17th june.

[geejayy]

another family day out,
the kids came home from school to find i'd built 3 small dropnets , and the cry was for 'lets go crabfishing'
with a week off work and the smutt meet on the horizon, like i didn't have a cunning plan,
so pat, grandad bob, ronnie & sherilee joined me and we soon were on lepe beach for 8pm, with the tide 2 hours up.
swiftly dug 1/2 pound of rag then turned a few rocks with the kids for a few crabs, then, as the tide flooded employed the dropnets to great effect for some bigger hardbacks.
plus found a brucie bonus on the tideline in the form of a nice popper plug , fresh hooks and it'll be good to go.

darkness encroached then we hit a pub for some light refreshment.

by about 22.30 we were set up at calshot with the tide pushing in light winds were blowing in from the s/w and the odd shower was passing through.
there was a bit of weed about but only a problem when the tide was running hard.
ronnie set up with a flowing trace on his rod but got cold and went back to the car after a couple of casts.
bob fished a 2 hook flapper and fished with me for a while
where as i set up a pulley rig and a single 4/0 for the crab.

1st blood came to the crab rig with a starrey pup of about a pound or so.



then bob gave up and i commandered the rod he was useing, a couple of casts later and a double shot of pout and eel fell to the flapper.



as the tide topped out at midnight i had a good knock and a pulldown
a swift strike found a fish running to the right across my other rod ( , they can never go away from the 2nd rod can they).
anyway a brief tustle and another starrey of about 3-4lb was on the beach , the untangle took a while and the fish was returned unweighed or photoed.
this was followed at 2nd highwater by a better eel but this one balled up tangled & snotted the rig, hence no piccy.
gave up at first light as the tide started to drop away.

[captain chaos]

Sounds like one of my cunning plans too!
Nice one!

[MRG2000]

Nice fishing Gordon ,good to see a plan come together....