MY FISHING DIARY
ADVENTURES OF A JUNIOR SHORE ANGLER
Eight-year-old Tyneside angler Harley Thompson gives an account of his latest shore fishing trip…
After hearing reports of bass being caught along the Holderness and Lincolnshire beaches, my dad decided it was time to travel down to sample the action.
On arrival at Skegness, the weather was pleasant and, more importantly, the conditions were perfect for bass, with a decent surf rolling in and lots of colour in the water too. It was late afternoon and I was feeling extremely confident that a few fish would begin to feed as the light faded.
Itching to get a line in the water, I quickly set up my kit and aimed my pulley rig and crab bait into the surf, full of anticipation.
My target species were bass and smoothhounds, and a fresh peeler crab bait is definitely the best bait to use. Bass can also be caught using worm and fish baits, but I’d heard that the better stamp of fish were falling to crab baits. However, I did have some lug and ragworms as a back-up.
My first few casts produced nothing, not even a bite, but I knew when the tide started to flood, things would pick up. Like most venues, the tide makes all the dierence, and I was hopeful for some action as it crept up the beach.
As darkness fell, the tide started to run harder, and eventually my first bite registered dramatically on the rod tip. Even though I’d set my drag on the reel, the rod was ripped clean out of the tripod!
I immediately grabbed it and leaned back to feel a fish pulling hard. I pumped the rod and reeled slowly and eventually the fish emerged from the surf. It was a cracker, too, and a new personal-best bass for me, weighing 4lb exactly.
Over the next few hours I caught fish every cast, it was hectic. It didn’t matter where I cast, the fish were on the bait immediately. I lost count of how many smoothhounds I caught, with my biggest tipping the scales to 9lb. The bass were feeding in numbers too, and I managed to land eight.
The tide had now pushed us right to the back of the beach and the fish suddenly disappeared. Suddenly, my ratchet screamed o and sparked me into life. The reel was screaming and the mainline was disappearing from the spool at pace.
I held on, but this fish didn’t want to stop. After a short while, it slowed and I began to pump the rod, only gaining a little bit of line at a time.
The fish decided it wasn’t ready and started running again, but sadly resulted in it biting clean through my 80lb hook snood. I reckon it was a tope and I was absolutely devastated to miss out on that fish.
The session ended and I was shattered, the action was non-stop and I can’t wait for another visit to the beach at Skegness. ■