Neil's Meccano And Stuff
Sea Fishing
About once a year I will go sea fishing with a couple of pals, Dave and Duncan. We don't get many chances to catch up with one another so these trips are more about chatting than about fishing - "We also fish". Dave is a seasoned angler but Duncan and I just do our best.
Here are Duncan and myself on 'The Cobb' which is a sea wall at Lyme Regis. You have to climb up a ladder about six feet high to get onto this wall. The wall forms part of the entrance to a little harbour and at high tide it is cut off from the mainland, surrounded by the sea - so once you are on there - you need to be ready to stay put as the tide rises.
These hardy souls were surfing - not quite Hawaii 5-0.
You never catch much at this venue in daylight but at night we have had some decent catches - more a case of a good many smaller fish than any monsters. We have caught Flounder, Mullet, Bream, Pouting, Whiting, Rockling, Garfish, Dogfish, Ray and eels at Lyme Regis.
The harbour is a pretty spot with plenty going on. These buildings are on the other side of the harbour entrance, on a longer, curving wall which is connected to the mainland. Fishing from this wall is less appealing.
I am infamous for my fishing inventions - The Bedford Crab Trap, The Bedford Self-Levelling Float, The Bedford Concrete Sinker, The Bedford Rod Rest ....
On this visit the temperature dropped to about 3 degrees and my bottle of water was in danger of getting too cold. A spare woolen sock from my bag allowed the invention of The Bedford Drink Warmer. This was one of my more successful efforts!
One of my closest pals, Duncan is here modelling the floatation suit - a wonderful piece of kit for the Winter fisherman - I have never been cold in one of these.
Looking like a 70's rock star is Dave, a very smart chap, great fisherman and good pal. Here he has one of many Pouting which were caught on lug worms, rag worms and squid.
We knew that it would be the highest tide we had ever fished at this spot (4.5 metres). At low tide it is quite a drop over the side of the wall. This shot was taken at about 45 minutes before high tide and shows that the water was rising relentlessly up the flight of steps that go down into the harbour. On the left is a pontoon which is a new feature and which almost came in very handy indeed...
The sea actually lapped over the top of the wall which we were standing on - but only just. This was my last photo of our predicament before we packed the majority of our kit ready for a quick exit. The landward end of the wall was no help as it was cut off from the mainland and our plan was to hop across to that pontoon for an hour while the tide turned. In the event we did not need to but it could not have been closer, counting the minutes to the 19:58 high tide.