With the forecast looking great and with the boat fueled up and ready to go, I had high hopes for a decent session today.
@Saintly Fish and I slipped out of the marina just before sunrise and headed south, watching it rise above the horizon as we buzzed towards our mark at 25kts.
The mark in question was just north of the Spoils, a historic dumping ground south of the Nab Tower. Big thanks to @Scotch_Egg2012 for the numbers 👍
Arriving at slack water we dropped the hook and got our baits down. Within less than a minute we had bites... big bites. We'd anchored over a snake pit and they were hungry! We'd brought three rods each but barely had time to rig them all up, such was the frantic pace of bite, wind, unhook, rebait, bite, wind, unhook...
Neil did a good impression of Benny Hill, chasing his conger around the deck.
And so it went, conger after conger to mid-double figures.
After an hour or so the tide strengthened and the bites slowed, with only the occasional fish making an appearance.
That said, the weather and conditions were fantastic, and unseasonably warm for mid-Jan.
We sat out the worst of the tide and as it started to slackened again the bites returned, and this time something a bit different arrived. A thornback ray, which made a welcome change from conger.
And before long, another one arrived.
A PB thornback ray for me, just nudging into double figures.
After a few more congers, some whiting and pout the wind started to pick up, and as we were 12 miles out we decided to quit while the going was good. The return journey was uneventful but brief, hitting 26kts as we returned to the shelter of the Solent and Portsmouth Harbour approaches, where the sea state became glassy, a great way to finish the day.
Big thanks to Neil for plenty of banter and laughs. Good netting skills too 👍