Calshot in the cold

How a flounder session in Southampton Water can spring some surprises…

Flounders on the feed in Hampshire.

With the temperature predicted to plummet like a stone in the early hours after a day of persistent rain, the 6am start and slippery drive across the New Forest the following morning was certainly doing its best to dampen my usual enthusiasm.

However, with the chance of tracking down some elusive Southampton Water flounders, I was up to the challenge, along with David and Callum Graham, from Bournemouth, who would be joining me for the sortie, during the first week in January.

As I poked my nose out of the back door just as David and Callum were arriving, I was greeted by a cold north-easterly blast; a double layer of thermals would definitely be required as I set about scraping a thick layer of ice from the car windscreen. A few minutes later we were heading across the forest towards Calshot, situated on the south-western side of Southampton Water.

Our intentions were to fish in front of the old power station, a rarely fished mark, but the channel leading up to the station’s old cooling system has produced some cracking fish over the years, especially during the summer when smoothhounds, mullet, silver eels, bass and soles show in reasonable numbers. On this occasion, though, we had our sights set on flounders.

Just before dawn, we pulled up at the car park midway along the beach hut section leading to the activity centre on the end of the spit, and were greeted with a bitterly-cold wind blowing down Southampton Water. Not daunted, we fed the car park’s meter and were soon trekking along the slippery path heading towards the old power station section, which takes around 15 minutes, arriving there with fingers like blocks of ice.