Wots your worst weather experience?

[trussym]

Ok,
I'll start this one off then!
three years ago, we went across to Ireland for a match fished over 2 days on Benone and Downhill Strands. First bad sign was that the fast ferry from Stranraer couldn't do the crossing as the weather was too rough, so got stuck on an old but more stable rust bucket to do the crossing.
The beaches are beautifull, they go for miles with cliffs set just behind them, its where they filmed an episode of "cold feet"
on the match day it was horrendous, we had about a 60mph wind in our face the whole match, which was pushing the waves about 100 yards further up the flat beach than normal, it wiped your tackle out every 10 minutes. The rain was horizontal. There was a dead seal on the beach and i spent most of the match with a young starving seal trying to get into my bait bucket.I was trying to feed it sandeels but it kept tring to bite me (huge teeth!) There were two waterfalls off the cliffs behind us and the wind was just pushing the water in a circle back over the top, to top it all off the water was full of tube worm casts and you had to bring in about 2 kilos on every cast- Big thanks to Penn for my flot suit which stopped me getting exposure!

Oh and did i mention that WE WON

[geejayy]

hi,
back about 98/2000. a good november? storm was hitting the south coast
and i had great plans to fish the start of hurst shingle bank , by the rocks and the derelict cafe, as soon as it settled .
with tackle packed in the car and bait collected i headed home to wait for the next tide after the storm.( via a pub and thats where the problems started )

there i met up with a good m8 and discussed my fishing plans over a couple of ,
he expressed an interest in joining me over more and at that point valour got the better of discretion and all sanity left the building
we had noticed that the wind had dropped /had tackle/bait, so sod it we go now.

well we got down the beach and it was still blowing a hooley , sea was a sething mass of white water with breakers at about 5 ft. .
yea, we can do this .

dragged gear to beach, flew b/buddy like a kite b4 getting it set on the beach.

lit the coleman , had a fag and thought about tackleing up.

set up the rods, ronnie couldn't cast far enough and his rig was promptly returned on the first breaker, my cast, a full pendulum with a clipped rig went just a wee bit further with huge loop of line blown back over my bivvy behind me

retired to bivvy fer a fag n a brew.

couldn't realy be ar*ed to check my rod other than to see that its still there.

so there we were sat in a storm battered bivvy on an open beach , neither of us realy wished to exit the bivvy in order to pack up , many fags were smoked, some of the bait was cooked on the coleman by ronnie, and eaten by me. ( didn't throw up )

highlight of the night was a fire work , brought to celebrate nov 5th which ron lit and dropped over a wall .
a quater of an hour passed while we awaited this marvelous spectacle b4 ron plucked up the nerve to look over the wall,
to find he had dropped it in a puddle .

on this note we left , vowing never to return. till next time

gj.

[tjnorton]

My worst experience was last year.

We where booked on a boat trip out of dartmouth, it was foce 7-8 easterly but the skipper was prepeared to go out. On the way out the swell behind the boat was taller than it. As you can imagine the boat rocked a bit. When we got a wreck called the murry we all droped lines, after a few mins the first person was sick and when your on a boat its not good because it plays mind games on you. After 20mins or so i followed and couldnt stop the whole day. I coulnt keep anythong down but i had to eat to stop me tearing my stomach musscles but i ened up doin and was in the most excrucating pain. I will never go out in an easterly wind again.

tj

[pingu]

fished with mate(in fleece and jeans), i had full gear on saying weather was fine, should have looked at ice on top of tackle box!!!!! he got hypothermia

slapton last year with others was a wee bit breezy as we watched simon torbay try to put up his buddy

[big guy]

my worst wasn't as bad as the last 2.

it was in a match at sea brooke, kent. it was blowing a force 9 when i arrived, luckily it was going with the tide so there wasn't too bigger waves. i got to the match 2 hours early put my beach buddy up and f**cked off to the nearest cafe. like most the other competitors.

the match sarted and apart from having to cast 45 degrees up the beach to get the lead about 40 yards straight infront of me i was quite comfy. long live the beach buddy.

about every 30- 60 minutes you saw a brolly flying high in the wind and eventually bobbing in the sea. why people even bothered with brollies inthat sort of wind puzzles me.

i would be screwed with out a beach buddy, god they're amazing.

[Ben]

not fishing but last half term me and a friend went camping in the new forrest, stupid amounts of rain was forcast with F7-8 but we still went
pitched in the middle of the woods miles away from anything
f**k me did we get wet, a tree fell down 10m away from the tent which scared the s**t outa us in the midle of the night, between us we had about 1hr sleep just because of the wind
fishing weise it has to be a time me and the same mate decided the kip down the beach after fishing the best bit of the tide, was a nice night to start with but the wind picked up and it started heaving down, genius here didnt bother with a sleeping bag
we both ended up shivering under a unzipped sleeping bag next to a gone out fire almost getting washed of the beach

[barbelblanker]

Cold Knapp/Jacksons Bay.
Howling gale and we'd gone by train so we were there for the night. Couldn't fish the main beach ( I reckon a 6 oz lead would have landed behind us if we'd tried). Sat under a brolly to keep out of the rain. So bad we left the line out long enough for the water to leave the bay. Caught one little rockling that suffocated due to lack of water. Ended taking shelter at the railway station. Horrible night.

[gullyworm]

Not fishing,but about 6 years ago i did an excercise down near Madera on a sweeper i was on at the time.
The weather was great for the whole three weeks but when it came to sail back home boy did it blow.I d been in rougher seas before,10s and 11s with waves bigger than the bridge and when you come off the top of them you can feel the ship falling untill it crashes into the trough and theres a mighty crash with you on your back under a pile of gear.
But these gales came from the west putting the sea on our beam and a sweeper with a beam sea corkscrews like mad.
I took us 8 days to get home,the gales never stopped and going through biscay was a pleasure
One lad had joined us in Madera and had never had a sweeper before,he spent the whole time flat out down the fridge space .I think in the end we thought he was dead he was down there that long.
When we gat back to pompey he left the ship classed as unfit for small ships

[Old Smoothound]

My last trip Giant Blue Fin Tuna fishing in Ireland......Wind force 6/7 from South East, ground swell of over 10 feet from the West, ebbing tide at 4 plus knots from the east ==== this makes for 25 foot plus waves....me giving it HUUUUUUGHEY Never again......!