1st time in a long time

[pikemandan]

Let me start by saying i have not been sea fishing for 20 plus years, and for some reason i decided to dig my own bait so i set off to pegwell bay and arrived at 7am, i got a third of the way out and thought i really need to buy some wellies but my hiking boots was holding out for the time being and i'd already got to the point of no return.
I was hoping to write how well i'd done and the worms i'd dug were all huge
but my fork broke before i got any lug whatsoever. So with me being the happy go lucky guy i am i only swore once albeit rather loudly then resorted to plan B, go buy them like everyone else.
So off to Deal i went had a quick chat with the guy at channel angling while i bought my bait(very nice man he is too) then i headed to the beach by the sailing club on the Sandwich bay estate.

I decided to fish here as it was where my dad used to take me when i was a boy so seemed fitting after all these years to start out back here.
well being new so to speak with sea fishing again i set up my cheap beach caster combo on a running leger set up and i also brought my 3lb test curve pike rod and set it up the same with the intention of fishing close in,using lug on one and squid on the other.
I chucked them out and waited and was quite surprised to get bites on my 1st cast and reeled in to find a small dab i think?

after i kept getting a flurry of bites and was bringing in whiting on both rods, i'll add i was using squid on my pike rod close in. As the tide came up the bites stopped and to carry on in the fashion off the broken fork i cast out to see my line part company where i tied my leader, so carried on without one without so much omf.
Then i got a crackin bite on my pike rod and could feel it was something other than a whiting, and was pleased to see a small bass cutting through the surf,my 1st ever bass not a great pic.

That went back to fight another day, to finish up i had more whiting some of which made a great fish pie that eve and to even out the bad luck i caught up with my shock leader lost earlier and got all my tackle back plus another whiting

[cuckoo]

Cracking report mate , what a way to open your fishing account well done

[BaggieRich]

Brilliant report Dan and a big congrats on your first ever Bass. Hopefully the first of many!

I've still never had a dab.....

[tommy a]

Well done mate nice report as well - sounds like a very nice evening.

[pingu]

nice session there well done

dave

[pikemandan]

thanks for the comments and just a quick question also if anyone can help i tied my shhock leader with an albright knot which came undone it was 20lb to 40lb line is there a better way and also i kept getting weed clog on the knot and then id have to mess about getting it of before i could fully reel in, is that just the way it is?