Bateman's Tower, Brightlingsea, Essex - 10/05/09

by blakdog Tue May 12, 2009 12:25 pm

A bit late with this report as I've been busy .... still better late than never.

I fished a late tide on the Tower on Saturday in beautifully calm weather, arriving at about 11pm clutching a pound of Ragworm and feeling fairly confident that there might be the chance of a few fish. I'd expected to have the place to myself but to my surprise found a couple of other anglers already there though luckily my favourite spot was still vacant and there was plenty of room for all.

The flood tide was a complete waste of time and no matter where I put the baits I couldn't even manage a bite from a tiddler though one of the other chaps did have a small Whiting. I was expecting to maybe hit a fish just as the tide slowed at the top of the tide but rather than slow the tide just seemed to stop dead, one second 5 or 6 knots the next it was slack water but that did at least give us a rest from the weed which was being a bit of a pain.

The Tower tends to turn up its better fish on the ebb so rather than get despondant I set at the fishing with renewed enthusiasm as the water started to push out of the river, its often the best part of the tide and I was hoping at least to get one fish to save me from a blank; by now I wasn't even that fussy about size I just wanted to avoid a blank.

An hour or so down, bang on the expected time, the first fish turned up and it was a good job I wasn't fussy as it was a little Bass only about 3 inches long. A couple of casts later without any more bites and losing the water fast I decided enough was enough and that it was time to call it quits but just as I was about to pack up the first rod a good heavy knock resulted in me adding a Schoolie of about 12 oz to my tally. The following two casts resulted in two more fish, the first should have gone 2lb but was a real "stretch" with no meat on it at all so back it went the same way as the last one of about 6 oz.

With the breakwater round the tower well and truly showing by now it was time to call it a night, not the best session ever but much better than a blank. The two other guys fishing (one of them, Rob, was on his first fishing session I think) only managed the one little Whiting but both seemed happy enough just to be out on a nice night and to be perfectly honest it was nice (even for an unsociable git like me) to have a bit of company for a change.

Big downer of the night was discovering that my wife had filled up the memory card on my camera and having it freeze on me as I attempted to delete a few frames so i could take a couple of pictures of the better fish but I did at least manage to clear it in time for the last fish.

Bateman's Tower, Brightlingsea, Essex - 10/05/09 101_0442