Usually in my birthday month I don’t even look at the forecast and dream of the summer month later in the year. However, the blonde ray isn’t on my list below and there’s usually good reports of them this time of year, whether it’s a great catch of 40+ rays or a 40lb+ specimen! A while ago I was looking at the tide tables and noticed that the weekend of 18th and 19th of February had good small tides to get offshore and kept my fingers crossed for good weather to match. I was surprised to see such a good forecast and it lived up to it well!

Friday morning (i was on half term week) we were at the Overfalls just as the slack began to turn into the flood. We let out plenty of anchor rope to make sure we didn’t drag. Thought we were in for a good day when my dad, holding my new rod, said i had a fish on. A thornback of about 5lb was unhooked, photographed and put back so as i could get a bait back down.

After this we had a few doggies and then the tide really went through fast and not many bites came, one or two more dogfish, I think maybe in letting out extra anchor line we had gone too far back from bank for the best fishing? Are the fish all right up against the side of the bank or further back from it? As the tide slackened we had a few pout and a tiny conger.

At high water I pulled the anchor in (would of had no chance if the tide was flowing there!) and we headed in to our travel lodge for the night.

(report for the first day as that was when we did the most fishing 🙂 )