I haven't been out fishing for a while due to bad weather and ill health but I finally managed to get down to Neatishead staithe for a couple of hours today. The weather was overcast and not too cold (7 or 8C). A few fishermen were about but some were packing up as I arrived about 2pm. The staithe has been pretty popular over the winter months as evidenced by the chewed up grass where people have been parking. Really this should be fenced off again as it looks pretty untidy. I went to the right side of the water near the mouth. There were a few boats about again which is only inevitable.
I had a good time during those couple of hours. I hadn't bought any bait specially, relying on some old casters and some worms I had dug up. I started with the casters and it didn't take long before I had a reasonable roach. I decided to record how many fish I had and of what type. After a few roach I thought I would give the worms a go and they were much more fruitful. I had few brandling worms from the compost bin and some small earth worms. The best fish I caught was this one, on a brandling worm:-
This is a small bream. The disgorger is 13.8cm long so this fish is about 28cm or 11 inches long. It probably weighs close to a pound. In all I had 2 bream (one of which was probably a hybrid), 4 roach, 5 perch (nothing sizeable), 1 rudd and 3 ruffe. So not bad for a couple of hours bankside.
All pictures and text copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2022
