You know the score, it got to about 9pm, I’m sat at the computer bored, trawling the fishing sites and I got the overwhelming urge to get out of the house and go fishing….quick check of the tidetable, a text to TerryG & Paul and we’re on the road to Blackpool at 10pm on a smoothound hunt armed with frozen peelers & softies we headed on down the low water at Anchorsholme.

Low wasn’t ’til 1.22am so we were following the tide out, wading out 50yds into the tide until waist deep in total darkness and launching our whipped crab out 4/0 sakumas on a rig GazzaD showed us at Silecroft, a fancier version of a pulley rig, he called it a Bolt/drop rig

We weren’t expecting much action until the start of the flood but Paul proved us wrong with the very first cast

Terry Pulled in a small starry…

Then a short while later, so did I……my first smoothie from the shore……

Just before low a slackliner bite and a better scrap resulted in a decent common for me

Another crab bait whipped on and a long slog through the surf to cast towards the horizon ……

Then dead on Low water after wading out what felt like 100yds and launching my crab, then emptying my spool on the walk back to the tripod

Another first for me from the shore! A small thornback ray

Tez brought another hound to shore about the same time…….

The flood started in earnest and with an eye on a fast filling gulley behind us we didn’t have too long to add to our tally, just before we were pushed off the beach another slackline bite resulted in this….

For a last minute spur of the moment trip, we had to be pretty satisfied with the results as we trudged wearily off the beach at 3am. We missed a fair few bites and had fish fighting all the way to the shore before they shook the hook, the tally could have been much higher

As a footnote, fishing the Fylde coast at low water can be treacherous at the best of times, never mind at night. There are fast filling gulleys which you have to cross to get to the low water mark and we wouldn’t recommend anyone fishing low water unless they are experienced of the area or with someone who does