Plenty going on now that we have some settled weather,( & its nice to have something to report) while no big shoals there are mackerel about. Looks like the gar are starting to arrive with catches happening over the last couple of days on both walls. Likewise on both there are bass, no great sizes to report but plenty for the lure guys to plug away at 🙂 pun intended! .. Both walls also producing bream with recent reports also of rays on the east.

Plenty of micro species just down the sides of both walls to keep the juniors occupied and Im please to say the spiders have all but buggered off :). Plaice and wrasse to be had though people may want to check some of the size regs prior to keeping plaice atm. Gurnards are about out on the sandy areas, small hounds and dogfish are about when the water is coloured as are the eels, and for those night guys looking for horse mac… there have been decent amounts on the west. Finally on the fish front that has been reported are mullet…finally..

well from me today is, as the toon says, “t-t-t-thats all folks” yup i’m gonna type it …ADIEU
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well as the title says, long time no see! It really is a case of having had little to say as we endured a sequence of very blowy days then open for a couple of days in very coloured waters. And so the cycle seem to continue through June & July and now into August! FFS someone has nicked the British summer!.
Hows the fishing ? erratic to say the least, mostly coloured waters produced eels ,residential bass,a few flounders and a mixed bag of scratching for most fishing.

There have been mackerel once the water cleared and then would again come that flipping wind to stir it all up. Great I guess if you are hunting bass in the larger surf but i got the impression that even the bass guys were strugging with some going over to the dark side and hunting carp(some claimed the carp were really Pike ! yea? na, dont tell him P……

Also I have little to say as the reports have been very thin on the ground and little info has been filtering back from the walls.

Hopefully this will change and the weather starts to settle… I bet summer arrives just as the kids go back to school (poor buggers !
oh well , until next time I bid you a hearty ADIEU
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For most regular readers here I guess a few will be thinking ive buggered off or at least absent without leave :0, truth is there has been little to post.
We seem to be stuck in a weather pattern of strong southerly or SW winds then a few days of calm followed by another stint of strong wind.

I can honestly say that while it may keep the bass anglers happy it is of little use to regular wall users that simply want to chuck a bit of bait over the side, catch a few bream(speaking for myself) and chill out. Instead we have a cycle of close, brown weedy water, a clearing phase , 2 days of decent fishing followed by more weather alerts.

Im sure the sequence is due to settle and no doubt the science boys will talk about shifting gulf stream, global warming and the end of the world ! BUT, that doesnt help when one simply wants to get out there and go fishing.

On the news front I have now sourced some sticky back coloured film for headlamps and white lights. There will be a blue and a purple/violet transparent film available in the store on the west wall for sale, It can be a little fiddly separating the blank from the sticky bit but can be bought from the warden for a token amount to cover costs.
If you prefer to buy your own I have linked a couple of examples that are suitable on ebay to give you an idea what you should be looking for.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325197042156?var=514096592392
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325197048992?var=514096148421
Fairly much any colour will do the job but I suggest avoid the lighter blues as more than one layer would be needed to de-glare the white lights.

The sticky back film should be available once the west is back open for night fishing, Please be prepared to sort your lights, It is a requirement that the harbour office has asked us to comply with and as I understand it there are quite a few harbours now looking into de-glazed lighting to protect skippers and pilots entering ports in poor to no light conditions.

There are fish being caught on the marina (when open) but obviously when conditions are poor the real winner it seems are the summer species avoiding our baits and leaving the main catches other than bass as conger, pout whiting, rays and sole.
If you do plan a session on the east with the water coloured as is at the moment it would be worth “cooking” some black lug,, in & out of the freezer a few times until it gets very sticky and very strong smelling. Mixed in with some fresh bait it can work as a decent attractant for the likes of sole that will be out & about in the coloured water.
Until next time folks , good hunting and I will bid you ADIEU
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first up a weather alert yet as I type it all looks very calm out there.
That said xcweather indicates the expected blow coming in early and if correct the WEST is likely to be closed somewhen during the night (early Tues)morning orpossibly all night, will update later with a better idea It may also cause some issues on the EAST so please keep an eye on the home page.

