St Helier Harbour 9th Aug 2006

Map Ref: 650,483
Tide: HW 7.15am (10.3m):
Weather Forecast: Overcast 20^oC. Wind NW 7mph with gusts to 19mph

What a difference a day or a tide makes…..

Collected Chris around 4.30am, and by the time we'd parked the car and walked around to the harbour it was almost 5am…. The water had already covered the mud and was slowly rising, but we could still clearly see the bottom, even in the half light provided by the overhead lamps….

As was tackled up, we saw one, possibly two reasonable sized fish glide by in the gloom… and so by 5.15am when we started fishing our spirits were high….

However it soon became apparent that we were going to have problems… the biggest of which were the shear number of 6 to 8” mullet that were mobbing our baits as soon as they hit the water…. The result was an almost constant bobbing, or tap, tap, tap of the floats (by about 1 or 2 mm) as the little rogues nibbled away at the bread flake, to leave the point and bard completely exposed, with just a small lump of bread above on the shank / eye of the hook… VERY, VERY FRUSTRAITING …
Whilst the activities of smaller fish can provoke a stronger response from their older brethren to compete for food offerings, this was more a case of not even being able to see the hook bait for the shear number of fry!!!!!

6.10 am … I had a super lifting bite, but failed to connect … Chris suggested it could just be the juveniles going for the shot weights… we'll never know!!!!

6.20am… the dawn light was just around that point to allow me to use my Polaroid glasses to get a better contrast, between the water and the float …. Sods law, just as I'm playing with the glasses to decide if it was right… down went the float, and even though I was holding the rod in my other hand, I reacted too slowly, and struck into nothing!!!!

After that we just had hundreds of 8” mullet plaguing the bait hooks to frustration with not a sniff of any larger fish….
Even when the light improved and the water level dropped, and I spooned out groundbait all along the wall, there was nothing but the bait robbers to be seen….

By 8.15am we called time, and decided we would return that evening to see if the later tide brought use better fortunes….

HW 7.33pm (10.9m) Increased Sunshine 20^oC Wind NW 10mph Gusts to 21mph

With things not having gone to plan in the morning, and with Chris subsequently crying off, it was left to me to return that afternoon…

I'd talked to Eddie in JFS.Sport the previous day, and he'd seemed somewhat surprised by my account of how I'd been able to switch the fish on to the feed on the previous Friday, but was obviously pleased about the subsequent result that Paul and I had managed… his main comments had been that a couple of good fish had been taken from the harbour over the past month or more, but that they had a general reputation (and justified in his opinion) for being very hard to switch on …

With this in mind, coupled with the mornings events, I decided to go back to the harbour and do some more recon…. Plus do some fishing as well….

When I arrived around 4.30pm, the harbour was comparatively dry….

It afforded me the opportunity to look very carefully over the mud …. I couldn't see any fresh lip-marks, and the few I found were old, and diffuse…

By 4.45pm, the harbour was halfway flooded….

And so I unpacked, and strung up my rod, and waited…

And by 5.00pm, the whole harbour basin was under water….

As the water advanced I could see the splashes and whelms made by mullet as they moved with the advancing tide….

Soon small mullet of around a pound to a pound and a half were arriving in two's and three's … chasing each other, and going in circles around the boats….

I threw out spoons of groundbait … but they just didn't want to know …. Playing mullet games was all that seemed to be on their minds….

Over the next half an hour more and more mullet were to be seen, and their sizes gradually increased, to around 3 to 4lb I'd guess, and I decided to try and start fishing….

Try would seem to be the operative word, as whilst the fish were there, none seemed to want to take the slightest interest in my offerings, either as free feed or on the hook…

6.05pm… to my right I could see a gathering of mullet about forty foot away… I put my rod against the railings not bothering to reel in for fear of disturbing them (and perhaps an element of laziness on my part)and grabbed a handful of bread… I thought I'd try and see if I could get any to take some crumbed bread, and if so, I'd move over with the fishing tackle.. but first I needed them so start eating or at least mouthing the bread….

Sods Law --- I'm trying to get these mullet to feed, when suddenly there is a clattering to my left.. my rod is being dragged down the railings as a mullet has taken my hook… by the time I grab the rod, the fish is on the surface (a good 3lb plus) and shakes the hook free …. Aaaarrrrrrhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

6.35pm… my float shoots under the water…. I strike and hit home…. It's a small fish, but a fish none the less… it went a bit bonkers, diving this way and that, but I soon had the measure of it, and was unhooking all 10 inches of it… much to the delight of a watching couple…. Took a pic and popped it back….

After this I saw nothing more of the larger mullet, indeed I saw very little surface activity at all, even the small 4” fish seemed to go deeper out of sight, only betraying themselves by the bob, bob, bob of my float or chasing the bait on the retrieve….

6.49pm…. another small mullet…. This time 9”….

6.53pm…. yet another 9” wonder… where were the larger fish!!!!!

After this, all I had was the torment of the 4 to 6” brigade.. with bobbing float and missed bites by the bucket load… but no real evidence (or indeed confidence) that there were any significantly larger fish about…..

8.00pm….. hit home only to pull up probably the hardest fighter of the night… 7.1/2” mullet …..

....decided to call it quits as I needed to get back to base and get ready for yet another try at dawn…. Would those big mullet come and play, and more importantly would they feed??? ….. I was starting to understand what Eddie had been talking about…….

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