Rough weather makes for hard fishing

With strong south westerly winds blowing it wasn't going to be easy fishing. So Friday I arrived at Yaverland looking for a Ray, was set up by 9pm. Bill was already there and had caught a small Turbot and Plaice during daylight. The sea was calm and the wind had dropped.
A flapper went out with rag on, scratching for some new species, hopefully a plaice, and the other rod a clip down with sandeel for the Rays. Darkness arrived and as usual the Pout, with double shots on a regular basis, a small school Bass and a slip Sole as well. About 11pm I get a classic Ray bite to the sandeel, a good pull then slack line, striking there was some weight there but didn't feel big and was starting to think it was a doggie, when through the surf came a small painted Ray of around 2lb. The rays were in, well at least I thought. By 3am I'd had no more and the pout had stopped feeding.

Saturday was comp night for the Wightfishing site, originally being held at colwell bay it had to be moved to Shanklin because of weed and rough sea.

We were set up ready for the start at 7.15pm, it was a species hunt so I had a 2 hook flapper on one rod with worm, the other a clip down with 1/0 and a slither of mackeral for a turbot. 20 minutes into the comp I was first in with my target, a small Turbot, as it was a species hunt and catch and release all fish counted.



A good start but things got worse with no bites after that, but darkness arrived and we thought it would pick up, wrong.

Finally just gone 11pm with an hour to go I had another bite and my 2nd species came in, and a 1st for the year, a silver eel.



Well the comp ended at midnight and the fishing had been awful, probably because the local boats had the bay netted, but I had won with 2 species. A couple of undersize Bass had come out and an in size Pout from the other anglers.