’d give it a whorl, until Paul Davies arrived......

Had a go with a J13 and a J9 for about 20 minutes.... no takes, but there were a few splashes in the water, along with small bait fish, I could see here and there ...
4.50am..... Saw Paul arrive, and went to have a last cast before going to meet him .. sods law.... I get a tangle in the braid.... spent 5 minutes unpicking the loop, and releasing the loop from down in the spool ..... unfortunately I made the problem worse, by pulling the loose braid into the water.... which caused it to ball and tangle even further..... after another 10 minutes , and getting nowhere, I gave up and cut the line, restrung the rod, and went to find Paul......

Walked over to the Harbour Arm, and in the half light, could make out a chap fishing on the elbow... but no sign of Paul .... decided to go an fish down by the outside edge of the wall ...... after about 10 - 15 casts, and still no sign of Paul, I started to feel guilty... so I walked back to see if he’d returned to his car.... but he hadn’t... so I went back to the Harbour Wall .. and right at the end.. in very dark clothing, I could make out a person .... walked along the Wall, past the other chap fishing, and met Paul .... the time now 5.30am...

Started out by trying a couple of lures out from the low inner wall, but the weed, and prospect of falling in, dissuaded me from continuing for long.... decided to look over the high wall ..... loads and loads of small bait fish in the water, with some leaping clear every so often.... we even saw a couple of small bass chasing after them on occasions .... the problem was that due to our height on the Wall, working the lures was almost impossible.... although Paul did have a take, but failed to connect :-(

Just after 6am, I decided to go back to the base of the Wall and fish from the beach again ....

Every time my J13 hit the water, a small number of baitfish would be disturbed, and sometimes on the retrieve would be spooked enough to jump out of the way of the lure....
6.40am .. had a snatch at the Rapals, but like Paul failed to connect .. all very frustrating...
Towards 7am, and my arms were starting to ache, so I sat down and had a cup of coffee and a ciggy, and just watched the mirrored surface of the water ripple here and there as shoals of bait fish disturbed it....
Paul came down and joined me, and started to fish from the base, on the low wall....

Neither of us had any joy, and by 9am, we’d had enough and decided to call it a day....

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