Catch reports for Sunday did not disappoint with mackerel in & out most of the day on both walls. Varied catches on the EAST over the sand and similar results on the west with mackerel, bass and horsemackerel as the light was dropping. Unusual for a weekend many on the west had packed up by 6.30pm and were heading home most with bags full of mackerel and a fair few bream as well.

Thus on the fish front the weekend has been a busy one with many a happy face .
thats it for today, bit of a short one as I have yet another check up to do at the hospital… fun fun fun…till next time folks…ADIEU
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Well hello there, for those of you that recognise the title as a song you may thing this post is about to be bad news … or I may have a hangover ! well actually it is a very very

Good morning !
yes despite the cloudy start (imo good for fishing) the catch news is excellent. Over the last couple of days the may rot that had seemingly stuck to the marina’s concrete has finally been blown clear and the fishing on Friday showed signs of an instant pick up and change for the good.

Fridays day time was followed up by a night of fish. The evening mackerel continued on and off well into darkness that were then soon followed by some shoals of horse mackerel.
Now I know there have been a few out there waiting in this news as the horse mackerel I can firmly say are now hear at night as are the mackerel during the day.
WHITEBAIT on the shore lines have exploded everywhere with shoals of mackerel chasing them. Close behind the Mackies are BASS chasing and gorging themselves. Add to this the expected promise of BREAM has followed with some decent catches on both walls.
GAR FISH I heard someone ask yesterday , well yes and no sort of, the numbers are barely there to say anything other than one or two straps. I will copy in the tail end of BECKY LEE’s post on the marina FB group to give you an idea of what this weekend had turned into :-

{part of Becky’s post}
Baits were ragworm and blacks and some frozen peeler. Species caught Pout x 6Ballan wrasse x 2Bass x 1Corkwing wrasse x 1Tompot Blenny x 4Plaice x lost count best three 33, 33 and 34Dabs x 5 Black Bream x 2 Silver eel x 2Mackerel White bait Smooth hound pup x 112 species for the day so happy with that but no soles.Also witnessed a heron being chased by a couple of seagulls. Never seen so much whitebait. The water was black with it all day against the arm. Sea trout jumping. All in all a good day and met some new people.

The west wall at night over the weekends has become very busy so advice to night anglers is get there by 9pm or you may not find a spot to fish in comfort.
A reminder to all that use the marina that good practice is highly encouraged and if retaining fish anglers are expected to dispatch(kill) their fish quickly and then store them suitably. Wardens have been instructed to do this and it make the walls far more acceptable to casual visitors walking along watching the “fishing” if anglers look to be doing the right thing by killing fish quickly so no suffocation flapping on the concrete.

A second reminder about blue lighting on all powered lights, we have been sourcing transparent sticky back coloured film for lights and with advice from people that help run things over at Shoreham I was advised to try purple as well as various shades of blue which work well so I can add here for readers a list of some items that work on changing the lights to non white.
Blue carrier bags:- Work well in a double layer, cheep and simple, can also be used whole to tie around underwater lights.
Blue marker pens:- or bingo markers, also cheep and easy
Quality street wrappers:- yup easy to use once you have eaten the box full 🙂
sticky back TRANSPARENT colour paper/film I have tested light blue which was not suitable but any darker blue or even the purple shades work very well.

Back to the fishing report and as per Becky’s post I copied I can confirm that both walls have been very busy for fish and obviously quite busy for people wanting to fish, there has been space for all but occasionally the gate has been shut to control numbers once or twice at night. thus please plan your trips to arrive at suitable times, getting here an hour before high tide and wondering why its so busy will be explained as .. well everyone else thought the same, get there just b4 the tides just to find the place very busy :).

