4 days at the sea side

by **Settle Simon** » 27 Jun 2015, 13:03

4 Days in Seaton Carew 21-6-15 to 26-6-15

With one of my sons doing his work experience week from school at Fuji Films Diosynth at Billingham nr Middlesborough, the opportunity arose to do some fishing nearby while I waited to pick him up to bring him home. The nearest stretch of coast to here is Seaton Carew and Tees Mouth so I hatched a plan to try a variety of marks and techniques.

Day 1 (22-6-15– HT 8:00am conditions: light wind from north west/north Sea: relatively calm and clear water

I decided that this first day would be lure fishing so armed with a light spinning rod and a variety of lures, plugs, surface lures and light plastics, I headed off. First stop (after dropping my son off at 8:30am) was the North Gare. I arrived to find a number of mackerel fishermen on the end flinging lead missiles and hooks all over the place so I opted to try down the sides of the Gare, well away from these menaces. Gave it about an hour trying toby's, diving plugs, surface poppers and light plastics dropped down the sides, but nothing doing.

Next I headed to Ring of stones, but here I met two over friendly seals who seemed interested in what I was doing and stayed about 30 metres off shore, directly oposite where I was fishing. As I moved around the stones away from the North Gare they followed me ruining any chances that I had, so I decided to move on to the power station outflow.

At the powerstation, there was a lot of scum on the surface, but again although i tried a variety of lures, there was nothing doing, so I moved along the coast towards the river and went for a look arround a small area that is an island at high tide. Flicking the odd spinner or plug out at various locations, but nothing. About midday, it started to rain heavily so I called it a day and headed back to the car.

So: Day 1 - BLANK

DAY 2 (23-6-15) – HT 8:50ish conditions: westerly strongish at times Sea : bit of a swell and more colour.

I had decided today to try a light bass rod baited with either crab or sandeel on a long single hook pulley rig and also do a bit of spinning with my other rod.

I started out at approx 9:15am at ring of stones, so thet I had a little shelter from the chilly breeze. I stayed here fro about an hour and a half, with no luck and then the friendly seals arrived, so I headed up to the North Gare and fished the end. Although I tried a variety of distances and locations around the end, It was left to a last cast blank saving sea scorpion which took my crab and size 4/0 hook to save me from a blank.

NOT THE FISH I ACTUALLY CAUGHT, BUT ONE SIMILAR

So Day 2 – one fish Sea Scorpion approx approx 15cm

DAY 3 (24-6-15) - HT 9:30ish Conditions: westerly Sea: bit of a swell and coloured

Today I decided to put away the lighter rods and bring out the big guns (not literally!) I also popped to North East Tackle and got a pack of Rag to supplement my sandeel and crab.

My plan for today was to fish the beach on the Seaton side of the North Gare (north of the North Gare)
I arrived at my chosen spot, set up and cast out again using single hook pulley rigs, one with rag and the other with crab or sandeel. However, after about ¾ hour, it was evident that there was too much of a surf and too much weed so I took the easy option and went on to the North Gare (again!).

While I was here, a chap called Marty (or Martin) popped down for a chat about fishing, tactics, fishing marks, baits etc. he was a top bloke, and has doen a bit of fishing over on the west around Ulverstone in police fishing matches against Cumbria police (He used to work for Cleveland Police, but is now retired). He also pointed out some good marks along the beach which I decided I would try on my next outing.

After he went a couple of mackerel fishing Chavs came down armed with rods, feathers and of course a number of cans of beer. It then got a bit dangerous for half an hour of so while leads flew around and they proceeded to hurl feathers and weights out to sea, never to be seen again. Once they had run out of tackle (after about half an hour) off they went leaving me in peace to whats the gentle nodding of my rods in the swell.

I can't actually say that I had a bite, or even anything that I could mistake for a bite. However, I did catch a small rock, nicely hooked in a little hole in the rock, which went back to fight another day, and also a small edible crab. But that was it. Bait all used up by 2:30pm I headed off to pick up my son.

