Didn't get any more fishing done in middle part of August as we were in France for two weeks. Hadn't taken any fishing gear with me as the cost of a "permis de vacances" outweighed the few opportunites I would have to fish, plus I'd spectacularly blanked last time I tried.
We did kayak 20 km down the River Charente, which was crystal clear and full of lillies and streamer weed, me with cling film wrapped around a dressing on my leg. This the result of being chased and bitten by a loose dog whilst out cycling and the subsequent trip to A&E on just the second day of the holiday! We spotted loads of wildlife, including coypu, kingfishers, buzzards, a sparrow hawk, a grass snake, dragonflies and damselflies. However, there was little in the way of fish apart from small perch, roach and chub. Suspect from what I've seen of the fishing matches down at the local aire de loisirs (which appear to be more an excuse to drink beer and wine and have a BBQ) that, apart from carp and catfish, nothing really gets a chance to grow that big in that part of France as anything caught usually ends up in a bucket and gets taken home. After France we were back home for a week and then we were off down to see our friends in Exmouth. Unfortunately the town has been making local and national news lately, but for the wrong reasons - untreated sewage leaking from South West Water's failing sewerage infrastructure resulted in beach closures over the summer and repeated warnings not to swim in the sea.
Queues of tankers lining up to transfer sewage from the pumping station near the rugby club to the treatment works caused traffic misery and left an unpleasant odour hanging over the town centre. However, on the morning that my friend Simon and I headed down to the marina we found that the water was gin clear.
I'd not brought any bait with me and it was far too early for the tackle shop, so we had to pop into Tesco Express to see what was available and ended up coming away with a small packet of cooked prawns and some crab sticks! The latter I shredded into small sections and fished on the top hook of my scaled-down two hook flapper as a substitute for a strip of squid. Seemed to work as first cast it was nailed by a small pollack. Only trouble was keeping it on the hook for any length of time. However, leaving the pieces to dry out a bit in the weak, early morning sun seemed to prolong their longevity. Bits of prawn on the bottom hook soon attracted the resident tompots and it was a race between them and the pollack to see who would get to the bait first. Often a hooked fish would be followed up to the surface by their brethren and a last-minute snatch of the other bait would result in a double hook up. Took turns with the rod, dropping the rig down the side of the wall and between the boulders in an attempt to winkle out something different but apart from a lone ballan wrasse and despite spotting shoals of sand eels and possibly sand smelts it was tompots and pollack all the way.
After a couple of hours the tide was ebbing fast, bringing with it a dubious looking trail of brown scum from upstream and exposing the rocks, so we moved onto the slipway - normally a reliable spot for species such as shannies and long-spined scorpions.
However, after about fifteen minutes without a single bite and with the water starting to colour up we decided to pack it in and headed to Abi's for a coffee and a bacon bap - well bacon in a brioche bun complete with hash brown and an onion ring! What was interesting and noteworthy for future trips were the three anglers obviously swinging lures in the outgoing tide for the bass, although I hope they gave their waders a good rinse when they got home!
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