Bass Fishing, Dungeness

Hit And Run

Dungeness, Kent TN29, UK

Amazing View From Dungeness

I'd been down to Dungeness last weekend for a night fish for Cod, Two hours to low water and two hours up, and had caught plenty of Whiting and a tiny Dab, and the reports that week were a little scarce with the odd Codling, maybe a bit too soon for them? But this week I had seen a lot of reports of Bass being caught. So again I couldn't help but ruin my nights sleep on my one and only day off and knock the hell out of my body clock, and returned the following week for a quick hit and run four hour fish in the middle of the night. I picked my father up at 8pm and we arrived at Dungeness at 10pm, to gale force winds and heavy rain! I thought to myself I've made a mistake here, and really felt guilty for bringing my Dad along, but as we arrived at the waters edge, the wind practically stopped, the rain stopped as the last clouds blew out to sea, revealing a large beautiful moon on the horizon and lots of stars. The sea was surprisingly calm and all of a sudden whilst we were setting up we found ourselves overheating, and had to remove several layers of clothes. Very strange! but I don't get much luck with the the weather when I get a chance to go fishing, but this was perfect!

What A Big Juicy Mess!!!

I decided to fish one rod, because the Whiting are so prolific they would keep me busy all night and although I don't begrudge catching them at all, I was going to fish big baits for big fish, and concentrate on watching one rod tip rather than missing bites on the other, because I'm too busy. I also believe that's why so many whiting get deep hooked in the throat. I was also fully aware that I could be either be catching Cod or Bass, with the only difference would be in the casting, short range 40m for Bass and long range 100m for Cod, but the Rigs and Bait I would be using would be the same, a single clipped down flapper rig. large squid and lug worm cocktails mounted on 3/0 pennal wrapped with bait elastic, mainly to stop the Whiting stripping the bait off the hook before it hit the sea bed.

Just Me And My Dad On Beach

Within seconds of me placing the rod on the rod rest I had my first bite, a positive rattle followed by a pull, I struck and reeled in, Yes, a Whiting lol, it was just about twice the size of the bait and I hadn't even hooked it, it was lassoed by the snod behind the gills. It carried on like that for the first two hours but I missed most the fish due to the large bait, but it died down enough for the bait to be in the the water for 5minutes without being attacked by Whiting, then a different bite a slow rattle followed by a even slower pull and the rod tip curled round almost lifting the rod I struck, Yes a bigger fish now, I didn't recognise the bite, but as soon as I saw a 16" Dogfish on the end of the hook I remembered, and It bought back the fond memory's of doing this fishing very early on in the year.

A Super Spikey Bar Of Silver

Over high water I had another Dogfish, and a few more larger Whiting, which were thinning out and becoming less of a problem, I had been alternating between long and short range between each cast, but it didn't seem to be any different where I put my bait. Then at range I had  a secession of small rattles on my rod tip, nothing out of the ordinary exactly like all the other Whiting bites, I struck, I pulled the lead out of the sand bottom, and then I knew I was in to a bigger fish. Dogfish? I thought, no it was kiting from left to right, Dogfish curl up into a dead weight ball. Cod? not really a thumping Cod bite, I suspected a Bass and was relieved and excited to see it was, my biggest this year, I know not a monster but a very welcome catch, I actually love Bass, as a fish and for dinner! which this one was just big enough to keep being 38cm long and weighing 1lb 9oz, with the legal size being 36cm for Bass, which catches a lot of people out, because its a lot larger than the Bass you will buy from the supermarket, These are farmed Bass and as such aren't subject to size laws.

Can't Beat Fresh Fish!!!

The weather held out for us, so we decided to fish on until we ran out of bait, We had been so lucky because we'd had seen some spectacular thunder storms that passed to the left and right of us, but we stayed dry all night and seemed to miss all the gale winds that were forecast. I only manged to catch a few more Whiting but the last one was 1lb 2oz, the biggest out of the few hundred I've caught from the beach this year. It made a good substitute for a second Bass, as It's always nice to have a fish for the Mrs too. So we had a Whiting and Bass fillet each for dinner, which I just finished eating, Yum Yum!!