Well a week after our 'fish-in' and the sea has been calm and clear pretty much all week. On a walk along the south coast cliffs yesterday I could clearly see boulders under the water that must have been several metres down; the water looks super-clear!
I have some video footage that is currently on its way to Youtube...
Last Saturday’s fishing at L’eree was incredibly varied – the start in that choppy soup, with waves regularly coming over the snorkel! Then sitting in the tide at the right hand side of the bay, for a couple of hours until the causeway dried, creating a tranquil lagoon. Once the wind died off it was such a beautiful calm place to be and such a contrast to the start of the day.
Sunday’s swim was a good one at a classic venue with loads of tide flowing. I love the ‘knife’ and that Rousse headland is where I 99% of the time launch with my kayak. However with the kayak I always go straight out into the tide and then usually to the outer reefs. This time I wasn’t sure what to do, without the yak! So I entered the water with no real plan. After a bit of splashing around I decided to walk across the knife reef and got back in on the seaward side, then swam further out to the lee of the rocks that were starting to be exposed. I saw several floats already out there [I guess the Jersey guys were super keen? J] and it did seem like the right place to be.
It felt like it took ages for the tide to drop enough to escape the lee of the reefs and venture into the more seaward rocks, but eventually I could take some drops over the slightly deeper sand and gravel areas between the kelp and rocks. I had started shivering after just the first hour and knew I had a temperature and the lurgi on its way… I cant do a breathhold once cold, so I ended up in the shallows concentrating on being as quiet as possible. I did see a few shoals of mullet and a few times I saw bass. The first was at the max range of the gun [I took the wrong gun out!] The second was a glancing shot. The last, a ‘dead cert’ was when a big bass swam right in front of me at about a metre in front of the gun, then it just stopped there looking at me :0 “thank you Lord!” I thought, and took the shot – it hit the fish right on the gill plate and I could see the fish move sideways. It was a proper big fish; gave a shake of its head, and de-speared itself. Obviously I wasn’t going to see that one again L. I hate wounding fish.
My only plan for the day was to find a Pollack and see what else came along; I did manage to find a Pollack but usually there are bigger ones in the area. This one was not quite big enough. It seemed like a long swim back, and then a couple of minutes spent in the relatively warmer water inside the knife lagoon, just in case a flattie was daft enough to be out and about!
I think there was a general feeling of a lack of fish over the weekend and it was fairly quiet, but for me it was interesting because that is my ‘normal’! It would be great to go somewhere different next year and see what other people’s ‘normal’ is…
