Catch Report - Portishead - 29th August 2021 (14)

Date From: 29/08/2021 11:50:31

Date To: 29/08/2021 18:55:35

Time of day: Morning - Evening

Location: Portishead

Mark: The Marina

Tide Times:

Moon Phase:

Weather: Cloudy but sunny with varying breeze.

Sunrise/Sunset:

Sea: Fairly murky, flat.

Method: LRF | Float | Ledger | Lure

Bait: Live King Ragworm pieces | Live King Ragworm, White Bread | White Bread, Live King Ragworm | Spinner baited with Ragworm

Caught:

Session and Lifetime Statistics:

The Session:

A friend and I decided to give the Marina in Portishead a try and I decided to take four rods to allow me to fish a few methods. I read up a bit on the fishing there but couldn't decide which method would be best so I took the four rods.

We parked on the Esplade because that was free parking and was closest to what I first thought was the only public toilets in the area. I have since found out there are some closer, but still not within a couple of minutes walking distance of the Marina. Upon reading more about the area it seemed that toilets weren't accounted for when the transformation of the docks was planned.

I had ordered some Ragworm from Reel Fun fishing so once we completed the 10 minute walk from the car park and put our tackle on the bench near the jetty I walked to the tackle shop while my friend set up his rod. He had brought two rods and wanted to focus on small lure fishing and dropshotting.

I found Reel Fun to be a well stocked shop and very friendly staff inside. I could have spent a lot more than I did but there was no point as the bait would have defrosted by this evening. I quickly decided I would use the shop without hesitation if I was around this area again.

Once I got back to the jetty another angler had set up where we were going to fish so we fished close by for a while, me first trying with my LRF rod for anything that would take a tiny piece of ragworm and my friend tried with his using artificial bait. I had a few bites but could not hook anything and after seeing some mullet around I set up my float rod to chance catching one. I know my float rod setup isn't the recommended setup for mullet but I wasn't there to seriously target them alone, I wanted to stand a chance of catching anything that might be around, so I stuck to my usual sea float fishing setup.

I had a Goby on the LRF rod after I put the float out and then we moved spots and I had another Goby but snagged my float rig on the bottom and lost the hooklength so I set up again and had something to eat and drink before trying with both rods again. One time when I lifted the LRF rod I saw a small bass floow it up and it turned away as the dropshot came out of the water. The fish did this a few times and I held the rod so the bait was suspended in the water a foot or so down and watched as the Bass stayed very near to the weight. I gently lowered the bait and raised it a gain and the fish followed it but it became clear it was more interested in the silvery weight than it was the Ragworm piece and after so long it got spooked and swam off.

In the third spot,. when I lifted the Ragworm piece I felt something try to take it and then it happened on the next attempt to so on the third one I dropped it to what felt like about midwater and held it there. This time it was taken by a fish and I lifted the rod to see the line shoot outwards as the fish swam directly away from the edge. The fish came up in the water and stopped swimming away when it was at the surface and I was able to reel it almost straight in and lift it out. It was a small, but very welcome Bass.

I left the float to drift along the very edge while I kept trying with the LRF rod, dropping it down for a few seconds and edging along bit by bit until I had a small Goby and then had another few over around an hour. I also had some bites that felt typical of Wrasse but I missed them all, with the bait being gone after every one. Eventually I managed to hook one, again right in front of the ladder and it turned out to be a Goldsinny Wrasse. I had a few more bites there straight after and I bumped off what I was sure was another Wrasse before the bites stopped and I soon decided to move spots again. My friend had also been walking up and down the edges of the Marina but without success using his tiny artificial lures.

In the next spot which was right in a corner, almost at the nearest point to the tackle shop I decided to bait up with bread a bit to see if it would attract any Mullet and a shoal of small ones soon came around and spent ages feeding on the bread. I tried lazily catching one by putting a tiny piece of bread on my LRF hook and holiding it at the surface but every time the fish took the bread without touching the hook. I soon gave up doing that and then changed the set up a light ledger to fish bread on the bottom and also tried a spinner baited with Ragworm without success so it was back to the float and LRF setups while I left the light ledger out for around 15 minutes each time before putting on more bread. I also left the float out baited with a whole Ragworm at around 6 feet deep. While I kept dropping the LRF bait down I could see both the float being pulled very slightly by the fish and the Ragworm being pushed around by the fish as they nibbled it. Nothing seemed big enough to take it whole though until I caught a glimpse of a bigger fish swim straight by and off in the opposite direction. I had a few Gobies on the LRF rod and my friend managed to hook a tiny goby on a Wedge lure. I also kept looking down in the water for more big Mullet while I also put out occasional squashed up balls of bread, providing the shoal that was still around with some more food from the bits which didn't sink, which in turn often caught the attention of people passing by.

Each time I could see most of the Ragworm had gone I just rebaited and dropped it down the edge again and concentrated on the LRF rod and I eventually had another Goby. Then bites almost stopped on that rod and I left it for a bit. I could see several bigger Mullet swimming around deeper than the shoal of smaller fish and other people were looking down being able to see them too. While checking the bread on the ledger I had a fairly big Velvet Swimming Crab and was waiting for some people to have a look before putting it back when I glanced at my float to see it was under the surface being pulled down and then let come back up a bit several times, so I grabbed the rod and lifted it into something a nice size. It was obviously a Mullet and I knew I had to let the fish swim around as it wanted until I could see where the hook was to guess my chances of landing it. It seemed like it was never going to stop and this was my first time being able to see what people meant when they said Mullet fight hard. There was a drop of several feet to the water so I needed to make sure the fish was still when I lifted the rod and reel in as much line as possible while lowering the rod tip as close to the water as possible before lifing it up in one smooth action. That part was successful and I was able to weigh and photograph it quickly and get it back where it swam straight down and disappeared. I was very pleased with this and it wasn't long after we decided to pack up because most of the shops were now shut and I didn't feel like I could resist needing the toilet for much longer. We had said we would fish into darkness if we were enjoying the day and I was but it didn;t seem worth walking all the way back to the toilets and then back to the Marina to set up again in the time we had left.

It wasn't as good a day as I had hoped, as I had heard some bigger Mullet, Bass and Pollock have been caught there but it was certainly an interesting place to fish. We didn't cover the entire Marina so there is some scope to try the rest on another visit, not that there are any areas that look like the features underwater might be anything different to the rest though, so maybe just picking a corner where I wouldn't be in the way of any boats, baiting up with fish and bread and waiting for the big fish to find me might be the approach worth taking if I went again.

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