Seal the deal

 My shoulder surgery was cancelled earlier in the week so myself and Jamie planned our second joint night manoeuvre of the year. The plan was to start at LT and fish the tide up to about 2pm then head home. The tides were pretty rubbish to be honest, the weather was OK but the wind was blowing so we went for an easy option hoping that the rain would stay off.

We started a little earlier than expected and straightaway a couple of seal appeared from the left and right, not a bad sign but these two were taking liberties. It seemed one would pop up in front of me just after I cast, also, just at the range I would expect the fish to be running. I started off on a metal lure, one of my Sea Trout favourites, it casts really well and has a nice action and helped me cover a fair bit of ground to the left and right of our whiskered friends. There was a decent amount of bait in the water with sandeels darting off as we waded into the water so we were optimistic there might be a fish or two about.

I hooked this little Bass and the seals were thankfully nowhere to be seen. I took a quick scale sample and popped it back. Jamie was keeping an eye on what was going on so he had a change of lure and got a couple of follows, but no hook ups.

A little while later when I hooked this fish and as I fully expected a head popped up and a bow wave appeared as the seal chased down its supper. I hooked the fish about 40 yards out so there was a better than fair chance the reels drag was just about to get a proper work out.

Anyway, I managed to beat the seal to it! If it had been a bigger fish odds on the seal would have been fed but after cranking the fish in for it’s own good it was released to run the gauntlet. Jamie sent me the pictures and it looks like the seal might have got closer than I thought. So lets hope its onwards and upwards through July and beyond for better numbers and bigger fish.

We switched over to our night tactics but despite a couple of knocks and the odd splash in the darkness there was not much to report.