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Really Wrecked S.A.C. This was mostly a bassing trip, which is definitely Larry’s speciality, well, his other speciality, after his main one, which is drifting for cod and pollack, just waiting (and this is the really clever part) until the boat is slap bang over the middle of the snaggiest, most wreck-net-festooned, pirk-and-gill-hungriest part of the wreck before saying "Away you go boys". Did I mention that we lost some tackle on the trip before? The tide was ideal for bass, so first stop was the pouting ground to pick up a few livebaits. Now this patch of rough ground never fails to produce tiny, perfect livebait-sized pout. Never except for on this day. There were plenty of whiting, which would do as livebait, but none of the pout. They’re never there when you need them, little bastards. As well as the whiting, the rough ground turned up one other surprise – the club’s second ever allis shad! Such is the rarity value of the species here that Les, captor of the first one, confidently predicted that this was one record that would stand forever. Bad luck Les, this little six ounce beauty means your last record has gone – a sad day for the man who once held four club bests. Ray Bachelor is the proud new record holder, though I don’t expect it to last too long, once Les bends the full force of his shad-angling know-how towards the recapture of ‘his’ record. On the other side of the boat, another member of the crew, Chris Grant, was beginning to believe he was the subject of a jinx of similar proportions to that of Phil’s notorious blue rod. For the last four trips, he’d watched as all around him one-armed blind men with orange Courlene handlines and no bait were hauling up huge specimens of every race, creed and colour, while all he got to play with were doggies and pouting. Not that Chris had let this get to him. You could hardly hear the noise of the engine over his constant carping about his bad luck on the way to the first wreck. And when they finally arrived, Chris let up long enough to impale a whiting and lower it to the bottom as the boat began its drift. The tension was palpable. Who would take the first fish? But there was no sign of any bass that first drift. Nor the next. Nor the next. Or the next or the next or the next… you get the idea. And then, just as people were beginning to give up hope, on perhaps the eighth drift, who should feel the unmistakable lunge of a hungry bass but Mr. I’m-so-unlucky-why-does-everyone-catch-but-me-it’s-not-fair? A few moments later he was beaming a beam that would have lit up Lewes in a power cut, as his prize – a bass of around 2½lb – lay in the net. A couple of drifts later and it was 2-0 to the burly Scot, as he bagged another, this one around 3½lb. After four blanks, it was time to celebrate, or more precisely, time to rub everyone else’s face in the fact that they’d had nothing. In the course of this gloating, it emerged that Chris had in fact made a slight change to his rigs before this latest, successful trip, and we’re lucky enough to have diagrams of the 'before' and 'after' rigs for our first spot the difference competition . The wreck went quiet after that, so Larry took our crew to another couple of wrecks in search of more. On one of these, Ray took the only other bass of the trip, and the best fish at 5lb 6oz. And then it was time to anchor up and see what would take a bait. For most people, that meant eels, though as usual, ‘Two Dogs’ Deacon bravely struck out for the fearsome and physically imposing black bream. He didn’t disappoint, landing two or three medium-sized fish for his trouble. The others had a few strap conger between them, though no-one came anywhere near toppling Clive’s 52lb fish as the best eel of the year. So it was down to Chris ‘voodoo’ Grant to provide the last thrill of the day with another record. While others were hauling up straps, he managed to hook into and land a late-season tope. While not a monster, it still comfortably beat our rather feeble previous best, pulling the scales down to 16lb. If anyone else feels like it, perhaps we could get together a party to try to post a decent tope record from the rough ground and fast tides off the Isle of Wight. Late news And that goes for a few of you. There’s Jari van Hatala, who booked three trips last year and cancelled every one, with the unfortunate financial penalty that this incurs. Perhaps you should miss out the middle step next year. Just send me a big sackful of money and save yourself the bother of booking. And Steve Courtman, where are you? Are you, like the Bigfoot, a creature of myth and legend? Did we just imagine you? Was it all a dream? Come fishing, the lot of you. |
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