Well this should have been posted Sunday but in its own way i’m glad the post is late or I wouldnt have been adding this picture of the superb catch by Wilson Mac 16.4lb of Smoothound that was safely returned from the west wall Tuesday night.
This most recent post should have been all about last weekends explosion of catches on both walls at night. Sadly the catches during the day I cant say have been great. Things in general on the Bream front are behind & add to this the spider crab invasion has greated an odd situation. Low tides catching during the day is picking up but as the tide comes in so it seems so do the spider crabs. Some people have even seen them stacking up on each other against the wall driving fry & just about anything else away from them and then stuffing themselves on anglers baits. If you can find a way around or to beat the crabs you have a half decent chance of bagging some fish.
Bream are on the increase and there are some lovely sole to be had. Hounds and rays are now hunting down the mackerel shoals resulting in some awesome catches and a boost for the galleries at the moment. The bass anglers are having a ball as the mackerel start to play on the walls. Find the mackies & you may just hit something a bit special.
So a little more exciting on the walls I recon.
Weather wise it looks good for the next week so , what are ya all waiting for ? gome have a go …. or as an old tv prog used to say …. get some in !…..
F

Morning world, lovely and sunny already today at 6am !. but less of that n more of an update, Fri Ive had very little info other that the night fishing is reasonably decent and every night this week including last night has produced some decent bass, best bait .. mackerel which still remain fairly elusive, yesterday i spect the whole day from 8am fishing the west and all i can say was… it was very hard going. I managed 3 bream on the low which is tbh not that common IMO, and a few other did the same. As the tide came up so the fish vanished to be replaced by crabs that seemed to get larger and larger to the degree that 2 lads managed to get a whopper up to the edge of the caisson before the line gave out and it dropped back in. I kid u not, it was the largest this year and the body was larger than a dinner plate. We have had one weighed and pictured at 5lb and this was bigger possibly pushing over 6lb. In the end i matched crab and bream numbers of 4 others on the extension had maybe another dozen, with 2 lads finding 5 mackerel. I pulled my lines in about 5.30, I cleared the ext , did a bit of chatting and reports from the main west wall were grim & the best of it were a couple of plaice @ bay 18, but things were very scrappy & plagued by spiders snagging or cutting peoples lines. A lovely day in the sun but tough going. Over on the east , small bream & wrasse on the lower bays , mostly just sized or under for the plaice dotted all up the sandy section ,. My lad and friend had a few small plaice n JNR managed a decent wrasse that gave him a run on his light 6foot spin rod which he enjoyed.
Seems a few had to be reminded about keeping under sized fish on the east.. well done to those angers that had a chat and pointed out why they should go back.

Im please to say that some are getting the message out to other anglers re sizing fish and having a chat or as I would say .. “they are getting involved” Its good , it benefits the wall and stets a better standard on the walls, getting involved means a polite chat , not scream its others 🙂 so a big well done them from all of us anglers that want better, its encouraging to see.
Times up for me as im running about on the west today .
tight lines all and enjoy the day.
F

A bit of a long day re organising some images so I can put up a new gallery page , Im sure you will be able to find it .. its under the galleries section with a little tag Sussex arms on it also … some of you know what that was in the past , if it takes off I will expand it in the Views gallery to start with and maybe expand it into a place of its own.

As to the fishing .. read on.
This week really has been a spilt.. light n dark, night and day, decent & tough going .. I think you may be getting where this is going. Daytime this week other than random shoals of mackerel has been tough going with mainly a few mackies, a few plaice and a few bream in a contest with 100’s or even thousands of spider crabs invading the marina waters ! a not so easy going but sort of getting better.. yes they are getting better but things are not as good as this time last year I feel.

NIGHT TIME DAY TIME , yes its a pun on a BBC wild life video clip but it really is a case of the nights are/have this week been good. Loads of rays (by marina standards) seem to be almost throwing themselves at anglers some of the time, Brian Basco Bianquera managed to land 4 himself, no weight info but pictured is one of them mid week. Both walls have recorded some decent sized bass and mackerel shoals do seem to have been teasing anglers by showing up at silly o’clock in the mornings 1st light, and last light fade away. Bream numbers seem to be slowly picking up with bays on the west seemingly the best choices (work em out)
Ive not been told of any horse mac yet but who knows , they cant be that far away.
Regarding night fishing , please main lights & headlamps/torches lights down the side in the water .. BLUE prefered , white is ok but red and green are nav lights and a big no on … tip lights .. what ever you want, they r tip lights..
re lights in the water, please leave your car batteries at home , we do not need them on the walls & nor do we need people TAKING UNDERSIZED BASS.. watch your sizes, Sussex(IFCA) fisheries do patrol the walls randomly, be it day or night & they have received reports of people not paying attention to sizes so .. expect random visits up there.

