Monster Bass!

Last Tuesday (31st July) my dear son got his first real taste of fishing.  Bill had a week off, my Mum had agreed to look after Esme, and so we took a gamble that he'd have a good stomach and wouldn't be more interested in swimming than fishing.

Six months ago I would never entertained the idea of taking Alfie, in fact I remember saying I thought it wouldn't be until he was 5 or 6 until he was ready, but he's grown up so fast I felt pretty sure he'd be OK.  Maybe not enjoy it, but certainly not get bored.

We met Bill at Brightlingsea and it was actually handy to have another pair of hands to lug the gear about!  Yes, thats Alfie carrying Bills rod ... and Walla came too!

We were in the tender around high tide and knew that by the time we had the anchor down the sea would be going out.

 

I hate fishing high tide down, for some reason I never feel confident.  Truth be told I don't think either of us felt that confident but we were just glad to be out on the boat.  Alfie was too!

 

It was a slow start.  Ridiculously slow actually.  And so we decided to go in search of a 'new spot'.  We stumbled across a promising looking hole and so got the anchor down and the bait out immediately after.

It wasn't long before Bill had a rod bent double and a few minutes later the beast was netted.  

It was certainly a keeper, and I feared for my boat bass record!

I had good reason to worry, Bill had just upped the target a notch!

Alfie's reaction was hilarious.  He was very unsure of having a fish in the boat.  It certainly startled him at first.  He thought the killing of said fish was hilarious though and spent a lot of time going "Bang bang!" with a suitable whacking motion.

Bill continued to fish well, whilst I was struggling to get a bite!

By now Alfie was loving it, and could be regularly heard shouting "come on fish" and "BIG FISH!".  He even helped Bill with the unhooking!

It did have some joy though.  As I mentioned what a stinker I was having my rod tip bent double, and later I had a massive take immediately after I cast - I hadn't even had time to put the rod down!  Thankfully this also gave me a fish for dinner!

Bill wasn't done though, he bagged another belter closing in on 4lb!

 

 

And so with the skies turning on us

 

 

and a bucket full of fish

 

 we hoisted anchor and made for home.

Alfie had the most amazing time, and he keeps shouting "BIG FISH" and throwing his arms w.i.d.e when he seems one now! 

And it would appear he makes quite the lucky mascot for Bill!

Totally Addicted to Bass

I have loads of blog updates to work through as we have been mega busy recently - reorganising kids bedrooms, attempting to cage chickens, visiting friends, baking four thousand macarons and even a wedding has made everything a little crazy recently!

Because of this though, it was nice to chat to Bill last week and him casually drop into the conversation that the forecast for Saturday looked ideal for a fish (which basically means no wind) and did I fancy it?  After our recent crazy schedule, DID I EVER!

And so we made our way down to Maldon for the weekend and had a perfect time relaxing and catching up with friends with a fishing session in the middle.

Not only was the weather and wind predictions perfect for a fish, so was the tides!  We were up at 6am, had time to visit the tackle shop in Brightlingsea for some bait, and out on Reel Grumpy fishing before 10am ... and with high tide not until midday confidence was high.

The plan was to visit Bill's 'secret spot' for some bass action until slack water and then chug a bit deeper to try a few other spots and see what else we might find.  We had a bit of a wager going, with £3 on offer for the first fish of each species caught, £3 for the biggest of each species, and £5 for the most fish caught during the day.

Photos from the day are few and far between, but that's an indication of what a good days fishing we had.  The 'secret spot' produced well and it didn't take long for Bill to get into a dinner sized bass.  The action continued as high tide approached, just sadly for me most of it falling to Bill's rods.  That was until out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of my rod bounce and the sound of Bill squealing had me striking before I could enquire how serious a take it was.  Turned out it was a pretty fierce take, and feeling the fish dive as it got close to the boat gave me a good idea that this could be a nice sized fish.  A few seconds later the fish surfaced and I think we were both pretty shocked and excited to see the size of it roll on the water top.  With the fish safely netted and aboard it was time to break out the scales and the camera!  The scales tipped round to 3lb3oz - a personal best for me, and the biggest that Reel Grumpy has had aboard! 

 

The day continued well with Bill kicking my ass on the gambling front as he caught first and biggest Whiting and even a cheeky Eel!  I couldn't care less though, catching dinner absolutely made my day!

And so that night the beers were well and truly on me and it was my Bass on the barbie to feed everyone, just a good job it wasn't too much bigger or we'd need a bigger barbie!