Finally a word about the EAST WALL at night.
Sadly some morons decided that they would fish the east wall at night, Yes it is CLOSED AT NIGHT, the gates are shut over with it being obvious they are closed.
I would like to thank the anglers that reported this incident to me last night, while it was past midnight I do encourage these calls.
the duty warden was alerted to the issue who then reported the matter to marina security and then the idiots over on the EAST were removed.
Hopefully the marina prosecute these people for trespass so the message is loud and clear

and with that I will say, happy fishing folks , its all happening out there so go get some. And with that my final words until next time…. ADIEU 🙂
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wow Friday already and tbh , I should have posted this last night but got delayed while visiting the wall !.

popped down to chat with Joe the night warden (some know him as tony , thats daves fault, hid dads name was tony so dave kept calling Joe by his dads name and it stuck ! ) Any hooo, as was saying I popped down onto the west about 6.30-7pm , ended up having a dabble alongside Joes son in the corner by the tower. A spur of the moment thing and there were loads of small mackerel flashing past in mini shoals.

Well in amongst the undersized were a few decent sized ones that were worth taking home so tea was sorted very quickly. In amongst the mackerel? yep the schoolie bas came out to play and Seb was into them very quickly, nearly all undersized, all he had went back as none there of size but decent fun jigging to pass the time as the sun dropped.

Half way down the wall @bay 17 was a first time visitor doing well on the low catching bream. None of size but he was pleasantly surprised to be getting them on the low mid wall as about 20 metre’s out. Had a nice chat with him and explained that I hung about when he landed a bream while I was there. very please to see it returned and I explained that I wasnt being funny watching him land then return the bream and explained as a warden we do actively encourage good practice with size returns and encouraging anglers to so so. His reply was that he was an old hand, always returned undersized fish and it was his first visit to the wall having read the website (yes another reader who may be reading this)
I am very pleased to say he came prepared and even had a blue marker for the lens of his headlamp, then jokingly suggested I dont update the website often enough that prompted a chat about best months to fish and what to expect.
To that gent I will say sorry, but, I’m crap at remembering names so please drop me an email, say hi, and let me know how things went for you last night.

One down side, an Asian gent with 2 young ladies had arrived on the wall with a drop basket and 4+ buckets who started netting for spider crab. Now many regulars on the wall may think yay he is removing them spiders but. The marina is within a protected fishing zone, while It may be right at the far end of “BEACHYHEAD WEST” Marine controlled zone rules do apply when collecting crabs.

For those unaware info is on the “size regs” page on local catch sizes. Spider crabs from nose to bum need to be 12cm with a max of 20 per person per day.
The gent in question was advised of the rules and instructed to return all of the 40+ crabs he had collected, not one met the legal size.
Illegal collection of undersized species will get us into trouble not only with the
fisheries IFCA’s but also with the marina for not dealing with illegal catches and risks any night fishing on the marina.
This also brings me to the point that the local IFCA’s will prosecute offenders and as well as hefty fines court costs get added to the fine bringing the penalties into the 1000’s, not worth it IMO

As a final note some readers here also use the marina uk facebook group, to reduce the sillyness on the group I have set the group to invisible. To members already they will not really notice any change. The real change is that the group without the link is invisible in searches and invisible to non members. Thus on an admin side things should be somewhat easier to deal with all the summer applicants wanting to join.
The 3 questions to join are deliberate, it thins out the lazy and makes sure people do a little research prior to joining.
Without answering correctly the application will be declined so please, if you invite someone to the group, make sure they know of the invite as they are time limited and also make sure they know to answer the questions. Quite simple , but very effective.
Anyhoo until next time …. ADIEU
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Its Monday and would you believe I have very little to say .. or type ? well tbh thats the situation. Fairly high westerly winds have closed the west or made conditions that side fairly much a waste of time trying to the casual angler.

Reports from the east over the weekend were next to nothing other than sort of scratching reports, that or the wall was so quiet it may have been easier simply to not open.

The nights the west has been open have just as much been quiet so here I am trying to type up useful info but lack it.

