BRYANS ANGLE

Recently there has been reports of a lot of smoothound being caught from the Thames shores, especially locally to me at Southend on Sea and Canvey Island. This news gained my interest as i used to love catching smoothounds on the monthly boat fishing trips to Hayling Island that i used to take with the guys from a local boat fishing club i was a member of. The power and speed of this members of the shark family was awesome from the boat so catching one from the shore would be fantastic. After doing my homework i opted to fish the closer of the recommended venues, Southend on Sea. I used to fish of the platforms near the casino many years ago and enjoyed some good sport catching winter species and flatfish as Spring arrived, but i,ve not fished the opposite side of the pier before let alone during the summer. I decided to choose a night time time, 1.30am to be precise, as i didn't really fancy being surrounded by the daytrip brigade. I arrived just as it was getting dark and wal...

So a couple of weeks back i had some time of work to do some more work on the house but decided that i needed to have a little dabble for some bass on my local River Crouch as rumours were they had been showing in good numbers. So armed with a couple score of ragworm and a pack of squid i made the long walk to a mark i,d fancied fishing for quite a while now. On the way to my chosen spot i stopped at a nice creek which i have seen fish topping in before when i have been waking the dogs along there. Out went a 2 hook flapper to see if there was anything lower down as well as another rod fishing a ragworm 3ft or so below a float. I've been wanting to try catching a bass by float fishing for a while but just hadn,t gotten around to it. I only gave the area an hour, as i wanted to get to my main spot, but didn't have so much as a tip dip.  Another 1.5 mile walk and i was at my chosen mark, a point in the river where it bends, and also alongside a nice inlet/outlet for a wild...

Just a couple of videos from Norfolk.

On Monday eve i decided i fancied having a fish for bass at a local mark only a couple of miles from where i live. Unfortunately the water was going to be at its lowest point but i thought i,d give it a go anyway as it had been a nice day and how better to end it than sitting on the rocks overlooking the river as the sun went down. With some nice ragworm picked up from Trev the baitman, short notice but he still helped me out, of i set with one rod, bucket and tackle vest. Oh, and Oscar in tow.  After a 10 minute walk i stopped at the area that i wanted to fish and set up a single hook rig with a light lead and chucked it out as far as possible. Baited with ragworm the idea was that the lead would roll along with the flow and settle either in a dip in the river bed or on a patch of rough ground. Both areas that are likely to attract fish at some point. Over the few hours i was there i fished long, mid and short ranges but only had a few rattles which didn,t result in any fish o...

Last week Sharon and myself took the dogs for a walk along another estuary river close to where we live. The weather was sunny with a nice wind which kept you cool as the temperature started to go up. The tide was just starting to come in as we reached the top of the sea wall which meant I could see where the deeper water was. We walked for about a mile until we came to a sharp bend in the sea wall and where the deeper water looked to be closer in. As i walked round a bush saying to myself how this area looked ideal for a spot of fishing in front of me were 2 old boys waiting for the tide to come in some more. After a good chat with them some good local information was given and greatly received. Apparently this is a good area for bass, with some good size fish being caught too, as well as mullet. Throw in some flatties and eels and alls good. Well that made my mind up to give it a go here in the next couple of weeks when the tides right, as not only is it barely fished, its also p...