We deployed some ultra light outfits for the bream and both put out an uptider with a large sandeel and squid bait to pick up the rays at the same time.
Bites were pretty quick in coming from pout and dogfish on the bream rods and it didn't take the rays long to find the baits uptide either..... The first one - a half decent painted at 8lb!
The following cast yielded another while Dave found one too.
There was plenty of action on the light rods from dogs and pout but the bream just didn't appear to be there. A more aggressive take on the light rod signalled a better fish and after 5 minutes of playing something lively, a small conger eel around 5lb came to the boat.
Darkness came and so did another two painted rays, the dogfish seemed to go into overdrive and just wouldn't leave the baits alone.
Then a different bite, something was moving off with my tiny baits intended for bream. As I picked up the light rod and struck I got pulled back hard......oh dear....this could be fun. Yep an angry eel had picked up my bait and over the course of the next twenty minutes gave that rod the work out of it's life. Had it not been lip hooked, and caught in 20 ft of water I don't think we would ever have seen it...but it was, and we did see it....half a dozen times ! You can't stop an eel on this light gear but you can tire it out. Eventually it came to the surface for the last time and just lay there very calmly and completely knackered! It can only have been around 20lb at the most but I was impressed that a rod more at home to LRF fishing coped with the fish. I popped the hook out of his lip and off he went back down to the bottom to go and sulk for a bit!
No bream but plenty of life there at the moment and with the water temperature touching 10°C inshore those bream wont be long this year......
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