Littlehampton Cod hunt 22/1/23

[moonlighter]

Greetings All and a Happy New Year.

It's been a while since I posted as the fishing, though frequent and productive, has consisted of nothing worthy of note.

Unfortunately this Sunday's trip was the same.

My eldest son and an old friend of many years joined me for the day.

The tow down to LA took longer than normal due to the threat of the presence of black ice so we didn't get on the water until 8.15am instead of the planned 7.40am. Still with the tide flooding there were no time constraints to launching.

As we were prepping to launch plenty of charters and private boats headed down river to fish, which is always good to see.

My plan was to go to an area of light mixed ground ot the west of a small bank 4 miles out. The mark doesn't look overly fishy on the sounder but, as the sea bed is made up of a mix of sand, mud and flint/chalk lumps, it holds lots of food such as small crab species and shrimps/prawns. I've had plenty of success here in the past with catches of up to 8 cod in a tide so was hopeful.

On arrival there was a well known charter right on my numbers so i had to pop the anchor down to the south of him. 

With great anticipation we sent down 3 sets of downtide gear rigged with strong 5/0 pennel rigs to 80lb nylon and 2 uptiders similarly rigged, all baited with a mix of squid lug and cuttle.

After a quite first 20 minutes we started to get bites and a steady stream of small Witing, Dogs and Straps kept us busy. Disappointingly no Cod.

The tide turned and we decided to change 3 of the rods to size 1 hooks to 30lb nylon, baited with single lug or strips of squid, to see if some of the bites we were missing were from dabs (a possibility at this mark).

Suprisingly, those rigs attracted Witing to 2lb, a 7lb Thornback and a 20lb Conger, along with the usual Dogs whilst the big baits were only attracting rubbish fish.

I could understand that if the sea were gin clear but it was like milky coffee with zero visibility!

And that was it for the day with no Cod showing were headed back in at 3pm to ensure enough water would be over the bar.

So lesson learnt, mix rigs and baits to find what works on the day.

Until next time, wishing you all light winds, calm seeas and tight lines.

John

 

[Andy135]

Good write-up nonetheless John. Always good to get out, and a shame you didn't manage to find any cod. Got to be in it to win it though, so well done. 👍