The Bells Of Hythe Shore Angling Club (BSSAC) summer 24 hour rover was like the Race To Dakar of angling, a long comp set to test the anglers endurance and ability. Sadly, it was a once in a lifetime experience for us because now that we live in such a week, bureaucrat's world, I could not get the insurance to run another one, it turns out that you cant ask someone to fish for 24 hours solid and then drive straight to a weigh-in!
My friend Steve Buckle and I decided to fish at Abbotsburry, part of Chessil Beach at about 4 in the afternoon after drawing a blank at Lepe beach for the first three hours of the competition.
On entering the car park at Chessil we stopped dead in our tracks as the car park was full to overflowing! Stood at the pay booth I could see all of the anglers preparing there gear for the night ahead. Now I know you are going to get anglers fishing at Abbotsburry during the summer but I have been there many times before and never seen that amount of anglers in that car park, I even checked around to make sure that it wasn’t a comp on!
A few days prior to the 24 hour rover a friend of mine Pull Curtice told me about a spot called West Bexington that was a little further West down the coast so after checking that it was inside our club boarders we set off at pace.
I saw the sign for West Bexington……in my rear view mirror as I had already shot past it in my hurry so we decided to turn around in the next road, this turned out to be the best wrong turn that I have ever made, as we pulled into the car park of Burton Bradstock we both knew straight away that this would be where we spent the night!
The car park was empty! Not one car! And free to park with a straight forward 25 meter walk to the beach, perfect!
The surface material of the beach was made up of very small pebbles that you will find along the entire length of Chessil beach from start to finish, and as per usual we found it to be quite a steep drop off from the shore with a hard undercurrent and some quite impressive waves!
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I placed my gear onto the pebbles at the edge of the waves and paused for a moment watching all of the local mackerel anglers casting there traces into the sun and pulling them in loaded with Mackerel.
I stood on the shore and finished another cold can of diet coke while observing another group of locals gutting and preparing their fish for the pan.
As the men were gutting the fish and cutting the heads off I watched as they threw the fish waist back into the sea….. BINGO!
As a fresh water angler I have seen people ground baiting all my life but I had never even thought about it for sea fishing! I know that they chum for sharks and that you would need a lot of fish to chum an entire beach but these locals were doing it for us. I grabbed my bait bucket and made my way to the waters edge asking all the anglers if they had any spare Mackerel that I could have for fishing and soon I had filled my bucket!.
With the sun starting to set we started to chum, keeping the larger sections of fish for hook baits.
We knew we had to fish in close because that is where the fish heads and guts had been thrown, I opted for a fixed lead of 5 ozs and a six foot clear 20lb mono trace to two 4/0 VMC hooks mounted as a fixed pennel rig this would give me a solid fixed set up that would hook the Bass firmly.
It was an amazing feeling knowing that every day at dusk the crowds of tourists and locals would go back to there tents, caravans or houses leaving the beaches empty having left a slick of fresh Mackerel guts and heads a couple of yards out in the water as the ultimate source of free food for any large predators to pick up and we had traps set right in amongst it!
A can of Redbull was half drunk and re-fuelled to the top with Vodka in preparation for a very long night ahead, as I finished screwing the top on the Vodka I froze……… my rod tip had taken a tiny dip, then another…… by this time I had pushed my can of rocket fuel into the pebbles in preparation for a sprint to my rod. Bang! The tip went over and the reel let out some line with a jerk. I lifted into the rod gently remembering that it was only out a few yards and I was met by a thumping resistance straight away. The fish kited to the left and remained heavy and defiant. After another few short moments I was joined by Steve who had rushed over to offer his assistance in landing whatever it was that I had hooked. “Bass” Steve said “A good one too mate” I knew it was a Bass as soon as I picked up the rod, I just kept thinking how big?
The fish was long and lean, a real predator, it had a very dark back and a massive dorsal fin that stood up when I held the fish up. Steve loaded the fish into a bag and the hung it on our scales “5lb 6ozs” “Good one mate!”
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With the light rapidly fading over the Dorset coast we put on our headlights and set up for the nights entertainment. I had a feeling that we would catch Bass all night but Steve wasn’t convinced, he thought that that fish might have been a fluke and we would not get any more. I can see why he thought this, we had fished many times together in the past and picked up good fish early on in the session building our confidence for a massive haul only to be let down by smaller fish or no more fish at all so Steve never got his hopes up.
After I had repositioned my rod I added two or three more lumps of chum, now it was Steve’s turn for some action. We were discussing how it would be a good idea to just keep going all night with the same tactic, same bait and same positions to give this new ‘Big Fish’ method a fair trial when his left rod tip hit the deck. ‘Whurrrrrrr’ went his drag as the fish decided to make its way down the beach! “Jesus” shouted Steve, and that was it, he was off like a 22 stone white Linford Christie, his rods (like mine) were positioned about 20 yards down the beach so that with our chatter and the light from our head torches we didn’t disturb the fishing.
“This feels like another good one” Steve said and you could tell by the bend in his rod. “Don’t be afraid to give it some line if it wants to go mate” I said, trying to relax him into the fight.
I moved closer to the edge of the water keeping my headlight off and waited for the first glimpse of Steve’s Bass. He pulled the rod sideways and timed it perfectly with the waves and the Bass slid up past me on the beach. “Well done mate!”
Steve’s first Dorset Bass pulled the scales round to a very respectable 4lb 14ozs.
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So far so good, we had a great start to our new method of Bass fishing, one good Bass each and the night was still young. BANG!
Down went the tip of my Cono-flex Fusion rod as another huge bite came out of the blue! I grabbed the rod and started to wind. Steve was with me in a flash and the battle continued. “This feels like a better fish” I said as the line started to whistle with the small breeze that had come up. I pulled the line tight and swooped the rod towards the shore just as Steve had done in time with the waves and my next Bass made its way up the beach. After a quick measurement, the scales turned to 5lb 8ozs.
This was heaven Vodka Redbull, good friends and big Bass! What more could a man want!
The rods were re-positioned and a few more chunks of fresh Mackerel were added to the slick.
As my tip hit the deck again I was just into my stride when I noticed Steve running off to his rods, a double whammy! I lifted my rod and started to turn my reel handle when Steve let out a rather loud swear word!
“B******S!” “Lost it!” He shouted, I applied pressure to my rod and the fish responded with a Sharpe run along the beach, after a few more minutes the fish was mine! The silver colouring was reflected in the moonlight and it looked great! I could not wait to get this one on the scales!
“5lb 15ozs” Steve said, “5lb 15!!” I answered! 1oz off of 6lb damn it!
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As the night wore on we had another six or so Bass at around the 2-3lb mark and plenty of action on our other single hook rods but the best of the Bass had been caught already.
We sat and chatted about the competition that we were fishing and how with the Pout, Wrasse, Ray, Dogfish and Bass that I had caught I must have had 30lb+ of fish for the weigh-in. Even with a litre of Vodka Redbull between us, the tired stage of the night had kicked in so we decided to bed down.
I reached the way in 10 minutes before it closed and came a close second with my weight of 27lb 7ozs.
See you in the shop
Alan Shergold.
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