weed-on-solent 31/05

[showmythefishy]

With no kids and both the mrs and myself off work this week we were both rattling around indoors, her watching crap tv and me huffing around because the weather is improving and im not on the beach enjoying it, she eventually turned round to me and said "why dont you go fishing and leave me in peace??" well.... you can imagin my reply as i grabbed my gear from the shed and bait from the freezer (unfortunatly this was at 6.30pm so all the tackle shops were shut and so couldnt get any fresh bait!)
i decided to hit lee on solent as ive seen a report or 2 on here saying there are smuts and rays comming out... again unfortunatly the bait i had in the freezer was what i had left over from my weekend trip to portland and had been refrozen so wasnt in the best condition.
i got to lee on solent at around 7.30ish and set up my gear i could see a bit of weed floating around in the water, the water itself was very coloured and had a little chop to it but nothing to bad. the wind was from the north west but was fairly light. i noticed a few terns diving into the water but they were well out of casting distance so didnt bother getting the feathers out.
i baited my first rod with sand eel on a pennell dropper rig and gave it a good whack, the second rod went out with a smelly crab bait also on a pennell dropper rig and also gave that a good whack. i left them out for around 25mins and when i reeled the 1st rod in i found that i had half of the solents weed tangled around my lead and rig, after sorting that out, rebaiting and casting i reeled in my other rod to find the weed had found its way to that rig anf sinker aswell. after that i cut down my times between casts to 15mins and that seemed to sort out the prob, as the sun went down i changed baits from sand eel to nice sized mackerell baits but kept the crab on the other rod.
i had my first bit at around 9.30 and reeled in a doggy. just as i put him back a guy walked over that was fishing about 100yrds to my left carrying a nice sized smut, i did the honours of taking the photo for him and weighed it in my sling and it went to 8lb on the nose which was his pb.
i carried on fishing hopping for a smut of my own but just kept finding the dogs and weed, im not sure how many dogs i landed in the course of the night , i stopped counting at 12!!!
everything went dead over high water (11.45pm) but i carried on with changing my baits every 15mins. the tide stated turning and i thought the fish mite come back on the feed but alas i fished untill 1.30am but didnt have another bite.

still, not a bad nights fishing, cant help but think if i had decient bait i may have had a smut or 2 as the crab i was using was well past its best!!

well thats about it from me for today, am planning an early morning sesh over hayling with the feathers tomorrow morning to hopfully stock my freezer with fresh bait.

Catch ya all laters

Mark

[scottish_and_mental]

Unlucky mate, it's better to be out with crap bait than not at all but i'm sure once you get a better prepared session over there things will improve. I'm probably over that way next week midweek if you fancy a session .

[showmythefishy]

would love to but i doubt il get another mid week sesh in 4 sometime, only got out last night coz the kids are away this week and i was doing my mrs's head in with all my huffing about! lol