West expected now to be closed til WED late afternoon in a hope of getting it open for a night session. Once past WEST things should settle a bit more on the easterly breezes with possible showers over the weekend (can change) but no issues regarding being open.
I suspect my next write in will be at the weekend !
until then … yup.. ADIEU
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So a bit delayed as have been somewhat pre-occupied with normal life(yep there is such a thing)but the real topic of the last week has been bass. As a few of the more competent anglers predicted the last 10 days have produced some fantastic catches, not only on the WEST wall area’s but also the lower section of the east.
Top bait? live prawns, live anything and even them mackerel 🙂 add to all of this and you have bass hitting lures in quite a frenzy.

The night fishing has been good for bass thats for sure but what about other species ?
Bream I’m told are on the increase, slower than id like tbh but we do still have may rot issues but with the last few days and wind pickups and a look infront for a few days at least there is going to be some disruptions to the west wall and when its open… or not as the case may be with a few southerlies pushing through.

Now some would see a few nights or possibly days shut down on the west a bad thing but a blow of any form is sorely needed to put the nail into the coffin of that yellowish “MAY ROT” Things finally look right to break it up and disperse it once and for all this year and then, oh yes, and then we should see the fishing pick right up on the species front but…. I will sound a warning.
Expect the mackerel to fade away. If my estimations are right we are still getting the flurries of what I suspect are the last of the mackerel that come up yearly from the bay of Biscay, ya know, them big fat ones from last year that many refer to as “harvester” mackerel.

I’m not claiming to be any sort of expert but some years back a stock report concluded that mackerel were moving further and further north to breed under the polar ice as sea temp averages rose/rise. This resulted in a slight change to migration patterns with the huge summer shoals taking a day or 3 longer to reach the south coast… Add this up on a yearly happening and over 15 years say an average of 2 days per year change we would be looking at 30 days change in due dates for the summer shoals.

Has it happened ?
I would say yes, where many remember shoals in the summer month of July/August we are now seeing them August/September with them slowing in October and with any decent weather hold often there are plenty of mackerel and gar about not in shoals but there for the catching into November. Indeed I have seen years were they have been caught in singles to bait every month of the year.

What does this mean other than mother nature having a stretch and a change in natural patterns ? Well (again my opinion) while bream, wrasse, gurnards plaice and the likes increase I expect mackerel to tail off as the month comes too an end and we drift into July and bait angling becomes the common thing with many who have come for mackerel simply staring at the water in a forlorn hope of seeing them.
This is when other anglers can do their good Samaritan bit. eh wtf you say ? well….
Do you remember when you started too go sea fishing?
Did you start like many with a new (or even a 2nd hand rod) rod a set or 2 of feathers and weights ?
When mackerel were in how good did it feel taking your 1’st pile of fish home ?
Now spare a thought to those that started angling this year or late last year, when things die(as Im sure they will) in July that is when the average “feather flinger” as some call them will need anglers help.
This is one reason why I bang on about chatting to the ppl in the next bay to yourself. So many will now be in need of a friendly anglers guidance. You will be able to spot them from the blank stares and tired arms wondering where the fish are while others around them bait fish for Bream, Wrasse, Gurnards, Rays, plaice, yep you get the picture.

So often the rush to catch mackerel in the spring comes to a crashing halt sometime in July and its a great time for anglers to come into their own. To teach, to chat and to simply show someone another way to fish, It can also be rewarding when someone that was simply seen as a fluff chucker is taught how to fish for other stuff. Ive seen the joy on “newbie’s faces as they realise there is more to fishing than mackerel…. when the time comes .. go on, give it a go and sow someone another way than just feathering :).

Now at this moment you are probably thinking whoa, where is the fishing report. Well its not been a great week, the species are there and a decent mullet or two has been caught, along with that there have been cuttlefish, a few bream as I said but things are a little lean. The quid run seemed to pass us by this year also thus I thing the winds we have coming in rapidly (prob shut fri pm) should go a long way to busting up the rot and the walls finally getting the wide range of fish we are used to seeing on the marina. … but.. for now the night fishing is eclipsing the daytimes although them bass on bay 1 east are getting a lot of attention 🙂
Thats it from me for now so will sign out with the familiar ADIEU
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Afternoon all, been a few days since I put my rear before the pc and typed out a blog/report so best I get on with it in all it’s (ahem) glory !

