Good to hear nobody else made the Ian slip!
Went in for a dive today. Swanage area. Steep walk-in/out.
Weather: clear, hard frost at home, warmer at the coast around 9am, fine once the wetsuit was on, water still pretty warm - in for 2 or 3 hours. Lot's of people sitting outside a pub when I left around 2.30pm - it felt like Summer. V. light breeze.
Water: flat as a mill pond, v. slight churn later.
Viz: 1m-5m, always milky ... surprisingly colourful flora in places though, nice.
Fish taken: 2x Bass, 47cm & 53cm
Fish seen: 4 other large bass. 3 travelling together, encountered twice (or 6 large bass) -- of which one was huge. A few small pollock. A shoal of small mullet from tiny up to big mackeral size.
Tides: Full moon today, a very long, (double) low tide in the middle of the day.
Encountered the first bass after swimming out for ~20 mins, as I slowly ascended a heavily weeded ramp. A shoal of bait fish swam above & in front of me in shallow water at the top of the ramp (in, perhaps, only 3 feet of water). The bass was in pursuit. I saw it emerge, it saw me, "hip shot". Hit just behind the gill plate low & up through the spine & out the back of the body.
Later swam to the edge of a gap about the size of a small freezer between rocks & weeds and paused briefly before entering. 3 v. large bass swam towards me & stopped in the gap about 2-3 feet in front of my barrel, I focused on the huge one in the middle. At such close range, in such a confined space, you'd think it would be impossible to miss with a huge fish right in front of the barrel & 2 either side of it. But as soon as it saw me, it stopped and I knew what would happen. As soon as I pulled the trigger they were all gone. It was probably in just 3-5 feet of water & only 10 feet from the rocky shore.
Swam a little further, another large size bass swam towards me in a large but shallow, weedy clearing among the rocks. We looked at each other, I knew the score, I fired, the spear went where it was aimed but the fish just vanished.
Swam out of the rocks, into the open but paused to let my eyes adjust. I could just make out an underwater pinnacle at the limits of visiblity. I thought I'd wait a few seconds here and within maybe 20 secs, 3 bass (looked like the same ones as before - the size of biggest bass reminded me of large salmon) swam into the deep, clear area between me and the pinnacle. It was a long shot but I took time to aim at which point they saw me, by the time the spear reached them they were gone. The water here was deep but the fish were only about 4 -8 feet below the surface.
Decided to call it a day and swam in. Paused to pull my float & then noticed an odd "electric blue" flash about 10 or 12" long in some weeds. At first, I thought I imagined it at but discounted that thought. Then, assumed it was just the back of some weed - but the weed was very brown all over. Decided to take a closer look. As I passed over the weed a big silver shape faced me, just floating mid-water-- another big bass looking at me. I figured we'd do the same thing as usual but I was careful to wait until the gun was full on the head this time, rather than the body. I hit it right in the head in the gill plate & out just under the other eye. Again, the depth of water was only maybe 4-6 feet.
I found watching the bait fish helpful. They'd usually swim by and then come back & hang around (perhaps they thought I offered some protection from predators, or were just checking things out). However, each time they did not turn back, I found a bass almost immediately afterwards swimming behind them ... they were being pursued.
Anglers: the bait fish were like small shiney blue minnows, a little fatter & shorter than sandeels. All the fish seen were easily within casting distance from the shore if you are a good rock hopper. I tried a few casts with a 13cm blue, jointed Conrad lure with 2 big treble hooks but it snagged weed too easily; something less snag prone would have been better (popper/Edison eel/gel/small minnow lure?).
(Tomorrow looks promising too)
in the larder today! 
