*warning* its a biggun

Now I wonder how many out there remember what Morny Stannit is about or was ? If you never watch the old brit comedy of “The Two Ronnie’s” I guess you will never get it but for some reason the little news paper sketch popped into my head for no apparent reason other than perhaps things are not always what they seem and simply are what you are seeing. What has that got to do with the marina fishing though ?
Well,(and at this moment some reading will jump ahead and think here comes a clever or bliddy weird comparison) to be honest, absolutely nothing. I just though you would like to see that my head and thinking space runs wild on its own with the slighted encouragement. Figuring out my brain directions is a bit like using a fork to eat soup ! hey ho.

And so, regular readers will know I do actually try to put up some report the morning after the night before of my visits to the wall(occasionally both if open) Yes I did go down Sunday but it was very very quiet as most anglers(tempted to say punters) had left as the tide dropped from the high in the late morning. So, lets do a round up of Sunday first brutal though it may be.

Sunday, the first person I saw and chatted to Sunday was Mark with his warden head on. He told me a similar story to Saturday. Opened up no one waiting to go on the wall at 6.30am and yet by 11 am the wall was very busy and by 4pm many were packing up and heading for home muttering about no fish.
As my long ramble suggested yesterday I dont really have any answers why things are so slow atm but it is not just the Marina it seems to be Sussex wide
. As one friend in the FB “L.I.S.A.” group(see LISA on this website) “fishing is broken” and perhaps he is right or is July one of those months where we often get days of bright sunshine and clear waters resulting in fish moving into deeper water, Im guessing even fish avoid bright glaring sun. While trying tto think on possible causes I wondered if this July thing was normal so I looked back over some of my old records and reports. With those and facebooks’s timeline reminder I went back 10,12,14 years to see some of my past posts and lo and behold various repors of “dead” days and comments of no mackerel and few fish reports do appear quite a lot for July in particular ranging from 12 years ago 9,8, 6 and 3 years back were reports were sketchy or often lean days on the walls during the day and the night fishing quite a bit better.

I wonder if others who keep records look back to see if they had weeks that relate to poor fishing periods along the shore. I am aware that the boat fishing is not suffering anything similar so perhaps there is a “sun factor” going on for shallower water. Of course bright sun happens in August also so it wont be the sole reason for seemingly “less fish around” Ive said to a few people that I suspect the wind farm is drawing larger fish towards it as there is again a glut of fry out there and the reports of decent fishing over there are high. The damage from pair trawling and the loss of much inshore sea vegetation will take time too recover and with that so will the fish stock that use the ribbon type seaweed as home, species like Bream are showing signs of recovery, the east wall is seeing more and more bream caught along the straighter part of the wall, ground that is mostly sand of which suggests the bream are feeding against the base of the wall as the various currents turn any debris over attracting the small fry and micro food stuffs. Likewise where bream are there are usually wrasse that at one point were almost totally missing from the walls and yet I recal summer days catching 3o or more wrasse while targeting bream not so many years back.
I do think there are multiple reasons for the apparent drop in catches and no one cause to point at or blame but while things are poor right now there are also other signs of recovery. There is a definite(based on last 5 yrs) increase of Bream being caught on the front section of the east over sand and the sub 17 bays have remained steady and reasonably consistent. Wrasse numbers are very slowly on the up and the quality of the Ballans caught are quite decent though not common. Smooth hound pups seem at times to be everywhere suggesting adults are breeding in local waters. Ive no answers for the drop in Rays caught especially down are the numbers of Undulates caught on shore wall and boat. The marina I feel is blessed in having a very healthy breading population of Bass and Mullet despite some boats working out of the marina illegally taking more than limits set and permitted(no doubt the law will catch up with these people) Ive seen a drop lately in the number of Jellyfish circling the marina at times in very large numbers and the large barrel type were regular visitors to the west wall. I was even pointed at 2 small jellies on Sunday by one lad fishing(more on that in a bit). Gar fish are a bit infrequent at the moment but they often arrive with the summer mackerel shoals. Should they be here now ? tbh I think no and expect the shoal arrivals the week following Sun 10th or Sun 24th of August with the bigger of the AUG tides.

I have left plaice until now as I have no answer for the very low numbers of quality plaice this year, in the past numbers have been decent and not monitoring the population yearly I dont know if they ebb & flow in a cycle over a number of years but they do seem very evident in their absence this year although a few have been caught this weekend that I only found out about last night. Up also this year are flounder and dab catches. The last couple of years on the walls have been somewhat poor perhaps putting people off visiting especially when many these days follow fish reports easy to find on soc media. (Great for promotion when things are good, evil masters when things are lacking). The signs of recovery are underway but it is slow progress as nature recovers.

Now, having self diverted from Sat into Sundays report as said, Sun was a slow starter the wall filled quickly for the high tide sesh and again quickly emptied. When I arrived there were a few familiar faces and its always good to catch up and now I am ticketing far less I have plenty of time for a chinwag as I roll the wheels up the wall. Like most of the last week there was a lot of head shaking with regards to catches and I dont think there were more than 2-3 mackerel caught all week. On getting to bay 22 or thereabouts I stopped and had a chat with a youngster who was with his dad. This lad I must say made quite an impression on me for a few reason especially as his dad informed me pop’s hadnt a clue about fishing and was there simply to watch his son enjoy himself.

