Milford & Eastney 18 & 19/8/10

[bassmanrob]

The tides were right for another session at my beloved milford shingle, it was very windy but the forecast said it would die down later. I was hopeful of another good bream session with maybe some rays and bass after dark. When I got there i found the backwater full of kite-surfers making the most of the strong south westerley and walking over the bank saw the sea very rough, the wind had not died down! Looked very bassy though and I targeted them on one rod and bream on the other during daylight. Got set-up and out, conditions dictated short range fishing but the weed was annoying. No bites but at last light I noticed the weed had pulled around my squid-strip baited bream rod. I pumped in the weed, the weed-covered leader knot hit the beach followed by the rig, somethng white was moving amongst the weed. At first it I thought it was a decent bream until I got to it and saw it was a plate sized ray but what species? I flipped it over and was delighted to find it was my first ever Undulate!



Bit of a surprise on the bait it took but Milford is a known mark for them. As night fell I targeted bass and rays but only had one more bite on sandeel which resulted in the obligitory dogfish. I battled the weed until the flood started and the bank becomes unfishable and called it a night at 1145. Not a bad result in tough conditions.

The next day I had plenty of rag left over and headed to Eastney to try and boost my species count. Reports said it'd been fishing well with small plaice, gurnards, red mullet and GG mullet amongst the usual bream and schoolies. I got there at low and found weed to be a real problem again, green slimey stuff this time but easy to clear from the line. First two and a half hours were slow, stripped baits and no bites. Then a couple of micro bream, I then duffed a cast but decided to leave it in close as it was now about half flood. A decent pull down followed, then slack and I missed it! I then changed both rods to 50 yards max and the fun started, a few taps for some more micro bream. I then dragged in someone's lost gear including a breakaway 5oz impact lead (result), while i was sorting this I glaced up to see my rod bouncing away! Felt something half decent on and was delighted to find a double shot of a better bream and my first tub gurnard!



Was chuffed with that as I've always wanted one but never really put the time in scrathing in daylight for them. Next and last cast as I was out of time and bait resulted in another good bite and an in-size bream. Was an enjoyable session, I'd ran out of worms and time but still had a good hour of the flood left and it was fishing very well. Might have to have another session there in daylight with more bait very soon.

Another photo of the bernard:

[mangerover]

Thats a pretty ray mate - good result from the bank considering the conditions - the amount of times i've gone home early from Milford because of the weed/tide/wind etc i lose count - such a shame as there's always a chance of something special there (Like an undulate)

[cuckoo]

Couple of cracking sessions mate , target species caught on both occasions

[browners]

well done total result

[BaggieRich]

Nice one Rob. That's a decent return for the effort.

[tjnorton]

Some great fish well done

tj