Outfished!

Another trip out from Lepe and this time I was out-fished. It was another nice day so Tim and I set out for a deep water mark off Lepe which, on our last outing produced a variety of fish. We were hoping for some early cod but all was quiet apart from the tide that started ripping away and making life a little uncomfortable. So, we decided to move to shallow water and where the tide was less of a problem. I struggled getting my anchor and was saved by the weak link. Tim wasn't so lucky and had to sacrifice his anchor and cut himself free. Something to remember here, if it says no anchoring on the chart it is for good reason, cables were the reason on this instance.
We headed for the shallows around Beaulieu river and anchored shallow but allowed ourselves to drift over some deeper areas. I caught three tiny Bass, Tim on the other hand not only caught more but some were a lot bigger. I had to be content with some nice photos of a beautiful sunset.

Lucky Dip

Mick Chilling

Tim with his Bass

The sun shines on the righteous!

A beautiful evening.

End of day.

Blanked

The day started well, I was pretty well organised, the sea was calm, what could go wrong? Well apart from the weather, nothing went wrong. If you believe the weather forecast you can be easily fooled. Because the conditions were good I peddled out to the North East Gurnard buoy. I has been there before and I knew the water was pretty deep so I thought I'd try my luck for some of those early Cod or Whiting that people have been talking about. After I'd been there about an hour I noticed the wind was freshening and, since I hadn't so much as a bite I decided to move closer to the shore. Soon after upping anchor and moving towards the shore the sea and wind turned nasty and I was getting a lot of water coming over the side and front of the Kayak. It was an easterly wind and the tide against me, it was very hard work but eventually I made it back to Beaulieu river. Although I felt safer being closer to the shore the sea was still very rough and I was getting a frequent bucket load of water thrown at me. I tried fishing a while but didn't feel very comfortable so I called it a day and went ashore. There I sat for a while pondered the last few hours over a cup of tea, damn the weather forecast. No fish but a bloody good workout, my legs are gonna ache!
On a positive note the Eagle Cuda350 fishfinder/GPS was really good and proved that it can withstand the wet conditions. The Kayak stayed upright, the dry suit kept me dry and the the life jacket, well, I decided against testing that again.

Kari-tek loading

Kari-tek loaded

Eagle Cuda 350 (before the sea turned nasty)

Eagle Cuda 350 (before the sea turned nasty)