Article first published in the Chichester Observer on the 22nd December 2009

Link to original article http://www.chichester.co.uk/sport/Lack-of-flounders-is-a.5932269.jp

Lack of Flounders!

APULDRAM

It has been an interesting and challenging year for Apuldram Fishing and Boating Club.

Members fish in boats outside Chichester Harbour, on Selsey beach and in the harbour around Dell Quay.

At various locations outside the harbour in fair weather, a variety of fish were caught including mackerel, smooth-hounds, dog fish, bass and bream. Preferred baits were squid, mackerel strips and rag worm.

Beach competitions were held at East Beach, Selsey, where bass and whiting were caught. The most successful times were during the evening on rising tides in October and November.

Throughout the year, excluding the times when the bass ban was in force, members caught good-sized specimen bass from 5lb to 6lb 8oz.

A few members landed some small silver eels but generally they were rare and difficult to locate. The biggest concern for the club was the total lack of flounders.

Various theories have been voiced for this scarcity, including seals in the harbour who have been seen catching the flounders, the temperature of the water and possibly nitrates that wash off fields into the sea.

A major success this year with some members has been the number of grey mullet landed from 3lb up to 7lb 8oz.

Techniques to catch them varied considerably but the favoured method involved light line and spinning rods.

For the second year, the club organised an evening master class at Dell Quay about mullet fishing, which proved very popular with a good number taking part.

Every year, the club link up with the Harbour Conservancy, usually in May, when an introduction to fishing event for young people is organised on the quay. This attracted 70 participants who really enjoyed an interesting occasion.

This event will take place again on May 29 next year.

The Christmas event was disappointing in terms of the number of fish caught, but it was very encouraging because three clubs took part – Apuldram, Trident and Barn Sea Angling Club.

After the event a record 27 participants gathered at the club hut at Dell Quay for coffee and mince pies. It was an enjoyable and sociable event!

Allan and Andy...West!

At our last Fishing Club Jumble Sale, I bought a book about the historic adventurer Sir Earnest Shackleton and his doomed voyage to the Antarctic which started in 1914 on the eve of the First World War. The book is called ‘Shackleton  South’. Hence the title above of this article. You will soon see why!! His ship was called the Endurance and sank after being crushed by thick ice. His men only just escaped after an epic voyage of 800 miles across the Southern ocean in a very small open boat with great hardships and challenges. I started reading the book in August and one day early in the month  Andy Wichtowski phoned me to ask if we could take his boat through the inner channels from Chichester to Langstone passed the Biness Islands and onto Portsmouth near Portchester to fish and look for some historic finds. Could I navigate and show him how to get there? It is a return journey of about 43 miles! As I had started the Shackleton book I could certainly see some similarities! I agreed to take him on the expedition but I hoped that we would not end up crushed by the ice!

The date was set for the 15th of August with his boat filled with a wide range of equipment including an inshore very old chart, mud patterns to wear on our feet, lots of food, rag worms and most importantly fishing rods. We hoped to make the trip using our knowledge of tides going out on one tide and coming back with the next flood tide although this meant coming back through half of Langstone and Chichester in the dark but we knew there would be a good moon that night.I warned Andy that when we walk over the mud in Portsmouth it would be very demanding and energy sapping especially if we also found something heavy to take home. We would also carry a knife, life jacket and pull a rough sledge on the mud.

I grew up on the shores of the northern edge of Portsmouth Harbour and had over the years explored the vast wastes of an area south of Portchester Castle, receiving acknowledgements from various bodies for helping people in trouble out there and have received a gold watch from the Lord Mayor of Portsmouth after one little incident!

However, the whole area is full of many historic treasures reflecting the position of England in years past and the importance of the Royal Navy and including the castle on the northern end.

We motored past Emsworth, under Hayling Island bridge, around the Biness Islands in Langstone Harbour and eventually under the Eastern Road Bridge which you drive over going into Portsmouth when you go down to Eastney or Fratton Park. The views, wildlife and huge open spaces were all magnificent. We eventually had to stop by the railway bridge that links Portsmouth to the mainland very near to Highbury College for the tide to go down a little because Andy’s boat could not fit under it. We dismantled the windscreen to allow us to do it quicker and we then had our lunch of Polish sausage etc which was really tasty as we waited.

After half an hour we were able to motor under all the remaining bridges with plenty of room to spare emerging out by the Blue lagoon outside swimming area, heading parallel to the M275 that runs straight into Portsmouth. On this section we found drifting a very nice round life belt which now is part of Andy’s safety equipment for his boat. We headed to what is left of Harry Pound’s ship scrap yard, under the M275 bridge and into the wide expanse of the huge harbour with Portchester Castle a mile over to our right (starboard).  The tide was still well up and too soon to land on the mud at some of the points marked on my old chart. We saw several more life belts  on the high tide mark well out of reach and here decided to fish opposite Tipner rifle range which at the time wasn’t being used! The fishing was quite good with bass up to one and a half pounds caught in a strong falling tide. We put them all back.

After a short time the tide was out far enough to beach the boat on the mud towards Gosport with an hour to go before low tide. This was ideal because we could easily reach the boat on foot as we had left our dinghy on the mooring at Dell Quay. It also would allow safe loading up of any historic finds. We could now see some of the remains of very old targets near us as the tide retreated and that were indicated on my old chart. Before we left the boat I tied some mud patterns on Andy’s boots, however they proved too cumbersome to walk with and they were removed. We both wore life jackets, a knife and then had a drink with a chocolate bar before deciding which route to take across quite hostile difficult walking conditions. We were about 20 meters from the boat when we found 4 cannon balls on the surface with about 60 millimetres of rust around them. This was an excellent start but the energy needed to walk in these conditions became very apparent to us especially carrying heavy objects back to the boat. I had converted a metal dust bin lid especially for this purpose with the handle removed and some rope attached which actually proved to be very successful. Andy had an old plastic crate which he pushed to help in a similar way. Soon we found some very interesting bottles, 2 clay pipes, 35 musket balls and other lead fired bullets dating back to approximately 1550 to 1650 as well as another 12 cannon balls of different weights. Then Andy shouted over to me that he had found a huge cannon ball which on inspection was a 65 pounder! At this point we were at least 120 meters from the boat with several channels to cross! I also found one too shortly after reaching Andy. When we looked carefully around us we saw the remains of yet another target with many more similar sized cannon balls on the mud. We agreed that we would try to move the two over to the boat even though it was a huge effort. This was a real challenge to us and one that any member of the bait digging group at Dell Quay would surely have a go at especially Mick because it was just like laying a mooring but in reverse!! Eventually we made it, but lifting them both up and into an already heavily laden boat proved hard especially as we dropped them several times into thick mud! The tide was now coming up and with only two hours of day light left we quickly had a drink and started our journey home. This was another adventure in itself with darkness from Hayling Island bridge, the moon clouded over totally, rough water in the southern reaches of Langstone and coming through Chichester Harbour with only a white light. It was past midnight now and we didn’t notice the Harbour Master out on patrol! We were very glad to find our mooring near Dell Quay where we left the boat until the morning to be sorted and released of its heavy burden!

It is obvious that a trip like this, although fun and interesting needs special planning and safety awareness and we recommend that anyone considering it or a similar trip really must talk to us initially. 

If the club wanted to meet and exchange everyone’s experiences of the fishing season I’m sure Andy and I would like to take part, perhaps in the club hut or at the pub?
Lets hope the weather really improves  in the next few months so that we can all have a successful end to the fishing season and take part in the remaining competitions.

Allan.