The First Day of Summer

The clocks have gone forward, the first day of summertime and it actually feels like summer. Should I go fishing ? It would be rude not to..

Left home at a ridiculous time of the morning to go to Torbay. Popped into the relatives to say hello, pick up some bait and I was ready to launch by 10.30.

Torbay looked great. I knew there wouldn’t be masses of fish around but had reliable information that herring were being caught. So I paddled out to Berry Head and started drifting with the sabikis.

My doubts were aroused by the fact there wasn’t a single shore angler on the head or the breakwater which didn’t suggest fish were there in numbers. I persevered with this for a fruitless hour then decided to drift back to the breakwater with bait on the bottom. Well there were plenty of fish there but every one of them was an undersized whiting.

The first one was welcome for the species hunt. By the 30th they were losing their appeal.

What to do ? I didn’t think I could keep a bait down long enough to find anything apart from whiting so I came into the harbour looking for some mini species. In a month this harbour will be black with small pollack, various wrasse , mackerel, pout, gobies, blennies – any number of fish. Today it was barren. ..

It looked great but it actaually took a great deal of effort to winkle out one Black Goby.

Not fantastic fishing but a fantastic day to be on the water. Two more species for this years species hunt and tomorrow I have plans for Huss.