Date: 16-02-2018
Time of day: Evening - night
Location: Seaton
Mark: Left hand side of beach
Low Tide: 00:07(0.95m) 12:33(0.77m)
High Tide: 07:11(4.00m) 19:30(3.88m)
Time fished from: 17:40
Time fished to: 11:45
Weather: Overcast with a head-on wind, stronger than was forecast
Sea: Murky with waves of a couple of feet, rolling for 20 yards or so.
Method: Ledger (homemade pulley rig) | Ledger (homemade 2 hook flapper) | Ledger (running ledger)
Bait: Large frozen sandeel | frozen lugworm | half frozen mackerel
Caught (weight): Nothing | 1 Pouting (0lbs 4oz, Guessed), 1 Whiting (0lbs 2oz, Guessed) | Nothing
The Session: I arrived at around 5pm and met up with an angler I know from the World Sea Fishing forums, tatunkajoe/Paul, who was fishing with a couple of friends aswell. The session didn't go very well with so much tough weed around my first casts got caught up in it and between the weed and strong waves it was difficult to tell if I was getting any bites. Because of the head on wind my casts were probably only going 60 yards at the beginnning of the session which I felt was contributing the the gathering of weed which the tide and wind brought close in. On some casts the sandeel was coming back crushed and the lugworm was completely gone but I couldn't see anything I thought was a bite.
While having one of several chats with Paul I noticed one of my rod tips bend right over because more weed was dragging it down. This time it had caught around the line of both rods and I spent over half an hour with the help of Paul trying to salvage enough line to go back onto one reel which had been stripped quite low because of the tangle. While pulling in the last of the weed I noticed a pouting on the flapper rig hook, which had very little life in it due to being trapped in the weed for so long. I guess it was taking the bait as the weed caught the line and the weed caused it to become hooked.
Every two or three casts were ending up bringing weed in and becoming tangled and there was only one where I could tell a definite bite, which turned out to be a small whiting. A few casts later and my rod baited with half a mackerel tipped out of the sand spike as more weed pulled the line into my other rods and again I had a huge tangle to try and sort out. I ended up packing down that rod with many yards of tangled line around it and I carried it back to the car later to sort out at home.
As Paul and his friends left due to lack of bites and weed I decided to use up the last of a pack of sandeel and lugworm before packing up aswell. So after another 45 minutes, more crushed bait and bare hooks but no bites to see I packed up and contemplated giving fishing a break for a month or so, as many sea anglers do around this time of year. The fishing was disappointing, but it was great to meet up with more sea anglers and that made the trip worthwhile.
Tackle used (price) [ time since first used ]:
Set up 1:
Rod: Daiwa seahunter Z 13ft 2 piece MFS (£42.99) [ > 0 years 2 months ]
Reel: Daiwa Crosscast S 5000 Fixed spool (£48.99) [ > 2 years 11 months ]
Line: Maxima Chameleon 20lb (£17.99) 600m
Hooks: Sakuma Manta 2/0 (£5.78) 30
Shockleader: Gardner Slinky 60lb (£6.99) 100M
Hooklength: Sunset Amnesia 40lb (£4.50) 100m
Set up 2:
Rod: Daiwa Crosscast 13ft 3 piece Fixed Spool (£60.00) [ > 0 years 3 months ]
Reel: Shakespeare Agility Surf 70FD Fixed Spool (£39.99) [ > 3 years 9 months ]
Line: Maxima Hi-Viz 20lb (£15.42) 550m
Hooks: Sakuma Stinger 2 (£15.00) 100
Shockleader: Gardner Slinky 60lb (£6.99) 100M
Hooklength: Maxima Clear 15lb (£4.00) 100m
Set up 3:
Rod: Daiwa Seahunter X 14ft 3 piece Fixed spool (£64.07) [ > 3 years 9 months ]
Reel: Leeda Quicksilver Fixed Spool (£19.95) [ > 0 years 9 months ]
Line: Daiwa Sensor 50lb (£6.99) 230m
Hooks: Sakuma Circle Extra 6/0 (£7.29) 10
Hooklength: Gardner Slinky 100lb (£7.95) 100m
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