I met Paul at Walton Pier at about midday for my first session on the place for years. I'm not a great fan of pier fishing, not least because of the tackle snags that seem to predominate around these places, but today the sun was shining, the wind was light and it really was rather nice to be out there on such a cracking summers day.
We started off fishing a few hours of the flood at the right hand side end of the pier. Some anglers on the other side of the pier had been catching small Whiting and Pouting all morning apparently and as we appeared they had just pulled out a Ballan Wrasse of about 1lb so we were hopeful that there would be at least some small stuff to keep us busy. After having both lost our first set of gear to a nasty snag about fifty yards out we set about trying to catch something but things seemed to be extremely slow and the only action we saw was when I reeled in a hooked crab that had taken my bait which was being closely followed by a Bass of what looked like 3-4lbs.
As high tide approached at about 4pm we decided to move down nearer the entrance to fish with Paul's father-in-law, a pier regular. At this spot the odd Schoolie had been coming out all day and over the next few hours Paul managed two undersized Schoolies, one on Ragworm and the other foul-hooked on Lugworm. Lady luck was still not with me and although I fished hard until 7pm I didn't even get another bite!
