A weekend on Selsey

[Lookfar]

Hi folks,
Spent the weekend camping on Hayling Island at the annual Fish-In of another forum. Unlike last year, I got a decent run down to Hayling Island on the friday afternoon in a baking 32 degrees Celcius. My friend John was already pitched and gave me a hand to do battle with my family tent, then off we went with Moby, his Warrior 150, for a bash at the mackerel out of Langstone. Despite next day's hairy forecast, friday evening was lovely. There was just a breath of wind and a light chop out on Dean Tail wreck. We were treated to a decent sunset but the fish were hard work, just three mackerel for an hour's feathering the wreck, plus a couple of pout and a scad. Eventually we gave it best and came in, John went off the chippy and I cooked up some pasta at the tent and got my gear sorted before our crews arrived. Got our heads down but were woken at 2am by some seriously strong winds trying to uproot the tents.
After our wild night, we did at least have clear skies on saturday but a small gale blowing. Where to go? We dropped in on Hayling seafront to have a look at the sea state and it did look like the IoW would give shelter and the sea was probably mild enough to get there if we plodded steadily into it. However, getting back could have been another matter when the tide went against the wind. Caution won out and we opted to sit in harbour. Launch was from the Eastney side, despite the extra 20 minutes drive, as we were concerned about the Hayling side slip catching the weather. The gravel bank across the Eastney slip was so deep we had to launch all the boats using John's Pajero as the saloon cars would have ripped their underside to shreds over it. What exactly are our launch fees and harbour dues for? There were three of us out, two Warriors and an Orkney, with the rest of the forum having launched into Chichester and discovered they couldn't get over the surf on the bar.
In Langstone, Moby and Dreamcatcher opted to anchor up on the Mulberry wreck. I was grimly determined to catch my first ever flounder on a baited spoon so Jim and I went off alone into the upper reaches of the harbour to drift the channels. There was so much wind we didn't need the engine, sailing along happily at 1.5kts. Weed was a pain, as ever, but to my surprise I actually got a bite! The ragworm came in rather shredded so I suspected bass rather than flounder and this was borne out when we anchored for a while and I landed a small schoolie. All the while the wind was howling along and travelling back down the harbour into the teeth of it, we were stuck at 8 knots or less with the spray coming over the cuddy in sheets. I couldn't believe the size of the chop given that we were IN harbour, but the Coastguard were giving conditions in the Solent as force 7. We mooched around the other boats briefly but I didn't dare anchor uptide of the Mulberry. My engine has a sense of humour when it comes to starting.
Getting slightly bored, we went out to look at Langstone Channel and the open sea. The swell was very random but not as large as I'd expected but weed made fishing impossible. After a brief encounter with a yachting moron, who forced me to take avoiding action twice through (I hope) sheer incompetence rather than a desire to run us down, we called it a day. John did the honours again getting the boats out and we found the top of the slip littered with Warriors. It was Dave Harris, the angling writer , with a couple of mates down for the weekend and not daft enough to even bother launching (unlike us)
Sunday
Sunday morning was much more like it. We got a decent nights sleep, the wind died, the sun came out and when the gates opened at 07.30 we were on our way. Launching from the Hayling side was much easier and very quick, with only Lookfar and Moby putting in. The crab pots produced a small gang of hardbacks for each boat, John divvied out the rest of the bait and we were away, passing Mr Harris apparently on his way back in in his rather nice Warrior 175. Some folks get up REALLY early!
There was no residual swell from saturday and just a breath of wind. Perfect! The world and their dog were at the Patch, 20+ boats. We settled in by Tamar Lady while John pootled off east a bit. In went the first groundbait blocks and the bream were straight on us. I had two, Matt one and Jim two, his first ever black bream. Not big fish but two were just sizeable and went home for Matt's folks. We also added a poor cod and three pout. A couple of spider crabs showed as well but the tide was almost dead and when Tamar Lady upped stumps I was keen to move too.
Out we went with Moby to Utopia, where the charter fleet was also very much bang on where I wanted to be. We settled between two charter boats that took a few hounds, but for us things were slow apart from mackerel. We had six of those quite rapidly then retired the feather rod. The tide was belting through but the hound and tope rods simply didn't hook anything, not even doggies. I missed the only tope run of the day, to my chagrin . Weed was a big problem and in the end, we moved inshore a touch to join the rest of the forum boats. They'd managed to get some grip while the tide was still slack, but Moby and Lookfar steadily slid away downtide through the day as our anchors dragged. John tried a few times to reset but as it was only a matter of a few feet every ten minutes or so, I simply let it be. Weed was a pain here too, but at least we had fish. I started us off, with a pair of hounds at 7lb and 5lb. Matt then had a thoroughly good couple of tussles with two identical hounds of 6lb 11oz and lost something that seemed a lot more substantial. Poor Jim was left hound-less but we all had a couple of dogs. The other boats were doing a lot better, no tope but hounds to 16lb.
As slack water approached, things had gone dead and I was getting seriously edgy about the prospects of Jim having come all the way down fom Ayr and not getting a hound at all. I decided that Brake Ledge was probably his best chance if the weed wasn't impossible, so down we went at 25 knots with the spray flying and Moby running alongside. The ebb was well established down there and within a very short time, over went Jim's rod and he was treated to his first Solent smoothhound, the third of the day to weigh 6lb 11oz. Mission accomplished! He also managed another pout and a small bream, Matt added two more little pout but I spent more time faffing about baiting up than fishing and blanked.The real excitement of Brake was Matt's landing a squid of maybe 2lb, 18 inch plus long, which we mistook at first for a cuttle. Amazing beast, the colours on it were just rippling up and down.
The weed picked up as the tide did and I was more than happy to go when Moby suggested it was time to up stumps. Back at Langstone, there was a typical Bank Holiday queue for the slip. I managed to give myself a scare by attempting to recover with the car in neutral (!) then it was back to the camp site for another convivial coffee break, a clean up and and barbeque and prize-giving. No silverware for us this year but a damn good weekend despite the less than helpful weed and wind.

Steve

[CHUBB]

sounds like a great weekend!!!!
well done on all the fish!

[john-boy]

Great report, mate...

At least you got amongst those smuts .. excellent!

[Norfolkboy]

Well done

Excellent report