Catch Report - Burnham-On-Sea - 20th September 2019 (1)

Date From: 20/09/2019 18:30:00

Date To: 20/09/2019 22:15:00

Time of day: Evening

Location: Burnham-On-Sea

Mark: Lower Light

Low Tide:

Moon Phase:

Weather: Sunny with just a small occasional breeze from behind

Sunrise/Sunset:

Sea: Murky and flat

Method: Ledger (shop bought 2 hook flapper with rotten bottom) | Ledger (shop bought clipped down rig with rotten bottom)

Bait: Ragworm | frozen mackerel fillets

Caught:

The Session:

I fished this mark because it looked like it would provide some shelter from the South Easterly wind and I was right, it did.

When I arrived there were other people setting up their rods by their cars. I took my rods strapped to my tripod in a way that there was around a foot of my tripod with which to test the depth of the mud in front of me as I found a way to the shore. Once I was on the sand I saw two people already fishing and so I knew it was possible to get to the shore without too much bother and as I made my way down I discovered that this area had a lot less mud than it did on my previous visits. I soon saw a streak of sand which weaved around towards the shoreline and so I walked along this streak, knowing it was solid ground under my feet.

There are some poles sticking out of the mud here and this time they stuck out higher than before which explained why the mud was not very deep, it had been washed away. A large part of the ground around 40 yards back from the shoreline was just an inch of mud at most and some was sand.

So once I got boths rods set up I cast one out and it immediatey got washed down stream so fast I decided to reel in and recast upstream a bit but I also feared I hadn't brought heavy enough weights with me. I was using the yellow breakway lead weights. As I reeled in I saw I had caught some other line and it belonged to one of the anglers a hundred yards or more upstream. He hadn't realised he had let his weight travel so far. As he reeled in his bait he was kind enough to offer me the use of some of his heavier weights if mine still weren't holding the bottom once the flow of water had reversed. For now I cast short but was probably not even in a foot of water. There still might have been the chance of a flatfish though.

Eventually, as I tried further casts when I saw the flow slowing down, my weights held the bottom at around 40-50 yards out. I was srtill casting upstream a bit and they were managing to settle just to my left. While I waited for bites I took several photographs of the sunset hoping to get a shot for this blog post and for the mainpage banner.

Two hours passed with me recasting every so often and retrieveing baits that were mostly untouched, so I was not expecting any bites at the moment the tip of my rod with the ragworm on sprang back straight after being bent down due to the tow. It then bent a bit before springing straight again so I picked up the rod, tightened the line and felt movememnt on the end so I struck and immediately felt something begin pulling back quite hard. It began making off downstream and as I walked down with it I could feel it shaking it's head along with some big pulls. I guessed it to be a cod or bass and half expected it to shake the size 2 hook with all the movement it was making. After a couple more minutes I was able to make out that it was actually a Conger Eel, not huge but hopefully a start. I managed to pull it clear of the water and along to where my box was where I photographed it and unhooked it. I noticed that it was hooked with both hooks aswell so it had possibly managed to take both ragworm.

I didn't see anyone else catching and although I had some more bites I missed them and that ended up to be my only fish. I began keeping my eye on the tide as it was beginning to come in behind me, but it was a shallow dip and wouldn't be too much bother to wade through if I needed to. Other anglers began packing up from around 9pm I think and I was the last one to do so just after 10pm.

When I got back to my car after an easy walk back across the shallow mud some of the other anglers were still around and one told me he had a dogfish and small Conger Eel, so maybe the one I had at 6lb was the biggest caught of the evening.

Tackle used (price) [ time since first used ]: