Blackcat, Barrel and Teggy ventured down to mumbles for the day in the hope
of picking up a few dabs and to see what else was about.
We arrived at the pier early and waited a while for the guy to come and
open up. We were surprised to find we were the only ones there and had the pier to ourselves.
Baits for the day were ragworm, lugworm, sticky black lug (for the dabs),
mackerel, squid and sandeel.
With High water around 10am, we would be fishing an hour of the flood and
most of the ebb.
1st casts hit the water with blackcat opting for mackerel baits and Teggy
and Barrelreef starting off with lug. As soon as the bait hit the water, Barrelreef had the tell tale doggy bite and wound
in a decent one pushing 2lb. blackcat also hit into a doggy straight away, another decent one about the same stamp as Barrel's
fish
Teggy then had a little nibble and wound in to find a whiting with a lamprey
stuck to the underneath of it!
1st time we've seen one these
and they are really ugly little creatures!
Barrelreef then had another fish a small whiting which had taken a black lug bait.
This continued for a while with the odd whiting and doggie showing for Barrel and blackcat, while Teggy
seemed to have bites but kept getting snagged up on the retrieve.
Barrelreef then landed a decent pouting and followed that up with a double
shot of a rockling and a dab. Barrel's 1st dab!
With Teggy still having trouble and snagged up again, blackcat stepped in to help and while pulling
for a break one of the eyes of the rod tip caught th pier railings and the spigot joint parted, sending the tip sliding down
the line and into the drink! Oops!
Back to the fishing though and Teggy while a little confused about what had just happened had
a cracking bite on his other rod, which was baited with a side of mackerel. After pumping the fish up to the surface about
30yards out, a big angry bull huss shook its head. Just to make a crappy day worse the continuous head shaking and writhing
from the huss helped the hooks pulled free and it swam away! To say he was gutted was an understatement, tip of one of
his rods 15 foot under the sea and a double figure huss swimming away after escaping his hook!
Meanwhile Barrelreef and Blackcat continued to hook a few more whiting and doggies with
Barrel having another double shot this time another dab and whiting.
Most baits seemed to catch through the day although the whiting and dabs seemed to prefer the
worm baits.
Teggy also landed a couple of doggies and another whiting, although we tried various ways
to get his tip back like casting over and dragging our gear to see if we could grab it and sliding weights down the line to
try and free it we failed to get his rod tip back.
Not the best day for Teggy but still quite a few fish showed although the best fish of the day
got away.
With the lamprey (which was landed but not really hooked) 6 different species
of fish were landed today and with the huss could have been 7.
In spite of the incident with Teggys rod we had a good day with some good banter and plenty of
fish!
Barrelreef - 16 fish - 7 whiting, 5 doggies, 2 dabs, 1 pouting and 1 rockling
Blackcat - 9 fish - 5 doggies and 4 whiting
Teggy - 5 fish - 2 doggies, 2 whiting and a lamprey
