BRYANS ANGLE

After my whiting bash a couple of weeks ago i decided that i fancied another trip out sea fishing but somewhere different to my normal stomping grounds. A venue was chosen and a plan was hatched to take my Dad out for the day to fish Walton Pier as it was meant to be fishing relatively well for whiting, dabs, maybe the chance of a ray, possibly a dogfish or two and even the remotest chance of a 'sea unicorn'. That will do for us i thought and i set about thursday evening tieing lots of different rigs for me and 'old boy' to use. RIG PRODUCTION Friday dawned and as predicted by Metcheck the weather was sunny with a slight breeze, instead of the drizzly rainy days we had prior to this trip. Gear in the van, Dad collected and off we set to the North Essex coastline. Just over an hour and half later we were all set up three quarters of the way along Walton Pier, which i forgot to take any pictures of so here's one i took a few weeks earlier. WALTON PIER ...

A couple of weekends ago i had the urge to have a bash for the flounder that supposedly run up Benfleet Creek at this time of year. Parking up by the boat club creek on Two Tree Island i loaded myself up with all the necessaries and grabbed Oscars lead and off we set for the long walk to the spot that i wanted to try. Now when i,ve walked to this spot with just the dogs it doesn,t seem that far, but now that i had all my fishing gear, bait, food, water for me and also for Oscar it seemed that the spot was in fact the other end of Essex. I was bloody knackered by the time i got there a good 2.5 hours before high water and it took me a good 5 minutes recuperation before i could even think of setting up my stall. Boy do i need to loose some more weight and get fitter, especially as during the spring i want to take a walk from South Fambridge along the river to Creeksea. I don,t know how far this is but its got to be at least 5 miles along the top of the wall, not that far i know but bear ...

This past few weeks has seen me exploring local marks in the hope that i may find a couple of good ones for a quick fix of fishing over the coming year. I moved back to the Southend area 6 months ago and although i lived here for 6 years about 15 or so years ago it all seems a bit different. I,ve been checking out a few areas i used to fish all those years ago and its had me reminiscing of good times past. With all these thoughts of the fishing i,ve done in the past i decided that i wanted to fish the places that i used to when i was in my late 20,s. The first place i wanted to try was the platforms near the Westcliff Leisure Center as i used to have some good fishing from these casting towards the end of the groynes and towards the moored boats. Unfortunately they are no longer there which was a disappointment, but with my gear in the van it wasn,t too long before i was at my next destination, Old Leigh.... I set up in front of the seats at Bell Wharfe as i used to all those years...

Recently i have been drawn towards having a bash at catching some lovely Essex flounders like i used to many years ago. I actually havn,t caught, or fished for, flounder for a good 10 years now. In fact probably the last time i caught one would of been when i used to fish the platforms near Westcliff Leisure Center for anything that would take my bait. I used to love fishing tides that would be at their highest around 9pm, during the winter this was, and would use light gear and cast to the moored boats and end of the groins and would have great fun catching pouting, whiting, flounder, dabs, small bass and sometimes even rockling. My other half at the time thought i was mad as i would go out in all sorts of weather, i loved it that much. Anyway due to reminiscing about my past fishing exploits i decided that i needed to scratch this itch and early one morning last week saw me and Oscar The Wonder Dog walking along the pathway at the bottom of the sea defences at a mark on Canvey Isl...

A couple of weeks back i took my dogs for their usual long weekend walk along Benfleet Creek as a change to our local haunt of South Fambridge. I guess i should of checked my tide app as when we got there it was at dead low water so there basically wasn,t any water for Harry to have a swim. It was a shame as he does love the water, and sometimes i have a right job to get him out of it when we have to go. Unfortunately Oscar doesn,t like to swim, he can swim but just chooses not too. He,s happy just running around splatting in the mud and searching through the scrub grass. Anyway, as we were walking along the creek i was taking note of the gully left behind by the receded tide. In places it came within 10 yards of the bank where i was, and also in a couple of places the water was a foot or so deeper than the average. I know this as Harry was wading through the remaining water and i was keeping an eye on how far up his legs/belly the water was. Seeing all this mud and the dee...