South Hams

by **Barry Island** Fri Jul 17, 2009 7:01 am

Faced with my impending redundancy I made my way down to Plymouth for a seminar on starting up your own business. My mood was not lightened by a ‘disagreement’ with my beloved just before departure. I threw my gear in the car thinking I could go fishing for a couple of hours after the seminar. The weather forecast was grim so I reckoned apart from the odd surfer there would be nobody else on the beach and I could give it a go on a beach I had always itched to fish when out with the family but with no gear.

Got there a couple of hours after high tide just as the rain started coming down, munched a pastie, tackled up under the tailgate and stomped off down the beach. Tide was still high so couldn’t get round the headland to the spot I fancied. I was geared up with a bass rod, fixed spool with braid and a blue and silver viking herring on the business end. After a half hour of disconsolate cast and retrieve I was well soaked and definitely feeling even more gloomy. Stomped back along the beach and up the cliff path to see if I could get around the headland that way. 20 wet minutes on later I was really getting fed up as I followed the signs which led me well away from where I wanted to go.

Stomped back to the beach getting even wetter but the good news was the tide was low enough for me to get around the headland. Perambulated along the beach and settled on a promising looking spot and launched out the old lure,BANG!!!! Something has grabbed it and is whacking the rod tip down big time. After a couple of minutes I get a decent sized bass at the edge of the surf and the hook pulls out!!! Never fear I was so bloody fast I got there before it realised what the score was. Result !!! Cast out again nowt doing, Cast out again BANG!!! Same again, can’t believe it. Kept this up for an hour or so, absolutely saturated until they went off the feed. In all I had 8 bass 3 over 2lb and 5 1- 1.5 lb, the last 5 all going back. Also had hook pulls on two others. The biggest fish choked up lots of sand eels.

I guess the message is fishing is great because if you persevere because you will always get the special days like I had yesterday and also it puts things like not having a job into perspective – don’t tell the missus that though!![/size]

The down side is there are no photos – the weather was so appalling I left the camera in the car and just carried the bare essentials.