Not a massive amount to say seems to be a familiar thing at the moment but sad to say that is the way of things while the water still suffers from its yellowish glow. Yes we still have May(or June) Rot clinging to the walls and effectively sucking the life out of the water and the fish and removing effectively the oxygen that fish need underwater. That and the glue like residue that clings to the fishes gills means that the fish will either avoid or try to swim under the muck. Gladly it is thinning and any southerly SW or even SEasterly is blowing some of it away . There is a clear line visible that is now cast-able to get beyond it.

On the catch front its the Bass clearly coming out in front for the anglers(not for the bass tho) with the best of the catches on live baits be it mackerel, prawn or what ever type of small fish that can be hooked and lowered to the fish.
Plaice reports this week are mumbled that there are some BUT>>>> ya get the idea I think.
A couple of gurnards on the east sand and a couple of days ago some gar made an appearance first on the east but also followed up on the west.
Sole, Bream and wrasse have been caught since the weekend and id say all three are improving.
mackerel catches the last few days have been somewhat intermittent and tbh mostly over the high tides in the mornings or evenings depending on the tide and lower light levels.

Night fishing has been fairly decent for the bass anglers with mackies and horse mac though no huge numbers but I guess a few for all is the term. bream are picking up at night on the west, known bays I would say for the regular visitors. Wrasse, sole, even a few smooth hounds have been caught and returned .

A reminder to all even though most that read hear will already know but serves as a nudge to all.
please
no trollies on the wall unless you own your own,
no BBQ’s or fires (small gas burners can b used)
HEAD torches must be BLUE by order of the marina harbour master, please get your lights sorted or you may be turned away.
finally it seems even a few of the regulars need to be reminded that we have a NO GLASS policy on both walls. Wardens are turning people away ignoring this and there are large red signs at the beginning of both walls.
I hate to sound like I am having a moan but the regulars should be the one’s leading by example.
To those already using blue lights…. many thanks it makes the wardens life less complicated.
Well that’s it for today, until next time ….. ADIEU
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As the title says , Ive had very little feed back during the week so hard to get a decent picture of the week.
Got onto the wall yesterday evening to be updated by duty warden of an incident mid afternoon just off the wall. A man floating on back in water unresponsive.
A boat angler managed to put his boat between angler and tide flow while awaiting RNLI response that he called. The man was too heavy to get out of water single handed so assisted RNLI crew to bring the man to safety. Recent update from RNLI indicate the man is in recovery after having had a heart attack .
The boat angler praised those fishing on the wall for swift action bringing in lines which is high praise as the boat owner has had issues with poor casting from anglers in the past.
Back on the fishy front there was really nothing to say other than a small run of mackerel on the Saturday morning as the tide reached full. Those and a couple of bream was fairly much it for the WEST wall all day. Come 10.30 pm things were still quiet fish wise but very busy on the wall and at one point @10pm the entry gate was closed due to the west being at capacity.
Through the night there were some decent bream (my guess around the midnight tide) sole and horse mackerel although not in numbers , there was another box of fish that was originally posted but the pic was unclear (to me) as to what was in it, potentially under sized fish but will check in with the poster just to confirm catch and species later today.

No info as yet on how today is going but i will be seeing duty wardens later today as Im on the wall for a few hrs this evening again.

Night catches do seem to be looking up and if the last dregs of may rot clear away from the marina things will pick up rapidly. No signs of mackerel shoals although there were a few caught last night. probably 50/50 mackerel/horse mackerel over the midnight tide.
Finally for today , night time anglers can now get some frozen baits from the duty warden on the west as we have a freezer in the lock up. So if you do require late bait, check in with the night dudes.
so , thats it for today, until tomorrow ….. ADIEU
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