Day 4 – (26-6-15 had a day off on 25-6-15) HT 11:30ish Conditions - westerly very light wind sea nice swell and a bit of small surf

Today I was going to fish the beach in the marks that Marty had told me about. So first stop was North East Tackle to try to get some Rag – Disaster no rag in until later in the day!. Undeterred, I parked up and headed to my chosen spot with some crab, sandeel and razor clams that I had brought from home. I arrived at the spot at approx 10:00am

The spot I had chosen as towards the North Gare, near the sandunes and just before the piles of stones start (for those of you who know the area.) Again, I was using single hook pulleys with a rotation of the three baits. My hopes were fairly high despite the lack of the rag and there were a number of Terns diving into the surf just off shore, but within casting range. I say within casting range, which it was for my long rod with fixed spool, but for my rod with multiplier, I soon realized my deficiencies in casting with this, so opted for this rod to be my close in rod (very close in).

High tide arrived, and at about the same time so did Marty, having a walk along the beach. Again we chatted, then Marty noticed that I had not cast my multiplier rod out (I had just re baited it when he arrived) As we had been talking about casting, I was a little embarrassed to cast out, bit did and true to form managed a whopping 30-40m. I would like to thank Marty at this point for not bursting out laughing, but for what he did next. He told me to real in and put on a plain lead which I did. He then had a look at my reel and adjusted the setup of it, i.e. tightened things up etc. and gave me a demonstration in simple pendulum casting and then talked me through some casts. Within minutes, I had probably doubled the distance that I had been casting with, now, a simple pendulum style cast. The casting also took took much less effort as I was now using the rod for the power. If you do read this Marty, I would like to thank you very much for the advice and demonstrations regarding casting.

Anyway we stayed chatting for a while longer including a move about 50m up the beach when a big raft of weed appeared and where we saw a very bog fish jump within the surf. Then about 1:30 Marty left me to it. I had still not had a bite and this was to remain the case and it was another blank for me fish wise, but an excellent day for learning to fish.

I left about 2:30pm to go an pick up my son, but not before an incident which left me a bit shaken and angry.

I was starting to slowly pack up when a couple of dogs came sniffing around. They were well behaved and there owner was keeping an eye on them and they didn't do anything untoward. However they were soon joined by a quite nice looking boarder colley type dog that had come out of the dunes behind me and there was soon plenty of arse sniffing going on (I was not involved with this by the way) the colley then walked over to my coat and rod bag and started to have a piss. I ran towards the dog to shoo it away and it ran off. Almost immediately there came a bellowing from the dunes behind me and this brutish looking chav, all vest muscles and tattoos, together with his podgy friend in his track suit and baseball cap came piling out of the dunes, probably straight form their appearance on Jeremy Kyle,

yelling words of one syllable “hey C**t don't yous kick my dog you c**t!!” he shouted. I tried to explain that I was just shooing his dog away as it was urinating on my fishing tackle. “Don't speak to me all posh you c**t” he yelled and added (and I like to think here that I had helped to educate him a little because he did use a couple of words of two syllables!), “Don't yous kick my dog you F**king C**t, I will knock you into the sea you F**king B*****d!” By now he had his fists clenched and was in an aggressive stance. “I said again that “I had no intention of kicking your dog, I was just shooing it away and didn't get anywhere near it” "YOU KICK MY DOG AND I WILL BRAY YOU INTO THE WATER!” he yelled (back to one syllable words again) I next said something which could have been a bit stupid in hindsight “That would be a shame as I don't have my speedos with me”. Luckily this seemed to confuse him and he went back to going on about me not kicking his dog and stamping his feet as if he was about to charge after me.

Thankfully his dog had now run off down the beach to find new arses to sniff (although there were a couple of complete arses that he could have sniffed standing just front of me!) So the two thugs wandered off with the podgy one turning to me and speaking for the first time “You were luck you C**t!” and the other one occasionally turning round and shouting at me not to kick his dog..

I waited until they were out of sight, packed up and walked swiftly back to my car.

So to recap:

4 days fishing
1 fish caught
learnt how to cast (Thanks to Marty - Top Bloke)
and I am still alive!