A ray of hope…..

Have been off work this week primarily for a camping trip to Wales later today with my son but yesterday morning did present me with a fishing opportunity. The weather looked favourable according to the forecasts so I loaded the car up Monday night ready for an early start on Tuesday at the local haunt at Lee-on-Solent.

The yak was rigged and ready to go by about 5:15am but when I got to the launch point there was a fair old lump to the sea and a bit of a blow coming from the west – certainly not as flat as previous outings but it was do-able.

Got out to my favoured spot and set up with a good sized crab bait on one rod and a lash of mackerel on the other trying to avoid the pin bream that can strip the baits if you’re not careful here. This is a picture of the sea state which probably doesn’t do justice to how bumpy the conditions were.

 

In addition to my rods I was hand lining for mackerel and almost instantly I was into a couple of them which were despatched to the cool bag.

It didn’t take long either for the first knock on the crab either and I connected…… you can tell pretty much straight away if it’s a smoothie and that’s exactly what surfaced. This one being of the starry flavour and as with all smuts he wasn’t too pleased to be aboard the yak! They really do go berserk when they’re out of the water but eventually he calmed down to have his picture taken before being returned…

A good start I thought but then, save for intermittent mackies on the hand line, things went decidedly quiet with no more sniffs on the crab bait and not a squeak out of the mackerel strips I was putting down. Still, the wind had swung round to a north westerly and the sea flattened off a bit which was nice – nothing worse than trying to have a coffee in a lumpy sea! Here’s a picture of the sun on it’s way up……

After a good hour or so I finally managed another bite on the crab again and was really pleased to see this bass come up – not a keeper but a bass is a bass all the same… they are such beautiful fish.

By now it was 9:30am, the first of the Cowes week yachts were beginning to gather and The Solent was beginning to get busy so I was contemplating calling it a day when I had my one and only bite on the mackerel bait. It was a strange bite and when I struck into it all I could feel was a dead weight but when it got to near the surface I saw why… it was a thornback ray – not big but my first from the yak so pleasing. A couple of pictures and he was put back to fight another day.

Stuck at it for another hour or so but it had gone quiet again which probably wasn’t helped by the hive of activity on the water with yacht after yacht skimming through. It’s an impressive sight even if puts an end to the fishing!

I paddled in and gutted a few of the mackerel ready for the smoker and the rest that were left I kept for bait – probably had a dozen or so in total, not bad for fishing anchored up using a hand line just underneath the yak…

So, another nice little session but I really must try a different venue next time!

As I say, leaving the wife and dog at home and off to Wales later today with my son camping for a few days, and hopefully, there will be a bit of fishing to be had from a couple of rock marks I’ve been told about… we’ll see.

Until next time……