In the days of kids that have learnt to swear by the age of four and often come with an attitude and rudeness it was quite refreshing to meet the dad and his son. He was very well spoken super confident in himself and not shy at asking questions and holding a conversation at the same time. He had set up with (his words) 2 rods, one was for anything ….. or BREAM, the other was set up for BASS. I chatted with both about catching bream and how I usually go about things. He seemed to like what I was saying and brought in his light rod to ask me what I thought. He had a 1up ,1 down set up over the sand with some largish cuts of squid as he lacked worm baits.
A quick explain about long thing for flatties on the bottom compared to the upper set for bream and he was away. I then got shown his Bass set up having spoken to someone in the shop about bass rigs & setting up with a sliding ledger type of things. This lad was keen too go and had tons of questions and listened too my answers and often asked further on the hows & why of much of what we chatted about, his bass set up looked fine too me and yes I realise there are so many ways to set any rig in any location but often the simplest of rigs are the best but us anglers are terrible tackle tarts & add all sorts of bling often needlessly.
Yes the lad made an impression, he knew what he wanted but also was v keen to learn more. He bought most of his gear himself (pocket money for end tackle and now doubt the daaaaaa’aaaddddd method for larger gear 🙂 as said, he was confident and polite, well spoken keen too learn all he could. He also gave me a chuckle when one of the lads from the palace pier club was passing on his way of the wall & the lad stopped him and asked how he got on, listened closely to hear the guy hadnt done very well that day, it was then you could see the youngsters mind whirl and politely asked if this guy had any spare bait left over. Well the palace pier dude rummages and did indeed have some spare and promptly surrendered the bait. Now considering he was on his way off the wall he then got some rapid questions from the youngster and decided to stay longer, set up next to the lad and his dad and continued fishing for a couple of hours longer with them. The boy could hold a convo with almost anyone such was his manner and confidence.
It is refreshing to know that the future of angling is in the hands of his generation and was a joy to talk with and very much a credit to his dad/parents.
Thus I get to the days fishing, as said there was a lot of head shaking going on but the standard of the day was a few bream, some were decent, a couple of bass, one high one mid wall, a conger late afternoon and some of the smaller stuff like gobies and scorps. Reports were very hard to find and I dont think anyone even saw a mackerel.

Yesterday (Monday) needless to say the visitor numbers were less than the weekend but again the bulk of the numbers arrived a bit before lunchtime and a lot were gone by 5pm with only a handful left by 8.30pm. Most I met when I did my run said how quiet it was, some saying not even a decent bit especially those packing. One guy DID have 2 mackerel, caught on the bend not long before I arrived with JNR . Overall the duty warden Ali had seen perhaps 5 Bream kept and a couple of plaice. When we got onto the wall it was also clear that the westerly wind pushing the dropping tide didnt help things and as a result mid afternoon quite a lot of ppl moved onto the bays under 10.
After doing my usual run I settled on bay 24/5 with jnr and a returning visitor who was keen to have another go on the wall after visiting Sunday afternoon. When we left all three of us were chatting general stuff and “where d’ya live came up and our guest said elm grove area ( I believe he reads here so he by now realises I cant remember names for shit … sorry 🙂 ) and return phrase was “oh handy for the bus” for him to say how he doesnt use busses due to social anxiety.
Now, I hope he doesnt mind me saying this (if you are reading I can always edit out this section) but he is a perfect example of the good fishing can do, it was argued throughout COVID restriction how angling should be allowed if something could be arranged but the lockdown merchants were not prepared or incapable of listening and resolving a solution that was sat there staring ppl in the face.

Angling can be a massive calmer, a huge stress reliever and is good for the soul as our new visitor found out. I suspect he had in the past avoided the marina due to perceived numbers and potential crowding on the wall as he often found with busses. There is a community on the wall that is in general welcoming often with almost immediate welcoming to our shared pass time. On facebook I am often banging on about race, creed, nationality, colour shouldn’t matter as all on the wall are anglers be it for the “dreaded” mackerel or the snobbish bass & non mackerel hunters(just a joke folks :)) It doesnt really matter who is in the next bay, it is after all another angler, say hi, it goes a long way. its easy to feel isolated in a group fishing. Break the ice if ya can, even if the bugger is casting over you, they may not even realise its bothering you. A simple hello can go a long way and it may just help someone too feel included and part of something.

Anyhoo, jnr & I set up on 24 or 25 and were joined by the new guy but the wind was problematic as we were in general using fairly light gear. After a while and no real bites other than perhaps a bit of crab activity we decided to move down the wall and get that wind behind us, and so we shifted down to bay 14/15.
We were getting some bites as the tide dropped but like everyone else that day it was tough going and we were not fully out of the westerly. There was clear crab activity although we didn’t hook one up to find what type but no lines were cut though quite a few baits were taken from bottom hooks. All three of us were using frozen black & squid in various combos but bites were rare.
The only fish of the afternoon for us was a surprise bite and rapid take of the hook on the upper of my 2 hook flapper. Initially as it played around it looked like it may be a schoolie but on getting it closer it was clearly a mullet of some form. Jnr managed to cadge a drop net (yea forgot ours) and the mullet landed turned out to be a Goldie of perhaps 2 to 2.5lb and yes it was the only fish we had. We packed about 8pm and I think there may have been about 4 left on the higher bays.

All in all the weekend was poor going with a low tide slapped in the middle of the afternoon for the bulk of the week prompting people to give it up, pack it up & head for home. It seems that loads of people dont seem to like fishing dropping tides .. ho hum, It was a plesant afternoon fishing & chatting even if was a bit windy and heavily overcast at times.
Today (Tues)as I type the trees are still here up manor hill, weatherman says light westerlies and seems correct with it clouding over later today although its expected to be dry. Weather wise, wed and Sat look the best for lack of wind and dry. Fri looks ok with northerly breeze and possibly a shower or 2 in the afternoon.

Thus we come to the end of todays essay, I will do a run on the wall this afternoon and until the next one I will say tata and bid you all ADIEU
F