milford august 20th, a day of extremes.

[geejayy]

the original plan was to fish the shingle bank for bass, rays & whatever with hartley,
however the wags & kids invited themselves along and so toilet fecillitys and a shorter walk was called for ruleing out the mark of choice ,

at 5pm we arrived and made a start after secureing 4oz of rag & various frozen baits raided from my place + hartleys extra box o squid, which gave us a bait list of-

rag, blk lug ( 3 of em), mackerel fillets, sandeel, crab,cuttle

the weather was dry with a stiff southerly wind,
weed wise the last of the flood was a bit of a problem , but manageable , the ebb weed free, but as ever , even on a neap the early flood by 03.30 was horrendous.
oh arr, high tide was for about 20.30 i believe.

hartley arrived about 18.30, and all hell broke loose with both his and our kids running up n down along the beach yelling their heads off & generally having fun,
but the fun swiftly ceased for the underwood clan when we found that my daughter , who had been sent to the car to retrieve something, had locked the keys inside.
fortunately ronnie saved the day by leaving his window open 1/4 inch which enabled me to force the window wider, insert the tip of a rod and attempt to hook the keys off the rear seat headrest, an attempt that failed due to wimpy rod folding up under the weight and dropping the keys beside the seat.
tip of awb was then utilised to pull at inner door handles then prod window winders till access was finaly possible (via chucking ronnie through a now open window).

ok, back to the fishing, i'd seen no sign of a bite so far there was another angler fishing along side us who was feathering for macky & later it was he , i think who said he had lost a possible ray later, when he spoke with us when leaveing.
by about 23.00 at least the children had quietened down and the wags had boogered off back to the cars to leave us to it,
i saw a couple of gentle knocks on the 129, struck firmly and cranked in a fish, a little ray i was happy with that but dead chuffed when i identified it as my 1st beach caught spotted,
i wanted some nice piccys of this one but in the process of- hartley sprinted away to sort his rod that was being dragged seaward.



est 2lb,
i didn't weight it coz i was sorting hartleys 1st bass capture



est 2lb ish, i didn't weigh that either
coz i had a bite on my other rod resulting in a smalleyed of about 3lb,
didn't weigh it or photo it coz batterys packed up on my camera,

it was sometime before any further signs of fishy activity when a had another good ray bite on my ray rod this beast battled like a deamon all the way in but was only a small butterfly s/e ray foul hooked in the tip of a wing + weeded.
it then went quiet again and hartley called it a night at which point i collared my wifes digicam because i was hopeing for a sole on my light rod .

but that wern't gonna happen , the 3 hook flapper & worm baits on this one accounted for only one smalleye & a suicidal school bass of about 10 inches just after hartley left at about 02.00.

everything else came to that good old ray tactic of squid/doublesandeel on a pulley rig.
by about 3am i was about to quit as i was expecting the weed to start to hammer through with the start of the flooding tide at any time soon.

but another bite and another s/e ray persuaded me to stay till the tide pushed me off the beach as fish were still evidently feeding.
the weed had started to push through and 1/4 of an hour later i had a knock that could have been just weed, i struck the 2nd tug and pumped in a dead weight, which resulted in both weed and a lumpy spotted ray,
this one pulled the scales around to 4 3/4 lb, and i took some piccys with pats camera- the flash didn't work so i was sure there would be no joy there,
but when i looked on the card there they were as plain as day, don't know how, but i can see i'm gonna have to knick that camera for myself

all in all a cracking day-
disaster and a long walk avoided,
3x pbs broken & a fish filled night + happy knackered kids. job done.

oh, here's the bigger spotty-

[BaggieRich]

Well done on the spotted Gord, lovely fish, but I reckon the keys were probably the catch of the night! Would it make me a bad person to wonder about sending Ronnie in after the rays as well?????

[browners]

nice ray made up for having the family there

[cuckoo]

Cracking session gord , that last spotty is quite a big specimen

[scottish_and_mental]

Lucky with the window mate, ..i had to remove my back window or face smashing one to get my keys..
I'm liking the Rays , pretty wee fish and a target of mine if i can just get out the house
well done fella

[bassmanrob]

Good session mate, you can't go wrong with those rays this year!

[pingu]

great report and session there gordon

dave

[PlanktonBoy]

The spotties certainly seem to be in along there3 might have to get back down there me thinks.
Well winkled mate.

[mangerover]

Good sesh there mate - If i lock my keys in the car i'll give u a shout
Do i hear rumors of Codling along the bank????

[cuckoo]

Originally Posted by mangerover

Do i hear rumors of Codling along the bank????

yup