The extension has been busy during the day and was booked out last weekend as is this weekend to private groups at night.
Want to book the extension at night ? get a group of 10 to 16 & a list of names preferred with a sole contact point. They then will book with David Grinham in the shop, The contact then becomes responsible for all that night on the extension, usual rules apply , no fishing inside, no tents no glass etc, you get the pic im sure.
Once you are settled on the extension pass your number to the night warden for easy contact etc & you get to fish up there in peace.. organiser then responsible as said for all behavior up there & making sure its handed over as clean as you found it . Easy eh 🙂

I have now finally updated the promised galleries, hopefully all the pics that are new will appear first on each of the galleries I added to Which includes the new LINE BINS with info about them on the LISA page and the pic on the marina gallery.
Fri and Sat were during the day somewhat sluggish verging on very hard for many. Thankfully the east has continued to tick over on plaice but notable exception to that has been the undulate rays showing up over there of which a couple have been added to the gallery. On the same note we do ask anglers who catch rays to release them all after picturing.
The west wall seemed to struggle more that the east did & most generally agree that things are 3-4 weeks behind on last years levels of catches. Fri there amounted to a couple of bream & tons of pouting, followed by Saturday producing a couple more bream and wrasse but none of size.
Thus we come to a night report for both evenings into the night. Wahey for the mackerel on Friday , a real life saver as the late evening exploded with huge shoals on both walls with the promise of great things from them for the weekend ! (a bit more on that later) Night fishing over the weekend was a definite up and better than the daytimes had been with some nice bass had (eg see steve cooper pic on bass gallery) on the east & congers landed & returned on the west.. add to that bream numbers increased through the nights, wrasse, plaice and a few smaller species. Yes more rays were landed at night and returned over the weekend.

The downer and bad news for anglers over the weekend was that some visitors on Especially Sat night produced a bit of a shit show, with people refusing to comply with marina RULES ABOUT PUTTING TENTS UP (NOT ALLOWED)LIGHTING BBQ’S (NOT ALLOWED)and then the night warden having to deal with DRUNKEN anglers bringing glass onto the walls (again NO GLASS allowed)and kicking off swearing and generally abusing not only the warden but other anglers around them to the degree that Marina security were called to attend and remove them. Sat night more than 6 anglers were kicked off the marina and it wont be tolerated by the marina, by the wardens and im pleased to say by other anglers who chose to intervene and assisted the duty warden, so a big thanks to them.

Back to the fishing reports and into Sunday daytime …. do you remember those Fri night shoals of mackerel ? yes ? good , bad news though , they never came back in numbers, bar a mini shoal sat eve over on the east for a few mins they vanished virtually until this morning (tues) when a fair few hit both walls about 4-5am ! Sun daytime was similar to fri/day … flipping tough going n a case of thank heavens for the plaice on the east which other than a couple of bream(yea they made it to the east) it was a plaice tick over for most but that was realy it over there. The west walls saving grace on sunday was that the extension produced a near dozen bream for the lads fishing the last bay and one 1st time sea angler getting his 1st 3 mackerel in one hit…

The real story of the walls over the weekend though was that it was crab city, a confirmed 5lb crab on the east and possibly 2 the same size on the west ! … monster sizes and tiddler sizes on the west by the ton & i hear heavy number on the east also … folks the SPIDER crabs have invaded ..

plenty of sunshine as the weather has improved so start packing the suncream as the walls are now open 24/7 and the weather has been superb the last few days and looks to continue more of the same for a week or more.
Enjoy the sun but take care, fishing on the walls you are very exposed so, prepare, take plenty of fluids & pack that sun cream , you will need it 🙂

There we are, I promised a full write up, if you got this far , well done and if you are a member of our facebook group, keep us informed of your catches , take pictures, post the pics & those i feel or simply like may well end up on our galleries. Happy fishing folks and thats me signing off 🙂
F

ok so ive missed a day or two but to be honest up to yesterday things had been fairly much the same will tick over reports from both walls being slow. standard for both were med-ok plaice on the east a wrasse or two and bits n pieces. west the same , a bream hear n there same with wrasse and lots of spider crabs.
Nights have improved though and the general news is its getting better and better on quality fish (those reported) especially bass. Fri to sun morning has seen some decent over 5lb bass an 8 for mullet 2 huge 4-5lb spider crabs & bream on the increase , pictured is the beastie had on the east yesterday & will be uploading more pics later today as pushed for time this sun morning
F