St Helier Harbour 10th Aug 2006

Map Ref: 650,483
Tide: HW 8.00am (10.9m):
Weather Forecast: Sunny periods 18^oC. Wind NW 12mph with gusts to 22mph

Picked up Chris, and drove down into St Helier… by the time we'd parked the car and walked around, it was 5.30am and the harbour was already flooding….

We watched the advancing waters with interest, but the dawn light did not reveal the influx of mullet that we'd been hoping for… indeed we only saw a solitary fish swim by….

Still we set-up and started fishing around 5.50am or so…. Every cast we threw out groundbait, hoping that there would be mullet deeper than our ability to see into the water….

Paul arrived around 6.10am… dropped his gear off and returned having parked his car…

We all started to get bites and bobbing floats as a result of the plagues of 3 to 6” mullet and small fry that could clearly be seen mobbing our baits…. We all started to get those feelings of doom….. where were the big mullet..????

7.45am…. Chippy was looking rather down cast, and had put his rod down, and watched his float whilst sitting on one of the benches …. We were all mulling over the idea of moving elsewhere…. Then Chippy probably had the best bite of the morning with his float diving under the water… I only saw it coming back up…. But as he wasn't holding the rod at the time, he couldn't react fast enough and missed it!!!!!!!

8.05am…. Chris missed a potentially good bite whilst allowing his float to drift between two boats…. Another half chance missed!!!

8.45am…. I almost jumped with surprise…. A mullet of around 2 to 2.1/2lb or so sailed by my float…. I gave the others a shout, and suddenly everyone was just that little bit more focused…
Five minutes later Chippy saw the same fish or one similar to it….

The swarms of 3 to 4” mullet and small fry also seemed to be increasing around this time…..

By 9.15am I'd had enough…. And decided to pack away and watch the others for what little time remained to us…. And with typical predictability, no sooner had I done so, than four or five mullet of 2 to 3lb turned up, and were swimming around under Chippy's float and the general area…. They were chasing each other, and taking a slight interest in the ground bait, but not really going for the hook offerings….

By 9.30am the other two had had enough of the frustration and decided to pack-up as well…..

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